Technical Tidbits 2/10: AJC shadows GT basketball, NCAA pays up for anti-trust violations

Though his commitment to play at Tech as a preferred walk-on went largely under the radar, Augusta Prep’s Hamp Gibbs has faced as much adversity as anyone on the roster and is ready to make a statement during his first season of college football. Gibbs, who faced a slew of injuries during his high school career, any one of which could have been considered career-threatening, decided to keep fighting through recovery en route to accepting his position as a preferred walk-on a Tech. He had similar offers from a number of well-regarded football powerhouses, but the combination of academics and football prowess at Georgia Tech ultimately sealed the deal. Congratulations to Hamp on signing his paperwork on Wednesday and becoming an official Jacket!

The AJC’s Ken Sugiura was recently allowed to shadow the basketball team on its trip up to Winston-Salem for the Wake Forest game, and the results provide us with a very interesting look into every aspect of the team’s preparation and execution before, during, and after games. I have no idea if the article is supposed to be behind a paywall because the AJC’s subscription blocker rarely pops up for me, so I’ll just leave it at this: the article is absolutely worth a read and has everything from quotes to pictures to videos that we otherwise wouldn’t get to see. Great work by Ken Sugiura and good on Josh Pastner for giving everyone such a transparent look at his program.

The sheer incompetence of the NCAA continues to be astounding. This time around, the compa—, ahem, non-profit organization, will be forced to pay $208 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by former players who alleged that anti-trust laws had been violated. This comes on the heels of another big settlement for mishandling of concussions, a type of case that the NCAA better get used to hearing about, and once again proves that being a non-profit is the best of both worlds: it’s extremely lucrative and gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling! Thankfully, no school or conference will be required to pay -- the money will come out of the NCAA’s prof—, AHEM, reserves.