Darren Heitner...Friend or Foe?

Regardless of whether this guy is a friend or foe, he appears shady as hell, especially since quite a few of his clients signed elsewhere.

Now, you can say he's just an agent, and I get that, he has every right to look out for his personal and financial well being. But UF needs to clean house and not rely on such characters to advocate on behalf of the university.

 

I’m curious if the organization that must not be named has seen a decrease in participation. I did stop mine. Regardless of fault in this situation, they got some poo in the face.

 

interesting to see what different groups thing. on reddit he is viewed as a snake who is friends with Ruiz and leaks everything to Miami. I don't know enough to have an opinion.

 

I’ve heard the same sentiment more than once

 

All the attention is on the collective but what about Hugh Hathcock and the Gator Guard? He was the one tweeting about it being a great day prior to Rashada flipping. So wouldn’t he and the Gator Guard be the ones promising the $13 mil? And so they would be the ones backing out of the deal, right?

 

I came VERY close to stopping, but then they announced several new deals and I thought to myself that I don’t want to take away from the men and women that have their deals, which in a very small part are dependent upon my contribution. It’s a personal choice, for sure.

 

I’m hoping something new and better comes out with UF’s assist. Especially if the law is changed as some predict.

 

Saw this on another site...it's a theory, but appears to be somewhat well-informed:



Halley is a mid level booster that is active in NIL negotiations. This is what he tweeted about the "$13 million deal"

Imagine this:

UM's NIL signed him at $6 million, then UF's NIL signed him for $7 million to steal him away. Total $13m.

But if UM NIL sued and won $6m in damages... and UF NIL had to pay it while also paying the kid... then UF NIL would be on hook for $13m.

Deal breaker.

So the $13M was not payment to Rashada, it was $7M to Rashada over 4 years and then up to $6M towards any claims Life Wallet made against Rashada for breaking the contract he signed with them (Cali law allows hs players to sign NIL deals).

The UF NIL contract could've called for UF NIL to indemnify and hold harmless Reshada against any damages claim made by UM NIL for breach or tortious interference.

Indemnity and Hold Harmless would be standard in a situation where someone KNOWS they are signing a contract in direct contradiction of another contract.

UF NIL may not have even understood the language or what it obligated them to.

The story GC will tell (my guess here) is that Darren Heitner was aware of a poison pill in Rashada's contract that would allow Ruiz to sue for damages if Rashada reneged and signed elsewhere. He then allowed a clause to be put in the GC contract that would put the GC/GG on the hook to cover those damages and didn't inform them about the issue with Rashada's Life Wallet contract.

Now, given the bad press that would follow, Ruiz probably wouldn't sue the family unless he knew someone else was obligated to pay (GC in this case or another team) but the Rashada's would want that to be covered to protect themselves and the GC/GG would obviously not want to pay double what they were offering. Hence the endless finger pointing and claiming "no one is at fault".

Halley says he "isn't blind guessing" so this may be the closest we get to understanding the situation until/unless Life Wallet starts suing people.

If this is true, Heitner should be excommunicated and the NIL's need competent legal teams evaluating contracts. Really, the only good thing that has come from this is the University, the Collectives, and everyone associated with funding NIL is going to need a collective kick in the rear end if we are to prosper moving forward.

You can blame the family, the kid, etc., but he is looking to get paid, irregardless of whether he deserves it or not, and if we don't have oversight over these dealings, we will be taken advantage of.

 

WOW!!! That really makes some sense to everything. WOW!!!!

 

thanks for posting this. I just put this in the Rashada thread since I just saw someone tweeting Bout it. Didnt know it had already been posted

 

Halley has been around forever on the insider board. I think it is resonable to paint him as someone that would have the "inside" information.

 

UF - When they realize what NIL is really all about.............

 

Pay to play agents for college athletes in the state of Florida is illegal.

 

Bingo...just like all these players looking for mo NIL money.

 

This is nothing more than just add'l dumb speculation.

 

I just realized something, made the connection. The two biggest circus acts in recruiting so far this year involves Ruiz and Heitner... and McClain and Rashada.

And they have enough friendship between them to post pics of them together doing their each other's school hand gestures.

Nothing to see here.

 

Not that he would admit it but Heitner immediately denied this saying it was so absurd he literally laughed while reading it.

 

No one’s going to admit to it as it would admit inducements.

 

If you’re giving any of these 3rd party entities $$$, good on you. I absolutely will not do that, no chance. I’m not gonna give these shysters like Heitner & Eddie Rojas my hard earned money so they can decide what it’s spent on, who it’s spent on and how much. I don’t trust them or any of these 3rd party entities, no way, no how! There has to be a better way.

This is what I would do though:

Make it direct. Allow all the players to have a Venmo - Patreon type account. These accounts are open for contributions at the start of every game for only 24hrs X how ever many games there are. Running totals are live for everyone to see. Then they close and the funds are distributed to the players once a week. We can only contribute to each player once in that window and there should be a maximum amount that you can give to each, let’s say $100, maybe less. If a guy plays hard, makes some big plays, etc-etc, his funding for that game would likely reflect that, some bigtime! Or maybe after each game you just give every player $1, that’ll cost you $85, what does a game ticket cost now? Even this will add up quickly for the players, do the math, just by a 100, a 1,000, 5-10 thousand, or more, much more in some cases. Don’t show up for the bowl game, no $$$, show up and loafe, likely no $$$. After the Vandy game, no one gets much . This whole NIL thing was never intended for them to get wealthy. My plan would do what many wanted, put some $$$ directly in their pockets.

This is basically a big electronic tip jar.

Yeah, I know, 3-2-1……….what a stupid idea!

 

Your plan is illegal. Under Florida law, you cannot pay for play. You can pay for promotions, advertising, marketing, and likeness, but you can’t pay for the actual play.