A NEW REMINDER THAT KIDS HAVE THE POWER: RASHADA’S LAWSUIT AGAINST FLORIDA

The boosters and coach Billy Napier couldn’t pull fast ones against a recruit, as a $13.85 million agreement went unpaid and forced the quarterback to file a suit that has every lawyer standing by

     Every attorney in this country, except those watching a returnable president with a 20-ish blow dry and 34 felony charges, is contacting major college athletes in an outcry rant. The twinkle-eyed question: Did a coach, a collective, an alum or any shlub at a university promise unpaid payments for services?

     Yes, the responses will come. And welcome to the auspicious world of kids who can make fortunes, after decades of begging or taking dirty jobs, the very minute an official claims to offer money globs. Jaden Rashada is the first of talented truckloads accusing a program of a $13.85 million agreement and never paying the amount. That school is the University of Florida, which not only is known for Urban Meyer’s jail-for-titles run but can’t make even a $1 million partial remittance the day of Rashada’s signing.

     The boosters were true Gators, chomping away at the quarterback, reminding us all that coaches and donors are capable of screwing up in the Name, Image and Likeness era. Billy Napier certainly will lose his job as coach, assuming he continues to struggle on the field, and a sport will see an athlete take down an administrator after lifetimes of twisted subservience. The young people finally have the power. Rashada’s suit against Napier and a automotive-dealer booster — Hugh Hathcock of faraway Destin — arrived the same day of a new revenue-sharing footpath: The Big 12 was the first conference to support a settlement in a House v. NCAA case, allowing a school to spend $20 million a year in direct payments to athletes while receiving more than $2.7 billion to pay those from non-NIL times.

     That way, the schools can begin to ditch creeps, or at least try. Rashada wants a sum far beyond $10 million.

     “Sadly, unethical and illegal tactics like this are more and more commonplace in the Wild West that is today's college football landscape,” Rashada’s lawsuit says. “As the first scholar-athlete to take a stand against such egregious behavior by adults who should know better, Jaden seeks to hold Defendants accountable for their actions and to expose the unchecked abuse of power that they shamelessly wielded.”

     And the coach? “Napier himself vouch(ed) that UF alumni were good on their promise that Jaden would receive $1 million if he signed with UF on National Signing Day,” the suit states.

     Sensing the worst, Florida knows Rashada accepted the fake deal after rejecting a $9.5 million offer from rival Miami. One threat arrived by email on national signing day from Marcus Castro-Walker, who then was Florida’s director of player engagement and NIL, claiming to Rashada that “Coach Napier might walk away from Jaden entirely.” By then, Hathcock said he would provide “whatever (Rashada) needed” and later raised an offer from $11 million to $13.85 million, with at least $5.35 million coming from Hathcock and his auto shop. The Athletic reported the contents of the contract. Napier won’t be using top university lawyers. Let’s see, would Meyer return to Gainesville?

     Never mind. He’d mess it up, too.

     Said Florida spokesperson Steve McClain: “We do not comment on ongoing litigation, and neither the University Athletic Association nor the University are named in the complaint. The UAA will provide for Coach Napier’s personal counsel, and we will direct all questions to those representatives.”

     Rashada moved on to Arizona State and then to Georgia, where he’ll back up Carson Beck (and his new Lamborghini) this year before taking over the position for a national contender. NIL dollars weren’t on his mind, but they should be after his own settlement. And then, as Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix realized after they transferred, those lost Florida millions might be in his bank account.

     Billy Napier will be an assistant coach somewhere. And Hugh Hathcock? He already sold his car company, Velocity Automotive. File those documents, legal practitioners.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.