Sooner or Later

Prior to gainful, full-time employment that commenced in 2002, my only source of income during the year outside of holidays would be the cash I earned via Summer Job Avenue. Yes, rather than having fun during the weekday in any summer vacation ranging from 1993-2001, I was working for the Man. (Granted, the Man looks kinda like me, is about my height, but lacks a neck.) Nepotism aside, I managed to not get fired for nine consecutive summers. It warrants mentioning that Major League Pitcher Mike Morgan had seven different employers, to bring his total to a staggering 13 over his career. My guess is he probably forgot to turn in his ID lanyard in on more than one occasion.

I think it’s a good rule of thumb that any kid should do at least one hard summer of manual labor. It has many benefits. It’s way better exercise than any gym can offer. It’s actually you job to get dirty. (They try to catch you ridin’ dirty.) But above all, one gains an appreciation of the hard work required to do a blue collar job, even if he accidentally drops a paint bucket and covers his own collar in oil-based black satin paint.

Yeah, a summer of painting the interiors of warehouses from off-gray to off-white may not be the most glamorous thing, but when it comes to the NCAA, it’s at least legal. In my early years, I worked to save up and buy things like new wheels for my hockey skates and complete sets of Topps baseball cards. However, we’re thinking that former Oklahoma University quarterback Rhett Bomar had slightly bigger things in mind.

It’s no secret that in college football players are treated like royalty. They get preferential treatment when it came to academic class selection, and hell, they even get their likenesses into video games without having to manually create their own. Freshmen year, Dave saw the underbelly of this scheme when he accidentally entered the football line in the cafeteria and had steak and lobster for dinner. Granted, it was dining hall surf ‘n turf, but surf ‘n turf nonetheless. And due to my penchant of looking the size of a football player, I was often given extra helpings of mashed potatoes after a big win.

Hey, I obliged. There’s no NCAA violation concerning extra food given to players not actually playing football, right??

Yeah, Rhett Bomar had a job, too. According to reports, he worked this summer working at a car dealership. (Eh, it’s not blue collar, but that’s ok.) He worked about 5 hours a week, and over the course of the fall, that netted him 18 THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Now I doubt a dude majoring in “undecided” can make $18k in commissions in one fall – he can’t even figure out what he wants to do when he grows up. But, WOW, what a great job that would be. You have the option of either working 5 hours on Monday and then enjoying a six day weekend, or if ye prefer, come in at 4pm every day and be able to check out when someone says “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.”

But what about the other angle on this story which the major networks are failing to cover? $18k is no doubt a lot of money to pay a college kid to work 5 hours a week for a few months. But what does this do to the compensation structure for auto dealers? Does this mean that cars are super expensive in Oklahoma in order for their employees, Heisman candidates or not, to command such high pay? Or is that this car dealership is so successful that they have the cash to pay their employees these rates, and they really aren’t as worried about make great deals and profit margins?

Can I get a Hummer for, say, 30 bucks?