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DeFranco’s NCAA Rant!
If you check out our “PICS” section, you will notice that some things have changed. The captions that accompanied the high school & college pictures are no longer there.
You’re probably wondering why; after all, everyone who reads this website loves our pictures & captions! The “PICS” section of this website has always been the most talked-about section of the site. It has become a badge of honor in our facility to “get on the website” and have a caption accompanying your picture. It was a way for us to give back to our hard-working athletes and give them world-wide recognition for their efforts…It was a way for us to inspire young athletes that are unable to train with us... It was a POSITIVE way for us to motivate our athletes to work hard and make healthy changes in their body in hopes of someday being featured on our wildly-popular website. Basically, having your picture on our website stood for everything that is GOOD with high school & college athletics!
In order to get on our website, young athletes needed to achieve a certain level of strength, speed, body composition changes or just overall personal improvement. In hopes of “making the cut”, our kids started eating healthier, working out more, partying less and just living a healthier lifestyle! It’s a big deal to be on our website and kids were treating it as such! In the process, we were helping to change the lives of young athletes in a POSITIVE way…nothing more, nothing less. Simply put, the pictures and captions of our young athletes were there for THEM; it was our way of saying, “You’ve done good kid and we’re proud of you.”
So you’re probably saying to yourself, “Then why the hell did you take away the captions and names of the young athletes?” Well, read on and find out!
A couple of weeks ago, one of our college athletes called us and informed us he had been suspended by his school for 2 weeks because his picture was on our website! We were shocked and thought there had to be some mistake. After all, every time I pick up a newspaper, I find ads for sports facilities with pictures of college athletes! Some facilities even use pictures of athletes that are presently in college on their DVD covers and other products. And I’ve seen pictures of high school and college athletes training on at least 20 other websites! There had to be some kind of mistake…but then, the very next day, another one of our athletes called us and informed us that he was suspended for the same reason. So I called a couple of college athletic directors to get to the bottom of this!
It turns out that college athletes are ONLY allowed to be mentioned in materials that are for NON-profit organizations. Even if the athletes are NOT endorsing your product, they can not be pictured & mentioned in ads or other collateral materials. This is where I went wrong. In all of my research, I was told that as long as an amateur athlete didn’t endorse your product (like with a quote) and he/she wasn’t paid for their services, everything else was within the guidelines. EVERY athlete that enters our program pays to train with us and we do NOT ask for endorsements. (This is why you only see professional athletes pictured on the TESTIMONIALS section of this site). The bottom line is that we have always done everything possible to “play by the rules” and protect our young athletes.
Anyway, although I feel that the NCAA should make these rules MUCH MORE PUBLIC (instead of keeping the rules to themselves), I felt like I had to take it upon my self to inform other trainers, coaches and gym owners of these rules. After all, if you don’t know the rules, how the hell are you supposed to follow them?! Unfortunately, 2 of our athletes had to be used as examples when there are literally THOUSANDS of other websites, magazines, newspaper ads, etc., who were also misinformed regarding this manner; or they weren’t informed at all! Unfortunately, IT’S LONELY AT THE TOP…we have the best athlete training website on the net, so our kids get disciplined for rules that nobody fuc*in’ knew!
My suggestion to the NCAA is to send every high school coach & athletic director, health club owner and performance training facility owner in the country a list of your rules regarding this topic! (You would think someone would have thought of this already. But no, I guess it’s more fun to screw a good kid who is just busting his ass trying to become a better athlete.) While searching online, I haven’t found ANYTHING regarding these “hidden” rules! And although I think the rules are complete bullshit, I will follow them (and I would have followed them) because I don’t want to see any more good kids get screwed out of something that they have worked so hard for.
In conclusion, to all of the personal trainers & coaches that are reading this, please don’t put your kids in jeopardy and give the NCAA the satisfaction of suspending good kids. Don’t use your high school or college clients’ names in your promotional material. If we all stick together on this, maybe, just maybe, the NCAA will spend their time working on much more productive things!
So, in honor of the NCAA, here’s a sneak peek of what the high school & college “PICS” section of our website is going to look like…
Pictured above is a really strong high school kid trap bar deadlifting 675 lbs.! Unfortunately, this kid can’t be recognized for his hard work because he’s playing college football next year and the NCAA has nothing better to do then bust our athlete’s balls. Since I don’t want this kid to get suspended, I’ve disguised his identity by erasing his tattoo, blurring the name of the school on his t-shirt and I covered his eyes.
No
Class
At
All,
Joe D.
Copyright 2008
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