Texas Tech booster Cody Campbell addresses ‘cake’ element of his NCAA mission
For the past eight months, Texas Tech booster Cody Campbell has been accused by fans, coaches and now an increasing number of irritated college athletic officials of “trying to have his cake and eat it, too.”
Sprinkled about this sentiment are an array of four-letter words.
The football field at Texas Tech’s AT&T Jones Stadium is named after Cody Campbell, as he has donated to Tech, and led its efforts to become a top college football team through the transfer portal, and NIL dollars.
Meanwhile, he personally funded an expensive ad campaign last year by starting the nonprofit SaveCollegeSports, to lobby the White House and legislators to restructure college sports. He is a key figure currently working on legislation to potentially bring rigid guidelines and enforcement to NCAA athletics.
In the process, he has made himself a target the size of west Texas.
With Texas Tech keeping quarterback Brendan Sorsby on the team the only place Campbell and the Red Raiders have any safe harbor is 2500 Broadway St., Lubbock, Texas, 79409 — the Texas Tech athletic department offices.
Cody Campbell addresses the ‘cake’ question
This week in a phone interview, I asked Campbell, “Are you an example of a person having his cake and eating it, too?’”
His response: “No. I don’t agree with that and here’s why. I don’t think the current situation [with NCAA athletics] is good. I don’t like it. It’s messed up. But we are all playing under the same set of rules, which is basically no rules.
“I can simultaneously not like what is going on with college sports, and try to help my school to compete at the same time.
“What should we do? We don’t like what’s going on. No one does. Are we supposed to just forfeit every game, and not try to win? I am trying to help my school be successful, and to help college sports navigate this chaos. I am trying to fix this problem so it stops.
“If I was really diabolical, I’d want the chaos to continue, because it is benefiting Texas Tech.
“What I want is the same set of rules for everybody, and we all compete from an even playing field. That’s the basis we want to win on. We don’t want win because we are buying players. We want to win because we outwork people, and we were tougher than they were. That’s what I want.
“I want for kids to have an opportunity to be able to play college sports to make their lives better. That’s what playing college football did for me, and I want everybody to have that chance.”
Believe him. Don’t believe him.
He’s not going anywhere, and neither is Texas Tech.
Cody Campbell and Texas Tech’s image problem
By supporting Sorsby, the Red Raiders’ leadership alienated not just those outside their community, but in it.
Red Raiders fan Al Garcia wrote in an email to me, “Shame on Texas Tech if they did not conduct a thorough investigation into Sorsby and shame on them if they did and dismissed the gambling history. “Once the story came out about Sorsby’s gambling, Tech should have parted ways with him. By doing so, Tech would show that integrity matters more than national championship aspirations. “I can only imagine the signs fans will bring to the stadium when the Red Raiders play away games and maybe some at home games, as well. “This is such a disgrace and a major blemish on the university that I really can’t see a way out for them....unless the school president fires the athletic director and Sorsby is given another $5 million to just go away.”
His opinion about this is not the majority within Red Raider land, but it’s a bigger minority than Tech officials expected.
Texas Tech’s PR strategy to the typhoon of criticism has a distinct Deepwater Horizon vibe.
On Thursday, the university posted a roundtable discussion between senior athletics communications director Robert Giovannetti, athletic director Kirby Hocutt, coach Joey McGuire, school president Lawrence Schovanec, and assistant athletic director of student athlete health and well-being Grant Stovall.
This is an example of something that sounds decent in a crisis management meeting, and seldom goes well. This bombed because most of the audience believes no answer, explanation or defense will suffice. Because they don’t.
Tech officials need to stop equivocating Sorsby’s sins to those at other universities, or saying, “It’s not like he committed murder.”
Tech should focus on Tech, the judge’s decision that granted Sorsby’s injunction against the NCAA’s ban, while hammering the points that they believe make the judge’s favorable ruling plausible.
That the bets Sorsby made while he was at Indiana on Hoosier football games were placed during his redshirt season. That his play never affected the outcome of a game. That he’s a good person. That he’s accountable. He’s receiving treatment.
They’re not going to win this.
What Sorsby did was commit insider trading, which is against the rules. That the NCAA doesn’t even have power to enforce this law is a disgrace. The judge’s decision is an embarrassment to kangaroo courts, a fact that some Tech officials privately concur.
Just as there is a growing number of people who will never believe what Cody Campbell is selling, they won’t believe Texas Tech, either.
