Ah, summer in Lubbock—where the dust storms clear up just in time for another world-class exhibition of high-stakes college sports hypocrisy. Former quarterback Brendan Sorsby—who got nabbed for blowing at least $90,000 on illegal sports bets, including on his own team’s games—was rightfully declared ineligible by the NCAA. But instead of taking the loss, Texas Tech’s leadership decided to double down, framing their self-confessed sports gambler as a misunderstood victim of a “broken system” while dragging the whole circus into court to get him back under center.
Enter Texas Tech Board of Regents Chair and local mega-donor Cody Campbell. On June 10, Campbell dropped a totally casual, completely random $274,300 check into Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s U.S. Senate campaign fund. And by pure, unadulterated cosmic coincidence, Paxton’s office dispatched a fiery legal threat to the Big 12 Conference the very next day, warning them that punishing Tech for fielding Sorsby would expose the conference to more than $200 million in damages.
Naturally, the Big 12 didn’t take kindly to the State of Texas playing legal mobster on behalf of a gambling quarterback and immediately slapped Tech and Paxton with a lawsuit. But don’t worry, the soap opera ended in classic Lubbock fashion: Campbell announced days later that Sorsby was skipping the season anyway for the NFL draft, all while insisting Tech acted with “complete integrity” and crossed zero ethical lines. Because really, what screams “pristine ethical standards” quite like dropping a quarter-million dollars on an attorney general’s campaign 24 hours before he sends a nuclear legal threat to your athletic conference?
Who knew that all it takes to turn the Texas Attorney General’s office into your university’s personal concierge muscle is a $275,000 wire transfer and a complete lack of shame?
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