Sam Keller is trying to ruin my life

Has been former college football quarterback Sam Keller is trying to ruin my life. This action is one that hits me hard right where it hurts, near the groin, but only to the left side. Keller brought a lawsuit in court seeking to have EAsports pay him for using the likeness (without names) of college football players in the NCAA COllege Football video games.

For those of you who aren't familiar with it. The NCAA bars the use of student-athlete names to be used in commercial enterprises. So the video game makers make the game using the exact players attributes, height, home state and team, but leave off the players name. This creates a realistic video game for the user.

You can then either input the real names by yourself, or pay to download them off the Internet.

Now this friggin cry baby is looking for an easy payday from his otherwise miserable life. Why is his life so miserable? Keller made quite a stir after these pics of his girlfriend surfaced while he was still playing football at Arizona State. Since then, let's just say his life has rolled down hill, I don't want him suing The Nudge now, no one is getting their hands on my assets/Rickey Henderson Rookie Card-Mint Condition. Let's just say his current employment doesn't involve a Eli Manning size paystub.

The suit opens up strong, claiming in its first sentence that it "arises out of the blatant and unlawful use of National Collegiate Athletic Association ('NCAA') student likenesses in videogames produced by Electronic Arts ... to increase sales and profits." This, the complaint continues, is abetted with a wink-and-nod assist from the NCAA, which "intentionally circumvents the prohibitions on utilizing student athletes' names in commercial ventures by allowing gamers to upload entire rosters, which include players' names and other information, directly into the game in a matter of seconds."

This, the suit alleges, is a symbiotic relationship between the NCAA and EA that leaves the student athletes -- who make this whole venture possible -- empty-handed.
The suit goes on to state that the NCAA's own bylaw 12.5 prohibits the commercialization of a student athlete's "name, picture, or likeness." The athletes themselves must even sign an affidavit confirming they "read and understand" this rule regarding the maintaining of their amateur status.

So it rankled Keller to note that "with rare exception, virtually every real-life Division I football or basketball player in the NCAA has a corresponding player in Electronic Arts' games with the same jersey number, and virtually identical height, weight, build and home state. In addition Electronic Arts often matches the player's, skin tone, hair color, and often even a player's hair style."

In other words, the complaint contends it was no coincidence that, say, Kent State running back Eugene Jarvis is redshirt junior from Pennsylvania wearing No. 6 who stands just 5-foot-5 and weighs 170 pounds -- and the "randomly generated" Kent State RB in EA's NCAA 2009 game also happens to be a redshirt junior from Pennsylvania wearing No. 6 and standing 5-foot-5 and weighing 170 pounds (who also has the same dark skin tone as Jarvis).

Many such examples are named in the suit -- leading, of course, to "Quarterback No. 9"At Arizona State and "Quarterback No. 5" at Nebraska. That, it would appear, is Sam Keller.

The QB demands a jury trial -- as well as disgorgement, actual, statuatory, and punitive damages as well as an injunction, and the destruction of the offending video games.

His attorney actually said with a straight face "He just didn't think it appropriate that, given that the NCAA says you can't profit from your likeness ... they do the wink and the nod when EA Sports presents them with the game, which has the likeness of the player."

If this suit goes through and manages to be successfull, look out for me to start going postal. Sam Keller, you just made the list....the bad list. Not the one with Keira Knightley, Natalie Portman and the woman who worked in my grammar school as the hall monitor. That's the good list.