Pay To Play

Special Agent Kari Wheeler may have made the worst decision of her life. The deeper she digs into the new assignment she unwisely accepted, investigating corruption in the Philadelphia strip club industry, the more her work begins to threaten everything she values most—her FBI career, her marriage, even the closely held secrets of her painful past. Her new case has her gathering the evidence to prove that a corrupt city official is accepting bribes and breaking the same adult entertainment laws he’s supposed to be enforcing. But when Kari enters the seductive world of high-end clubs and sleazy strip joints she finds herself facing temptations too difficult to resist. Before she becomes the star of a media scandal that could sidetrack the corruption investigation and trial, the married mother-of-three must devise a counter plan to protect all at risk of being destroyed. How far will she go? Inspired by true crime FBI cases featuring extortion, sex, money, and more, Pay To Play is gritty and raw, with strong language.

In an era when college football coaches frequently command higher salaries than university presidents, many call for reform to restore the balance between amateur athletics and the educational mission of schools. This book traces attempts at college athletics reform from 1855 through the early twenty-first century while analyzing the different roles played by students, faculty, conferences, university presidents, the NCAA, legislatures, and the Supreme Court. Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform also tackles critically important questions about eligibility, compensation, recruiting, sponsorship, and rules enforcement. Discussing reasons for reform--to combat corruption, to level the playing field, and to make sports more accessible to minorities and women--Ronald A. Smith candidly explains why attempts at change have often failed. Of interest to historians, athletic reformers, college administrators, NCAA officials, and sports journalists, this thoughtful book considers the difficulty in balancing the principles of amateurism with the need to draw income from sporting events.

This book advances the debate about paying "student" athletes in big-time college sports by directly addressing the red-hot role of race in college sports. It concludes by suggesting a remedy to positively transform college sports. Top-tier college sports are extremely profitable. Despite the billions of dollars involved in the amateur sports industrial complex, none winds up in the hands of the athletes. The controversies surrounding whether colleges and universities should pay athletes to compete on these educational institutions' behalf is longstanding and coincides with the rise of the black athlete at predominately white colleges and universities. Pay to Play: Race and the Perils of the College Sports Industrial Complex takes a hard look at historical and contemporary efforts to control sports participation and compensation for black athletes in amateur sports in general, and in big-time college sports programs, in particular. The book begins with background on the history of amateur athletics in America, including the forced separation of black and white athletes. Subsequent sections examine subjects such as the integration of college sports and the use of black athletes to sell everything from fast food to shoes, and argue that college athletes must receive adequate compensation for their labor. The book concludes by discussing recent efforts by college athletes to unionize and control their likenesses, presenting a provocative remedy for transforming big-time college sport as we know it.

Blackmail, sexual harassment, murder . . . and a missing dog: eccentric, eco-obsessed LA private eye Charlie Waldo is on the case in this quirky, fast-paced mystery. Paying a harsh self-imposed penance for a terrible misstep on a case, former LAPD superstar detective Charlie Waldo lives a life of punishing minimalism deep within the woods, making a near religion of his commitment to owning no more than One Hundred Things. At least, he’s trying to. His PI girlfriend Lorena keeps drawing him back to civilization – even though every time he compromises on his principles, something goes wrong. And unfortunately for Waldo, all roads lead straight back to LA. When old adversary Don Q strongarms him into investigating the seemingly mundane death of a vagrant, Lorena agrees he can work under her PI license on one condition: he help with a high-maintenance celebrity client, wildly popular courtroom TV star Judge Ida Mudge, whose new mega-deal makes her a perfect target for blackmail. Reopening the coldest of cases, a decades-old fraternity death, Waldo begins to wonder if the judge is, in fact, a murderer – and if he’ll stay alive long enough to find out. Pay or Play is the third in the Charlie Waldo series, following Last Looks and Below the Line. Last Looks was turned into a major motion picture, starring Charlie Hunnam as the offbeat private investigator.

A collection of essays from today’s most acclaimed authors—from Cheryl Strayed to Roxane Gay to Jennifer Weiner, Alexander Chee, Nick Hornby, and Jonathan Franzen—on the realities of making a living in the writing world. In the literary world, the debate around writing and commerce often begs us to take sides: either writers should be paid for everything they do or writers should just pay their dues and count themselves lucky to be published. You should never quit your day job, but your ultimate goal should be to quit your day job. It’s an endless, confusing, and often controversial conversation that, despite our bare-it-all culture, still remains taboo. In Scratch, Manjula Martin has gathered interviews and essays from established and rising authors to confront the age-old question: how do creative people make money? As contributors including Jonathan Franzen, Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Nick Hornby, Susan Orlean, Alexander Chee, Daniel Jose Older, Jennifer Weiner, and Yiyun Li candidly and emotionally discuss money, MFA programs, teaching fellowships, finally getting published, and what success really means to them, Scratch honestly addresses the tensions between writing and money, work and life, literature and commerce. The result is an entertaining and inspiring book that helps readers and writers understand what it’s really like to make art in a world that runs on money—and why it matters. Essential reading for aspiring and experienced writers, and for anyone interested in the future of literature, Scratch is the perfect bookshelf companion to On Writing, Never Can Say Goodbye, and MFA vs. NYC.

Offers a review of employment opportunities in the computer games industry, describing the different types of jobs that are available, the qualifications that are needed, responsibilities, and salary potential.

This book advances the debate about paying "student" athletes in big-time college sports by directly addressing the red-hot role of race in college sports. It concludes by suggesting a remedy to positively transform college sports. Top-tier college sports are extremely profitable. Despite the billions of dollars involved in the amateur sports industrial complex, none winds up in the hands of the athletes. The controversies surrounding whether colleges and universities should pay athletes to compete on these educational institutions' behalf is longstanding and coincides with the rise of the black athlete at predominately white colleges and universities. Pay to Play: Race and the Perils of the College Sports Industrial Complex takes a hard look at historical and contemporary efforts to control sports participation and compensation for black athletes in amateur sports in general, and in big-time college sports programs, in particular. The book begins with background on the history of amateur athletics in America, including the forced separation of black and white athletes. Subsequent sections examine subjects such as the integration of college sports and the use of black athletes to sell everything from fast food to shoes, and argue that college athletes must receive adequate compensation for their labor. The book concludes by discussing recent efforts by college athletes to unionize and control their likenesses, presenting a provocative remedy for transforming big-time college sport as we know it.

Pay-to-Play: Sexual Harassment American Style is a judicious book about a very sensitive topic. The clear intention of this publication is to encourage women to report abuse and harassment timely before the trail goes cold. This book aims to upgrade federal and state laws in order to reflect the urgency of the crime. It reads like a novel yet is sprinkled with facts and up-to-date research. This masterpiece weaves personal stories into realities, citing fascinating details verified with proven data. Writing about sexual harassment is tricky. The reader moves through the genesis of the problem, starting with a view of history not often thought about to why we got here and to how to fix it. Each chapter offers a unique view, giving this collection a resource for any person to follow. The book offers a passionate approach for mature audiences as it deals with sexual content, political opinions, and religious practices yet is written for anyone to understand. “Your message is thoughtful, direct and inspiring. This book will soon become recommended reading for all my business managers. Sometime I’d enjoy sharing how some of my own leadership and management experiences validate your premises. Again, thank you for writing this important book. May your butterfly effect be added to others to educate and inspire all of us to change our paradigms“ (Jim Zupancic, chairman, CEO and general counsel). “This is an amazing piece that discusses so many elements of sexual harassment” (Laura Van Tyne).