What, if anything, can Jim Phillips actually say next week during ACC Kickoff?

A reminder that next week we will be originating this program Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from the Weston Hotel in Charlotte where the ACC will have their football media gala event. And on Tuesday we hope to talk with Jim Phillips, though it is a long shot at best that he will even mention what happened at Northwestern. Remember he is the former director of athletics.

For that university. But that's next week. We will have to talk to Jim Phillips. He's going to have to speak at some point.

He's not just going to hide from the entire event. But any comments about what happened at Northwestern will obviously be limited. And that will come up in our conversation with Dan Lust, conduct detrimental, the podcast. He's a sports attorney.

He just saluted for those of us who are watching on TV. And first of all, at Sports Law Lust on Twitter. I'm glad you guys have a lot of people at your disposal on Conduct Detrimental. My entry there was Daniel Wallach and we were talking about gaming.

I can't remember the last time I spoke to Daniel now, but I keep speaking to all of you people. Whether it's John Nucci on the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund. We spoke with Tarun Sharma the other day about NIL and I'm going to start with NIL with you real quick because of today's development. In which three U.S. Senators have bipartisan. It's really a draft. It's not a bill yet. And frankly, I'm still skeptical that it will ever even become a bill. But it doesn't really address the real problems, the real reasons why the NCAA and the Power Five conferences went to Capitol Hill in the first place, which is antitrust protection.

Please do not ever allow these players to become employees, declared employees. It deals with other things that they're not really interested in, long term health care, financial transparency. What's your read on where we are with what those entities want and what they were provided by the Senate? Yeah, it's not the first time and we should say there is news anytime you have a bipartisan bill of some sort. It is to some extent newsworthy, but we have had Republicans, we have had Democrats, we have had people interested in getting a federal NIL bill done. No bill has really made any significant progress. So I mean, you can kind of read it for its academic purposes at the end of the day.

Maybe I'll disagree slightly with one part. I think the main component for the NCAA and the conference commissioners going to Congress is to get state preemption or federal preemption of these state laws. So obviously, any federal bill that's passed is going to have it. This language is obviously contained in this federal bill, but I'm not reading too much into it until I hear some real traction on it. We just haven't, it's been two years, it's legitimately two years and about 19 days. We have not really made any traction. So let's just say I'm not holding my breath on this bill or any other bill.

Neither am I. And I asked the same question of Turon the other day. I'm not even sure now that we've got a bill that forced the NCAA to release, kind of loosen their reins on athletes earning money on their name, image and likeness. They did not do this willingly. They were dragged to the water and forced to drink it. But once that happened, I still can't figure out why we even need a law. They can't enforce the laws that they've got. Not even a law. They can't enforce the rules that they have desired to have in place, which is you can't use financial inducements as recruiting tools.

They can't even do that right. So why do we need any law? You know, this is, I guess we can use a football term here.

This is punting at its finest, right? We've had the state law system for about two years. No one wants to be the one holding the bag at the end of the finish line and saying, like, here's your punishment. Like the attorney generals don't want to do it. The schools don't want to punish. The conference commissioners don't want to do it. The NCA is fearing antitrust concerns about doing it. So no one wants to enact the punishment here. So people are wondering why the federal government doesn't want, you know, what's the hesitation, right? We've had congressional hearings on NIL now, you know, dating back in May, June of 2021. Like if everybody wants a bill, Democrats, Republicans want it, why isn't it happening?

Because Adam, at some point, someone's going to have to render the punishment. Sometimes they're going to be, can you imagine a federal law, which then punishes schools and athletes? Maybe that's not something that, you know, that Congress wants to necessarily get behind.

So, you know, that's really the issue at the end of the day. The NCA can't enforce their rules and maybe they, and I shouldn't say that. They enforce it like once, and I put it in quotes for those that aren't watching, with the Cavender twins and that women's basketball issue over in Miami. That was very much a negotiated resolution.

That's a real term of art. Miami accepted the NCA's jurisdiction for what was, for all intents and purposes, a slap on the wrist. The question is, if the NCA came coming for like, you know, North Carolina basketball or Texas football, would they accept that jurisdiction? Would they accept the slap on the wrist? And we don't know that part yet. That's still a very big deal.

I think we do, but just, we just haven't been, we haven't been faced with it. I think the answer is, of course they wouldn't accept it. They would just, they would fight it legally, like every other school has started doing. And the NCAA's record in court is quite bad. Dan Lust, Conduct Detrimental, the podcast, the best sports law podcast.

You also do a better show, we'll talk about that before we let you go. So let me get to Northwestern. I mentioned this at the beginning because we're going to be in Charlotte next week for ACC Media Days and the current commissioner of the ACC, Jim Phillips, the past AD at Northwestern. And yesterday it came out that a second lawsuit has been filed and named him as one of the targets of that lawsuit. Obviously it's Pat Fitzgerald, the coach, the president, the board of trustees, and in this one it's Jim Phillips. I don't expect he will answer any questions about it in Charlotte because he has that protection. I can't talk about this because I am named in the lawsuit.

How would you best describe, I guess, the position that Phillips, Fitzgerald, and the university are in right now? To answer your question, I heard you say it before I came on. We'll put it at minus 10,000 that he will not answer any questions.

That's the lock of the century. One versus a 16 seat here. People have also made mistakes and put their foot in their mouth. Here's the position. I read Fitzgerald's statement that came out on Tuesday. For those keeping track at home, and maybe Adam just me and you are the only sickos that are keeping track of this, three lawsuits appear to be filed thus far from former players and two more are expected to come.

