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February 10, 2021 - Image 16

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16 — Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Maddie Nolan making strides with

Leigha Brown still out

The
Michigan
women’s

basketball team had a hole to fill

ever since junior wing Leigha Brown

became ineligible for play due to

COVID-19 protocols on Jan. 7, right

before the Wolverine’s match-up

with Nebraska.

Brown was an integral part of

Michigan’s early success that led to

a 10-0 start. Without her, Michigan

has struggled to put points on the

board and guard opposing teams’

perimeter threats.

“I think the hardest part is

learning to play without (Brown),”

fifth-year senior guard Akienreh

Johnson said after a win over Illinois

on Jan. 10. “(Brown’s) such an

offensive presence. She can really get

any shots she wanted, whenever she

wanted.”

But with Brown out, Michigan

might have found their new bright

spot in sophomore guard Maddie

Nolan.

Nolan’s no stranger to stepping

into big roles. Last season she

contributed big minutes late in

the season after multiple players

sustained
significant
injuries.

Her
breakout
game
against

Northwestern in the quarterfinals

of the Big Ten tournament, with 13

points and eight rebounds, made

her a consistent substitute for tired

guards early in her sophomore

season. She’s a scrappy defender that

made teams uncomfortable.

After a brief stint of junior guard

Danielle Rauch trying to fill the spot

left by Brown, Michigan coach Kim

Barnes Arico decided it was time to

pencil Nolan into the lineup once

again.

“Last year when we made our

run in the Big Ten Tournament and

when Kayla (Robbins) went down

with her injury that she stepped in

and really did a tremendous job for

us,” Barnes Arico said after a win

over Wisconsin on Jan. 14. “But I

think it was just her getting back her

confidence, or knowing that she had

the green light.”

Nolan had only started one other

time this season against Oakland,

when Johnson went down with a leg

injury the game before. Nolan added

three points and nine rebounds

against the Golden Grizzlies.

But in her second opportunity of

the season, Nolan proved she’s more

than capable of holding a starting

spot. Against Wisconsin on Jan.

14, she had 21 points — 15 of which

came from beyond the arc. In the

Wolverines’ final game before the

two-week shutdown, Nolan had six

rebounds and five assists.

She brought a 3-point threat back

to Michigan’s offense, something

it missed without Brown. In the

defensive end, Nolan uses her

quickness to disorient other guards.

Contributing on both sides of the

floor, Nolan fills in the gaps.

“Last
year
gave
her
an

opportunity to really play, and to get

experience as a freshman,” Barnes

Arico said after that same Wisconsin

game. “Now her confidence is at

another level. She’s a big strong

guard, she defends exceptionally

well, she rebounds well and she can

shoot the ball and that really gave us

an option from the outside.”

While Nolan can’t fully replace

Leigha Brown, her performance

shows that Michigan has many

starting options. Nolan has the

potential to grow into Brown’s

shoes. And with Johnson and senior

forward Hailey Brown graduating

this season, the Wolverines will

need replacements in the lineup.

Nolan’s
continued
development

will be necessary for sustaining the

program’s success in the coming

seasons.

ABBIE TELGENHOF

Daily Sports Writer

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily

With Leigha Brown out due to COVID-19 protocols, Maddie Nolan has stepped into the starting lineup and
provided important contributions.

NCAA Football, NIL and a conversation with Denard Robinson

I’m on the phone with Denard

Robinson, and I need to make an

admission. I called him because of

the news this week –– the kind of

news that saves a very slow week

when you have

to turn in a

column on

Sunday night

–– that EA

Sports would

be reviving its

widely-beloved

NCAA Football

video game

franchise. It

won’t be this year, and it’ll be called

EA Sports College Football instead

of NCAA Football, but its release

will mark the first new college foot-

ball game EA has made since 2013,

when Robinson occupied the cover.

I want to ask him about the

dichotomy of being on the cover of

a video game because of what he

did as an unpaid college athlete.

About what it’s like to be famous

and unable to capitalize on your

earnings potential and whether he

thinks this news underscores the

problem at hand.

But first I need to tell him: I’ve

never played NCAA Football.

“Oh my gosh. Jesus,” he says.

“What? Why not? So you never

played NCAA, that’s what you’re

telling me?”

Yup.

“This is bad. This is really bad.

Who gave you the — come on, man.

You gotta pick this game up. Do

I gotta send this game to you and

make you play it?”

Robinson, before he came to

Michigan and played himself onto

the cover, grew up the same way

lots of people his age did: playing

the game. He and his brothers

would create players and try to

win the Heisman Trophy, going

through a four-year career then

doing it again and again and again.

He sounds the same way most

people do when they talk about this

game. It’s the sort of deep-rooted

nostalgia that a new edition has a

way of killing. When he got to be in

the game, let alone on the cover, he

thought it was the coolest thing in

the world.

“Just to be one of the players on

that — and it don’t even have my

name, it just said 16 from Deerfield

Beach, Florida,” Robinson said.

