Peter Sung Ohr, Regional Director for the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB), finally got his revenge on all those jocks that got all
the attention when he was a kid. Ohr,
who was born in South Korea, lived in Hawaii for most of his life and who
attended two colleges with less than stellar athletic programs is the man who
made the ruling today regarding scholarship athletes and unionization. For
background, the Football Players at Northwestern University decided they should
be able to form a union and petitioned the NLRB for
the right to seek an election. Experts and casual fans alike believe that
allowing this to happen could effectively be the end of collegiate level sports
as we know them. Mr. Ohr today ruled in favor of the players.
Said Ohr, “First of all please accept my apologies for the
delay as I had to do an exhaustive study to determine what “Football” players
did.” Ohr, who has degrees in Math,
Science, Physics and a Masters in “Every stringed instrument” said he was “Appalled”
to find out the players were required to exert physical energy “Away from the
classroom”. “When I heard they did not
attend class while participating in these activities and sometimes even had to
compete in temperatures above seventy degrees or even when it was raining, I
was shocked. This is not the way people
should live life. Mother always taught me that sports were for those people
less inclined to succeed in life…and prisoners. That said, these types
of people have rights too,” said Ohr, while rolling his eyes.
“I respect that they enjoy their “activities” and that
millions of people across your, I mean our great country enjoy following
college sports…Heck man…so do I.” He said as he stifled a laugh. “But the
simple truth is this; Sports are bad. I mean, people who play sports are bad. No that’s not it…when I was a child practicing
piano on bright, brilliant sunshine filled days, I was often distracted by the
sound of children wasting time…you know…playing …and I thought to myself how
sad they must be out in the fresh air, suffering through forced camaraderie
with other children…someday I will fix this. Today is the day.”
Interviews with some of Ohr’s former classmates from grade
school show that today’s ruling should have been no surprise. It seems Ohr was
often invited to play sports in the neighborhood but often refused. On the rare
occasion he did participate he simply tried to make up new, more complicated
rules. It was not uncommon for him to try to introduce “tea time and cooking”
into such games as stickball and soccer. He led petition efforts to add sixth
and seventh days of school but failed to gather any signatures besides his own
and his parents. In college he studied sports psychology briefly before
realizing the class was not designed to discourage participation.
In a brief statement, Northwestern University said: “We
regret that our lousy Football team resorted to these actions; that is trying
to form a union. We believe if they would just practice more often that could
help them improve. In fact, that is what they are doing right now and neither
of us needs a third party to get in the way of their success…we already have
plenty of coaches doing that”.
Ohr, who was later seen leaving for a poetry reading, said smugly
“I’ll bet every sports fan in America watching QVC right now knows my name.”
JC