Three lawsuits all by former players. As you mentioned, everybody associated with Northwestern is being brought into this, including the former AD Jim Phillips. He asked me to describe what I think their position is or their posturing. The statement from Fitzgerald on Tuesday was an interesting one.

It says there's been news stories, there's been a complaint, there's been a press conference. Everyone references in a vague way that I do that I was aware of these allegations, but I've heard no specifics. I'm paraphrasing, but I continue to maintain that I had no knowledge of this whatsoever at any point in time. Anything to the contrary is false. Where that leaves us, he's denying knowledge.

Fantastic. That's what you'd expect and do under circumstances. Adam, my question to you and really to anyone that's following the story. We're in the Joe Paterno world here. It is one thing to know and not do anything about it. It is a very different thing to at least according to Fitzgerald to not know and not do anything about it. Now, if I'm if I'm the AD at Northwestern, if I'm running Northwestern and I find out that, you know, this law firm did a six month investigation and they found some corroborating evidence of a hazing circle that was dating back some some period of time. And they find that that was corroborated and then they find that the coach didn't know that in and of itself might be fireable.

How do you not know what's going on on your roof? And that's that's why Joe Paterno kind of left Penn State with this bad legacy because they didn't know. So I Fitzgerald hasn't addressed that.

How do you not know? That's that's where I think he has legal issues, you know, to the extent this ever gets the wrongful termination case where it's itself. But I'm still worried about that part. Well, I'm with you on that.

And I just want so people don't go crazy. Well, we just compared what Jerry Sandusky did at Penn State to hazing. I'm not. Dan is not comparing these two instances, these two episodes as being equal. I mean, they're both bad.

One is utterly heinous. And for not for one second, do I believe that Pat Fitzgerald didn't have an idea of what was going on? You can't be the head coach for 17 years. You can't have grown up in the program and been as close to the program as he was because there is there have been. I read a story in Sporting News about a player who played that predated Fitzgerald at Notre Dame as the head coach anyway, at rather at Northwestern, who said that all of these things went on back right after the turn of the century in 01 through 04.

All of the same things. It seems to have been something that has been part of Northwestern football over the long haul. Maybe even dating back to when Fitzgerald was a player, when hazing was not against the law. Here's the other thing. It's against the law in the state of Illinois. And it's written on Northwestern's Web site that hazing is against the law.

How does that increase the possibility that there are real, maybe other problems, not just maybe financial problems for Northwestern? Well, I think it goes one one step further than I appreciate the clarification. I'm just saying with respect to knowledge, I'm 100 percent with you. I agree, because I made that analogy as well.

But I'm having done radio for as long as I've done. I understand how people process things. Yeah. No, it's just a question of what whether and to what extent a head coach is knowing what's going on under his roof. It could be any any any allegations. You know, that's that's really the question here.

So you said something interesting. Hazing is against the law in Illinois. But really, if you read into what these news articles are and maybe you don't have to, there's some some trigger warnings for some of the stuff that you'll read in there. But really, I mean, these claims are really sexual assault and sexual abuse, which is going to be illegal in every every 50 states. Sometimes sexual abuse, sexual assault can be hazing. But I would think, you know, I think you're in the territory of a crime so you can have a civil lawsuit.

I have not heard, at least at least as of today, obviously, the story is still ongoing. I've not heard of a criminal investigation anywhere in the state of Illinois with respect to these particular acts. But, yeah, you could have a civil lawsuit. You have a criminal lawsuit. I explain that in my my law school when I speak to my students. Look no further than like the O.J. Simpson cases.

You could have two separate tracks. So this story from Northwestern is really ballooning. Now you have three lawsuits that have at least somewhat been announced in the last week. And that doesn't include the fourth lawsuit, which I think is the Northwestern Pat Fitzgerald one, which is going to have some time to work its way up.

So, yeah, I mean, these are big these are big cases, big allegations. You now have a number of football players coming out. But think about, you know, Adam, the number of football players that have run through that program in the last 14 years since Pat Fitzgerald's been there. Hundreds, thousands. Right. I don't know the exact numbers.

I don't have any kids. It would be thousands. Yeah. This is this is this is mushrooming very quickly.

And the more the more students that come out, the harder it's going to be for Fitzgerald to deny this as some some rogue allegations from one student. All right. We have to go. But I want to mention Sports Better Court. Wednesdays on at Better Network on Twitter.

Better Network. Also, Conduct Detrimental, the podcast. You want to hear Dan. And I forget the name of the guy who just did the most recent ones.

I haven't had him on the show yet, but I probably will. You guys talked also about the investigation into the Washington Commandos and the John Gruden email. My read on that is that this story has nothing to do with John Gruden's emails. It is simply the door through which we walk into the story.

That to me is really about Washington, Dan Snyder and Roger Goodell more than anything else. But Dan Lust, I appreciate your time. I'm sure we'll do it again. My pleasure, Adam. Anytime.

You got it. Dan Lust, Conduct Detrimental, the podcast. And again, I am not kidding. We have talked to everybody so far that has been connected with that podcast. And I can't wait to do more because as the position that sports is in is so intertwined with the law, especially when we start running afoul of things, it really helps to have sports fans who provide stuff like this. It's really a very good podcast. So recommend it highly. I am a frequent, frequent listener.