@ Johnny Ranger..... i would say that your situation is a little different than what i'm aiming at in paticular however is valid. When you get drafted you have zero say so. so allegiance gets thrown out the window. However this does bring me to a question i'm wondering if ANYONE knows. if you want to play professional football for example. and lets say you ARE the best player in college. are you forced to join the draft? or could you just call up a team and say you wanna try out for them. Or does this break some union rule or something. i'm just curious. i've always said if my i had a son who was fortunate enough to be gifted enoug to be good enough at said sport, and could become one of the best. I would love for them to just straight up skip the draft and say you cowboys... i wanna try out for your team. If youre going to be the number one pick anyways.... theyre not gonna say no. just wondering what the rules were about that. i figured theres probably some rules preventing this kind of activity thus Oakland would probably not have a team right now. ha!

to your other questions. Aggies hate Longhorns and vice versa. Same reason USC hates Notre Dame, Army hates Navy, Kansas hates Missouri, all non catholics hate Notre Dame... Michigan hates OhioState and Vise Versa. thats what i rivalry is. its not something your born with. youre either brainwhashed at an early age (which i will do to my child) or you EARN the right to hate a team through 4-6-8 hard years of service. I might kick it up a notch above the rest, not all aggies are like me. my wife's an aggie, and she roots for the longhorns when they play OU. She sleeps on the couch that night w the dogs. but thats the fun of any rivalry in general. and i think thats how it should be. Do you think the Red Sox are rooting for the Yankees to win the WS just bc their in the same division? hell no. They wanna see them fall flat on their face. You think the Cowboys are rooting for Philly over NE? hell no. I celebrated just as hard as any bostonian when NE won. thats the way rivalry go!

DC06 - Football is a different animal. You must declare yourself eligible for the draft, similar to basketball. You can graduate college and not enter the draft, and take a risk as an unsigned, undrafted free-agent. This would / might allow you to play for your favorite team, but at that point they theoretically have their roster drafted and signed combined with veterans. Not to mention by doing so, you'd be leaving MILLIONS on the table by not being drafted. Now I guess you could pull an Elway or a Manning and be such a brat that you demand that you would not play for team "x". In their case it was the Colts and Chargers. In baseball, you can be drafted out of high school, but you are not obligated. Obviously you can go to college, and be drafted again every year from Sophomore on. Doesn't mean you're obligated to sign a contract. So, yes, in baseball, you can just not come to terms and be an unsigned free agent. You can fax a resume to your favorite team, much like TCU's Jeff Zimmerman did to the Rangers. And he had a decent career here in relief. There are ways around it. You just gotta put a price on happiness. You can make millions playing for the Mets, be in last place and live in Queens. Or ultimately make far less and take a risk that you might be able to get on with your home town team. Hope that answers your questions.

Thanks man. yeah i know each sport is a different animal sports wise. i was just wondering if any sort of way of getting around the draft was a violation of sorts. ive always been curious about it. and why bother trying to look it up when someone else might know. lol!

Not at all. Pardon the TCU references, but I am a TCU guy... anyway, Tommy Blake was a potential top 10 draft pick not too many years ago. He decided he didn't want to play in the NFL. Too much anxiety for him. He was content to graduate and get on with his life, marry his girlfriend, etc. I admire that. Should he change his mind, he could make it know he wants to play and be signed as an undrafted free agent. If you make it known you do not intend to play, no one will waste a draft pick on you, 1st roung or last round. Only caveat there is baseball, where if a kid has committed to a University, you can money whip them in an effort to change their mind. Sometimes the price is too high, i.e. TCU's Matt Purke (Drafted by Washington this year) with the Rangers a few years ago, or even their 6 round pick this year, Derek Fisher, who I really like, but has committed to Virginia, but says he could be persuaded by the almighty dollar.

I agree with giving the team one last chance to MATCH the highest offer, but why should a player give the team a discount?? The owners make Millions off the players every year, what does giving a discount do when a player is getting up in age? It just makes him easier to trade when the team is out of contention. Players play for that one big pay day+ Security, It makes it harder for a team to trade him but easier for a guy to start a family in that city.

@Martin

I believe you just added another perspective and caveat to the topic. In a true system of Alligience it is the responsibility of mgmt to make the highest possible offer while still being able to benefit the team. I.E. offer the most money budgeted while still allowing themto sign other targets etc.

So hopefully with this system, even if given a chance to up the offer they wouldnt beable to match because due to the allegience by mgmt, theyve already made the max offer possible.....

wow... this is all of a suddent starting to turn into my econ class.....

Caveat your "dream world" with arbitration eligible players. The Rangers are smart in this regard. For about a decade, they have yet to go into arbitration to slug it out. They always make a fair offer to settle with the player, provided they want to keep him, or they decline to offer arbitration, i.e. Vlad, or they offer arbitration, expecting the player will sign elsewhere, in which case they get compensatory picks, i.e. Cliff Lee. What it all boils down to is looking out for #1. The franchise needs to be loyal to itself, the player himself, and we get emotionally attached in the process. Of all teams, I'd say Texas is a loyal as they come, and I believe most players take that into consideration.

You know Texas teams in general tend to be pretty loyal to there players and vice versa. I mean every team has that one legend for each team or so, but you gotta think how many Cowboys players stayed Cowboys, How many Rangers have stayed Rangers, how Many Stars Players stayed around. The Mavs are a little difficult to judge with the fact that they are the most recent to have a decent amount of time btw ownership changes, but Carter and Perot had a few guys stick around. and Cuban obviously has Dirk, (woulda had nash had he not jacked that up) just shows you how Texas is a place of its own.

but hell maybe its just fear of change. We've had the same governer for god knows how long, and had Bush never run for president he'd probably still be teh governer lol. maybe thats it.....

And don't look now, but Perry is running for President in 2012. I will support him, as I am a Republican. But it will make my life an additional living Hell, as we happen to share the same name!

i think youre safe. i dont think he'll run for president. i do however think he'll be chosen as the VP candidate. so you may not be out of the water yet lol. its a good name. and hell if you age as well as him.... stay single as looooong as possible.