Senior Year Box Set

“No, not really, because he irritates me. Let’s get down to business. I understand you’ve started your recruiting visits.”

I told him about the trips so far. He didn’t see anything amiss except for the man in Oklahoma who wanted to talk to me privately. Mr. Morris said that I’d handled that about as well as I could have. The fight was another matter.

“I’ll talk to Ms. Dixon. We need to get something in place that prevents him from suing you civilly in exchange for dropping the charges.”

“He attacked me,” I complained.

“And you hurt him and have money. That alone makes you a target.”

Sadly, he was right. I’d read more than one report of a person suing someone when they got hurt committing a crime.

“Now, there are several items I have to go over with you, and I need you to pay close attention,” Mr. Morris said.

Oops …

“Do you recall the game where the young man was following you around as a part of the ‘Make a Wish’ endeavor? Where he streamed the videos of you in the game and at halftime to your social media account?” he asked.

Damn, why did he have to sound like James Earl Jones doing Darth Vader?

“Yes, why?” I asked.

“Did you forget that you have to separate your sports from everything else so that the NCAA doesn’t get mad at us?”

I hadn’t really thought about that when I did the live streaming. These rules were so stupid, but I had to play their game if I wanted to play ball in college.

“How bad is it?”

“Before you worry too much about it, let me tell you what happened. Your friend Lily, who also now runs the Lincoln High sports website as a supervised student project, thought that site was too limited. She came up with the idea of creating separate social media accounts for you.

“Before she did that, however, she did something you haven’t done yet, even though I work for you. She asked if it was okay,” Mr. Morris said, getting in his dig.

Sometimes lawyers were a pain in the backside.

“She talked to Frank and explained her concerns. He called me, and we thought her solution would work. I called the NCAA and got their blessing. You should thank her,” he prattled on.

I only had so much time to talk. I guess he thought he was billing me by the minute, which he was.

“What was the solution?” I asked to move the conversation along.

“You now have two accounts, one for David A. Dawson, the actor, model, and everything not related to sports. The other is for Dawson#11. In the future, if it involves a Lincoln High uniform, or a picture of a sports arena, or a football or a baseball, it had better be separate. It cannot involve ‘David A. Dawson’ or any promotional activities. Frank will monitor it, and if he has any questions, I told him to call me so we can discuss it.”

“I’m sure between Lily and Frank, they’ll make sure I don’t do anything to upset the all-powerful NCAA,” I said.

“I talked to the NCAA about the sports photos you have displayed at your restaurants. They would prefer that you take them down until you graduate college.”

“Are they going to have a problem with anything I do to promote my businesses?” I complained.

“They understand that you have interests in several companies. You can help promote them as long as you don’t do it as David Dawson, the quarterback or baseball player. I suggest that you do it under your stage name, David A. Dawson. That way, everything is crystal clear,” Mr. Morris said.

“They’ll be okay with that?”

“Yes.”

“Even the videos I did for my mom’s real estate company?” I asked.

“They’re all good. Caryn told me that you received the money through your LLC and then donated it to charity. As long as you run it through your business, you’re okay. Just don’t accept money directly for promotional activities like that. I can justify that because it’s business-related,” he assured me.

“I understand, Mr. Morris. There’s something else I agreed to do.”

I told him about helping Tracy with her vlog.

“It should be okay since it’s a class project. Just be sure to use your stage name. We don’t want there to be any confusion about that,” he reminded me.

Before I got off the phone, Mr. Morris told me he’d contacted the recruiting coordinator for Southwest Central State. He’d had a talk with them about us not wanting any misunderstandings. Of course, the recruiter denied any knowledge of anything that might be an issue and would do everything in his power to make sure nothing improper occurred. Lawyers!

Mr. Morris explained that he needed to have the call logged. That way, if the NCAA ever decided to give us a hard time, we could show we did our due diligence. Personally, I felt he was just running up his bill. I would probably be glad he’d done it if the NCAA decided to come after me, though.

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