Makes me sick? Listening to a rival fan whine about the good old days while forgetting we used to get our teeth kicked in by teams full of fifth-year seniors they developed. I watched Barry Sanders run for 2,000 yards and then leave early, and we celebrated him. Thurman Thomas did the same. This isn't new. What's new is that now our kids at Oklahoma State have a chance to get paid while they're here, instead of some booster slipping them a used car under the table like the old Southwest Conference days your program probably misses. That 2003 team you're romanticizing? We were building something then too, but we didn't have the resources to keep a kid like Rashaun Woods from having to play four years of brutal football for nothing. You call it transactional, I call it finally giving the labor a fair shake. The soul of the sport isn't in unpaid servitude, it's in the fight. And if a kid uses a good season here in Stillwater as a springboard, more power to him. We'll just develop the next one, like we always have, from Leslie O'Neal to Justin Blackmon. Maybe your program is struggling to adapt because you can't just hoard talent in the dorm anymore. The name on the front of our jersey means building men who seize their opportunities, not begging them to stay for nostalgia.