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Message: [QUOTE="Watchdog, post: 3571745, member: 10325"] Love the reasoning being used by the lawyers suing Zion for breach of contract. Could this be the stake in Duke's heart so many have longed for? For those who don't want to read the whole article, [B]the agent that sued Zion for breach of contract is alleging that the laws cited by Zion's lawyers as his defense do not apply[/B] because he/his family were paid before/while at Duke so he thus was not an amateur athlete at the time he signed with the first agent. [B]The purpose of this statute is to protect student-athletes -- actual student-athletes, eligible student-athletes -- from predatory behavior of agents. It's not designed to protect people that are already accepting improper benefits.[/B] Stages of this potentially "delicious" drama: -Zion signed with an agent; -Zion later decided to sign with a much more prominent and prestigious agent; -First agent sued for breach of contract; -Zion's lawyers tell judge the first contract wasn't valid because Ford (the original agent) wasn't a registered agent in North Carolina and the contract didn't include a warning that was required by a state law designed to protect amateur athletes from unscrupulous agents; -Ford's lawyers say the law doesn't apply because Zion wasn't an amateur by virtue of the money he/his family received, so the state laws in question don't apply. Ford's lawyers state: "If you're accepting improper benefits, you are not an eligible student-athlete, and the NCAA can rule retroactively that you are ineligible"; -Now we'll see just how much integrity (cough, cough) the NCAA has if Zion admits under oath that his family was paid before and/or while he was a "student athlete" at Duke. Details follow: [B]Florida 11th Circuit Court Judge David Miller ruled that Williamson will be required to answer interrogatories and requests for admissions from attorneys representing Gina Ford and Prime Sports Marketing,[/B] who are suing Williamson for $100 million for breaching their marketing agreement. Williamson's attorneys have asked a federal judge in that case to void his marketing agreement with Ford and Prime Sports Marketing, claiming it wasn't valid because Ford wasn't a registered agent in North Carolina and the contract didn't include a warning that was required by a state law designed to protect amateur athletes from unscrupulous agents. Doug Eaton, one of the Ford's attorneys, argued that the North Carolina law wouldn't apply to Williamson if he were not eligible when he played for the Blue Devils. "The NCAA is not the final arbiter of that issue," Eaton told Miller. "We're able to establish that he was not eligible during that time frame, which would be a defense to their claim that our contract was invalid. [B]The purpose of this statute is to protect student-athletes -- actual student-athletes, eligible student-athletes -- from predatory behavior of agents. It's not designed to protect people that are already accepting improper benefits.[/B] "If you're accepting improper benefits, you are not an eligible student-athlete, and the NCAA can rule retroactively that you are ineligible. It has happened numerous times before. ... This is not a set-in-stone determination that he's an eligible student-athlete, and we have the opportunity to prove that he was not eligible in that time frame, and that's what we're going to do." [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach