Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over

Seemed like everyone had weighed in on the Nate Wellman thing, but forgot about the PAA. If you haven’t seen it, here’s what the PAA did, followed by the interesting parts:

“The Professional Anglers Association has declared Michigan professional angler Nate Wellman ineligible to compete in any of its events for a year.”

Appears from the press release that this is because of the B.A.S.S. and, apparently more importantly, FLW actions. PAA derby Rule 3(iv) – Sportsmanship – states in part:

Any disqualification, suspension from, or other disciplinary action regarding any tournament or fishing organization, shall be grounds for rejecting any application for participation in a PAA tournament, and/or disqualification from a PAA tournament, after circumstances are reviewed by the Tournament Director.

What’s interesting to me:

1. Why did the PAA copy – mimic, adopt, whatever – the FLW punishment (year ban) instead of the B.A.S.S. one (year probation)? Well, apparently the anglers who formed the PAA wanted from the get-go punishments made by any tourney organization on a PAA member to be adopted by the PAA for its tourneys. So since FLW stepped up the B.A.S.S. punishment, the PAA adopted that one.

2. Following the leader like this wouldn’t be possible without B.A.S.S. being transparent about what happened (with a little Bassin’Fan and interwebz help). That is GOOD. I and others have said this over and over: Telling people what went down is the right way to go. Sweeping it under the rug does way more harm than good.

Again I’ll point to FLW’s lifetime ban of Tony Christian: That took years to go away and IMO damaged FLW’s rep because no one knew WTH happened. Makes people think it’s like China – they could have a nose hair out of place, get ratted out and find themselves at Go To Jail, Do Not Pass Go.

Anyhow, I guess now it’s over, at least on the national scene. But maybe I shouldn’t say that….

More from Yogi Berra

The source of the headline quote:

“Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.”

“I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.”

“I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”

“I never said most of the things I said.”

“It gets late early out there.”

“Nobody goes there anymore because it’s too crowded.”

“You can observe a lot just by watching.”

“You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”

“We made too many wrong mistakes.”

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”