Anyone interested in what a Catamount 'writer' thinks?

What does, "on behalf of the Athletic Department" mean?

In my uninformed opinion, it would not. A message board is CLEARLY not a "Media Outlet" and this site appears in no way to be operating "on behalf of the Mercer Athletics Department." If, on the other hand, the URL of this site was very similar to that used by the athletic department, made extensive use of athletic department & university graphics in original content news articles about the various teams, used this phrase in an associated Twitter account description, "The official Twitter page of The Bears Sports...," and created/posted advertisements for various Mercer athletics events laid out in e-zine-style format; then creating and posting original content about PSA's would, IMUO, be an NCAA violation IF the owner/administrator/editor/publisher of the site is or could have ever been classified as a Mercer Athletics "Booster" as defined by NCAA Rules.

Mentioning PSA's and/or Linking to 'off-site' content, most likely does not rise to the level of a violation, IMUO. That said, I still don't think it's a good practice for fans to do it.

I'm telling you, I hope the MU Compliance Peeps ARE watching this site & will tell us if we're getting off track. I'm really shocked that the Catamount ones haven't shut down the 'writer's' activities yet because it appears to me, as that famous Director of Compliance, Sgt. Hulka, once said, "that sh*t is WAYYY out of line!" 

But it's not just that site. There is another SoCon school/message board that had a LONG thread last year where a poster was describing the HEAVY influencing activities (hard sell) that he was applying to a football PSA. He was an alum, and HE may have been 'protected' by the 'prior relationship exception,' but, if I'm not mistaken, he was encouraging other posters to get involved & talk to the PSA's parents when he visited, etc. Same school message board recently posted a request for others on the site (most likely "boosters") to donate to pay funeral expenses for a family member of a current player. Personally, I feel terrible for the player & wish it was OK for them to do that, but I'd be very surprised if the NCAA wouldn't cite that as an 'extra benefit' violation. They are risking his eligibility by doing this, which is terrible & potentially bringing NCAA sanctions against their program...as cold & heartless as that may be. I think if you look up "heartless" in the dictionary, you'll see an NCAA logo...no words...just the logo is enough to make the definition clear.

UPDATE: OMG - I just looked at the gofundme site set up by the player and right there in black & white is a $500 donation from the Head Coach's wife and others from former players, and former players parents...Maybe the NCAA has some 'hardship' or "bereavement" exception to the "extra benefits" rule.

So...anyway, those are my uninformed thoughts & I, honestly, would hate for any of these young men, from any school, to have their NCAA eligibility jeopardized by a bunch of has-been's, never-were's, wannabe's, old farts like us.

Probably not that hard.  Feel like half of Georgia Southern's student body is from Macon anyway.

In case anyone is interested the 2014 UTC-WCU game is still on the socondigital network if you want to watch it. You have to search football and scroll the calendar back several months. The quality of the broadcast is suspect with a lot of sound issues and the down/distance graphics don't update. I made it through the first half (UTC 35-0 at that point). The commentators discuss the Mercer-UTC game toward the end of the second quarter, but I kept thinking of the famous (infamous?) Al Gore quote, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!"

Yep our tobacco and global warming multi-multi-millionire. Who knew government service paid so well?  Well, I guess the Clinton's learned from Gore and took it to the next level.....

Some were rich before they went. Some got rich after they got there. And there are many in Congress who are not rich. It is those who got rich while in Congress at the expense of the taxpayers that should be under scrutiny. If we had a free press in this country, they would be under scrutiny.