Ray Donovan (Showtime) is “a fixer”…… “a cleaner”. One of your key employees or clients finds him/herself in a helluva mess, you call Ray. Ray “fixes the problem”. You don’t wanna know how he does it, just that “it’s fixed”. Before Ray there was “Nico” on Necessary Roughness.
If your school is recruiting The Top 100 you are stockpiling loose hand grenades. KABOOMS are not “maybes”. KABOOMS are “whens”. “When” then you better have a Ray Donovan on retainer and on speed dial.
NOT “at my school”. YES, “at your school”.
Before there was Ray Donovan there was Nico Careles. Nico was “a fixer” for the mythical New York Hawks pro football team in now-defunct 
Necessary Roughness.
“Nico” reported directly to the owner. It was Nico’s job to prevent the owner waking up to an embarrassing headline – a PR nightmare – about his team. Nico possessed unique skills for that purpose. Nico was well-paid for his talents and was worth every six-figure.
“Ray Donovan” is on retainer with an entertainment law firm in LA. The firm represents high profile actors, entertainers and athletes. Such mercurial individuals are prone to attract, and be attracted to, individuals and situations with nefarious potential not in the best interests of their careers and of those on the periphery of those careers.
The formula that necessitates a Ray Donovan for your major college Football / Basketball program is an absolute lead-pipe stone-cold lock. That formula may certainly play out more often in some environments than it will in others, but it exist in every program that has “become a highly competitive winning program” in its mission statement.
Once the powers–that-be at an institution set “be competitive and win consistently” as priorities it is like the Shingles virus…. or herpes. The need to “call Ray” may lie dormant 95% of the time but it WILL arise. When that need arises it is already too late to find a Ray Donovan. You better have him on speed dial.
In some programs one Ray may not be enough. Some situations need Ray and Nico and several back-ups to keep up with the demand for their unique services. Some major college programs seem to operate in a permanent “full-moon” scenario. We all know “all the crazies come out of the woodwork with a full-moon”.
Having “a Ray Donovan” to call is ideally a Preventive measure. The ideal Ray / Nico knows your college town / your metro area better than anyone in your athletics department and certainly better than anyone in your academic administration. Duh!
Ray Donovan also has THE most totally disfunctional extended family since The Ewings of Dallas but thats neither here nor there.
The extreme stereotype has “Ray” disposing of the body of the dead hooker/stripper, the drug paraphernalia, and sanitizing the crime scene BEFORE the LEOs and CSI units arrive. And, of course, getting the high-profile client out the backdoor of the cheap motel before the paparazzi arrive.
A Ray / Nico has connections and a network of informants in the gritty underbelly of your community. “Connections” that a chancellor / provost / hall-of-fame coach have no clue even exists. They do exist and in much closer proximity than polite society could ever imagine.
A Ray / Nico will know every bartender and cocktail waitress in town…. the drug supply chains….. the escort services….. the bouncers at the strip joints….. the small time hustlers….. and – OH YES – the party planners and mouthguard entrepreneurs who lurk in the shadows of high profile sports programs.
If the seedy element is moving in on your current rising superstar, “Ray” will know it and can “encourage” said seedy element to back-off. “Ray” is very very good at such “encouraging”. He is even better at “encouraging” than he is at “sanitizing”, but he is very good at both.
The common scenario. Your program recruits very talented young athletes who come from urban street environments. You bring them into a pristine pastoral college campus world diametrically opposite of anything they have ever known. It is natural to seek out a comfort zone…. especially if representatives of said comfort zone are already seeking out said young talented athletes.
Hypothetically…. a “party planner in a neighboring community” moves in on your young athlete inviting him to his lair where enticements abound. “Enticements” that could result in embarrassing headlines for your stately institution.
Ray hears from an informant and Ray pays said party planner a visit. There is a mano a mano stand-off resulting in said party planner “blinking”. If your Ray blinks, then you got “the wrong Ray” and you shoulda hired “Nico”. Said party planner decides to pursue young impressionable athlete celebrities at rival institutions that don’t employ a Ray or a Nico.
Ray Donovans and Nico Careles are also handy to have on retainer if your lacrosse team is having a party. If ya get my drift. Oh, and “hazings” and “pranks” are a pieca cake for “a fixer”.
I have researched the above not only by watching Ray Donovan on Sunday nights on Showtime and watching Nico on Necessary Roughness for its three seasons…. but by on-going conversations with a for-real sorta-kinda Ray / Nico.
Yes, I do have “a Ray Donovan” on speed dial. An Internet Legend has a reputation to protect too.
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