“That just meant so much for my

city, for me to represent my city. It

felt unreal, you know.”

But the first part is the import-

ant part. It didn’t have his name

because college athletes aren’t

allowed to license their image for

money. Instead, it had a nameless

Michigan quarterback from Deer-

field Beach, Fla., with dreadlocks

who wore #16 and ran the ball

really well.

When former UCLA basket-

ball player Ed O’Bannon sued the

NCAA over his likeness being

used without compensation in the

same way, part of the effect was

EA discontinuing the games. In

the fine print of the announcement

this week was a note that no player

likenesses will be used in the new

video game.

But by 2023, when the game is

expected to launch, that decision

might have nothing to do with

O’Bannon v. NCAA. Twenty states

have either passed or considered

laws allowing student-athletes to

capitalize on their image rights.

Bills have been introduced at the

federal level as well, with bipar-

tisan support, and the NCAA has

started to lobby Congress not to

vote the bills down, but only so

it can have some level of control

over what happens. In this respect,

Democratic majorities in the U.S.

House and Senate will likely make

a bill more favorable to athletes if

passed.

Even if a federal bill isn’t passed,

though, Florida’s bill goes into

effect in July of this year. In the

state of Michigan, a law passed in

December and goes into effect in

… 2023.

“College guys gonna need a

union,” Robinson said. “And I say

that because they’re gonna need

someone to represent them. Cause

somebody gotta be in that room to

represent them. If it’s just NCAA

people representing them, well

then they’re gonna look out for

the best for themselves. So I think

somebody’s gonna have to be in that

room to represent them and come

up with some solutions.”

For a brief moment this August,

it seemed like there was momen-

tum towards a union — or some-

thing resembling one — forming.

A group of players including

Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and

Michigan’s Hunter Reynolds went

on social media and tweeted a

proposal, asking to play the season

with universally mandated safety

protocols, the ability to opt out,

retain eligibility and create a Col-

lege Football Players’ Association.

Then-President Donald Trump

seemed to endorse it.

Two of those demands — a sea-

son and eligibility retention — were

met. A third, universal safety proto-

cols, didn’t quite happen, but each

conference had its own set of proto-

cols. That last one? You don’t hear

much about that last one anymore.

I tell Robinson my pet theory:

That a majority of players would

never choose to sit out games in

the name of forming a union, thus

the effort will always fizzle out. “I

think that’s the truth,” he said. At

Michigan, he and his teammates

noticed people getting in trouble

for selling shoes, shirts, tickets or

anything else. “Of course we had

that conversation,” he said, “but we

never came up with a solution.”

Robinson thinks athletes “need”

to get paid, but he isn’t closer to

finding that solution than anyone

else. A union and health insurance

would be a good place to start,

though. Thanks to a stint in the

NFL, Robinson has insurance now.

At Michigan, though, when his

earnings potential was at its peak,

he was always a bad injury away

from all those dollars evaporating.

So his brother paid for insurance.

“I’m thinking I’m gonna get

drafted,” Robinson said. “But if I

get injured in my last year, I won’t

be able to see any of the money that

I thought I shoulda seen when I

was in college.”

He brings up the case of Mar-

cus Lattimore, a running back

at South Carolina the same time

Robinson was at Michigan. In

his freshman year, Lattimore ran

for 1,197 yards, but he had severe

knee injuries his sophomore and

junior years. He got drafted by

the San Francisco 49ers, but never

played an NFL game. “He was

one of the best backs in South

Carolina history,” Robinson said.

“... He played three years, four

years in college and never got to

see his real earnings because of

(injuries).”

Robinson, of course, has his own

story. Because he had graduated

before being on the cover — EA

approached him about it right after

the last game of his senior year —

he could be paid for that. But the

man who might have been the most

marketable Michigan football play-

er this side of Charles Woodson left

Ann Arbor with that being the lone

endorsement to his name.

“This is true,” he said.

So does it bother him?

“No, no,” he said. “… I think

everything happens for a reason

in life.”

Sears can be reached at

searseth@umich.edu or on

Twitter @ethan_sears.

ETHAN
SEARS

FILE PHOTO/Daily

When Denard Robinson played in Ann Arbor, he wasn’t able to profit off of his fame; that is set to change in 2023
as Michigan passed House bills 5317 and 5218 allowing college athletes to be paid for endorsements.

Simplicio -

Sagredo -

“So what’s this new idea
you’re so excited about?”

“It’s called ‘undulatory
propagation.’
It’s the idea that phase
change occurs as an elec-
tromagnetic wave prop-
agates. This changes the
frequencey of the wave.
There isn’t a lot of experi-
mental support yet, but this
idea provides a really nice
way to explain the Michel-
son-Morley Experiment.”

See the next big idea in theoretical physics

at its beginning . . .

www.jimetherdrift2013.net/etherdrift.html

© cameron

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