I don’t like the idea that pro athletes in some sports are required to attend college for a certain number of years to compete in a professional sports league. I started thinking about this recently because the McDonald’s All American game is coming up soon, and there is lots of controversy over agents recruiting high school kids even though they have to go to college for a year before entering the NBA. The requirement that pro athletes attend college before participating in a professional sport is silly and paternalistic.

The argument generally made in favor of this requirement is pro sports leagues have to protect the pro athletes from themselves in case their sports career doesn’t pan out. I don’t buy it. First, these “kids” are 18 when they graduate high school (or will be soon). Hence, they are adults, and they deserve respect, so we should treat them like adults. If they want to bet it all on a sports career: so be it. That’s no different from a high-school graduate trying to become an entrepreneur: we don’t require a college education before starting a business, even though starting a business is inherently riskier than playing in the NBA for a year because if you fail, you’re generally going to be in big-time debt.

The President of my Alma Mater, Gene Nichol, resigned recently after a short two years or so at the helm of William and Mary.  Over his presidency, he was involved in a number of different controversial events, the most notable being the “Wren Cross Controversy.”

I do not intend to discuss whether or not he made good decisions.  I just want to point out the obvious reason he got fired and why small schools should be worried.  Gene Nichol was fired because major donors threatened to withdraw donations from a school that is not very wealthy.  Small schools should be worried because they typically only have a small group of large donors and generally have a greater need for each of these donors to keep contributing, so each of these donors have a huge amount of power over the small schools.

William and Mary would be gravely injured if a multi-million dollar donor stopped donating.  The College had a choice - do what the donors wanted or lose a ton of money.  Whether or not Nichol was the right man for the job is irrelevant.  It’s whether Nichol was someone with whom the donors were willing to put up with.

It’s interesting how law school can suck you in.  I think I’ve posted twice on this blog since the fall semester began, and ironically I’m posting now just before finals.  I told myself that I would maintain balance in my life during school and keep posting on gimme-five to allow myself to breathe.  Well, I’ve kept some balance but gimme-five has not received much attention.

Law School is very, very different from undergrad.  For one, there’s a CURVE.  The average grade for every class must be a B-.  Thus, you can look at things in two ways.  One: you are graded based on how well you do relative to everyone else.  This is the optimist or autonomy view.  Two: you are graded based on how well everyone else does compared to you.  This is the view of the out-of-control pessimist.  I need to stop thinking like the second.

But regardless of how you look at things, the competition is real.  Someone has already stolen a required book that my section needed during the semester for our legal writing class.  That was pretty lame.

My torts class at GMU Law does not allow laptops in the classroom.  The reason is because my professor and others claim laptops are not conducive to active thinking.  I agree.

Laptops tend to make individuals want to transcribe a lecture.  When I write my notes, I struggle to capture as much information as I can on paper, but sometimes I just can’t get it all so I have to think about what is important.  When I’m able to type on my computer, I don’t need to think about what’s important, necessarily, I can always capture it all and think about “what is important” later on.  In addition, it’s very, very easy to end up surfing the internet instead of listening if there is a boring topic going on in class.

I don’t know if I’m going to take notes by hand in all of my classes this semester, but I’m kind of glad that I’m going to be forced to try it in at least one class.

For those of you who keep up with gimme-five, you know that I am in the process of working on an independent study in the Economics department of William and Mary.  The study is on the economics of transportation, with particular focus on the environment.  Although the last article (about ethanol) was part of my independent study, I thought I would give an explicit update.

I am planning on creating a policy proposal to address a three-pronged problem associated with transportation.  The three pronged problem is:

1. We are running out of liquid fuels
2. Congestion is becoming worse in and around major cities
3. Our current system of transportation is not environmentally friendly.

Of course, there are many sub-problems associated with the three points mentioned above, however, I will try to focus on the three broad issues.  Of course, this idea is not set in stone yet and is dependent upon what my professor and I decide is an appropriate plan.

There have been a number of different policies proposed or enacted to address one, two, or all of these problems.  These include: