I've said it before, and I will say it again: College sports are a joke.
Perhaps I should say Division 1 sports, or just those sports that are most popular (basketball and football), but the entire notion of the modern "student-athlete" is a complete farce. Most of the big-time programs in the country are not concerned with producing college diplomas, they're concerned with winning. The players don't care if they average a 1.5 GPA while majoring in "General Studies", as long as they're eligible to play. Most importantly, however, nobody really expects any of these kids to be anything more than just model athletes; if you show up to play, don't get into any off-field trouble, and just PASS your classes (don't worry, if you can't even do that, we'll throw a bunch of money at buying you private tutors and even a "student athlete center" that you'll never attend, but that looks great on recruiting material. Oh, and if you still can't pass, you can always pay a groupie to take your tests for you) you have done all that is expected of you. Student-athletes? Please. These kids live in a world of their own, a strange in-between land that straddles the border between collegiate and professional sports.
My point is that these kids are not students, they don't WANT to be students, and forcing them to pretend to BE students is just a way for the NCAA to pimp these kids into giving them a year or two of their services for free while simultaneously boosting their ratings, keeping veteran pro players happy, and the public placated by insisting these kids are "honing their skills", "maturing into men", and "getting an education" all on our (read: the REAL students' and college sports fans') dime. So you can imagine my delight in hearing about the case of young Brandon Jennings, a kid who decided to say, "Fuck the NCAA and working for free, I'm gonna get paid!" and is now taking his act to Europe until such time that he can be eligible for the NBA draft.
Now, normally I'm not a fan of American talent going to Europe to compete - or, for that matter, European talent coming here (see: Darko Milicic) - but I can completely sympathize with Mr. Jennings in this matter, because the NBA rule is ludicrous. By keeping young talent out of the league for a year, you are preventing them from profiting off of their own services, which is not only unfair to the athletes, it's also a violation of federal anti-trust law (see how I incorporate the law into it? I know, it's fascinating). The NBA had a similar rule in the past that used to force high school athletes to wait FOUR years to enter the draft, but it was challenged in a landmark case by a young player named Spencer Haywood, who eventually got the NBA to drop the rule completely in 1971. Up until 2005, the NBA was free to draft high school athletes, when they initiated their current policy forcing kids to wait a year. What has the rule resulted in? Well, for one, it forced a bunch of kids who have no desire to play college ball into playing for schools who coincidentally became overnight powerhouses (read: Ohio State). But what good has it done for the long-term longevity of these programs and the careers of the athletes involved? How is Ohio State going to keep talent when kids just want to "one and done" it? Did Greg Oden really benefit from having played one year in the NCAA? I'm pretty sure he'd still be a tree trunk with arms if he had gone straight to the pros. And you can't tell me he's happy about playing a year for free, injuring his knee, and then having to sit out his first year of his pro career. Let's recap: Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Rashard Lewis, Lebron James - these are just SOME of the NBA All-Stars taken straight out of high school. Are you going to tell me that these guys somehow lost-out by not eating dorm-food and cheating on sociology tests for a year?
Faced with the choice of playing a year for free, waking up early to take exams for subjects he'd never care to learn, and staying broke - or, going to Europe, traveling the world, getting some experience in a new culture living on his own, Jennings made the obvious choice. However, this is a dangerous precedent for the NBA: if more players follow Jennings' example and jet for Europe, they could perhaps risk losing some talent to the Europeans (who are becoming bigger and bigger fans of the sport), especially if they start offering these high school kids long-term contracts. It doesn't matter how much you grew up idolizing USC as a kid, if some European League Rep comes knocking on your door offering you a chance to travel Europe, play basketball, and best of all, get PAID to do it, all the dorm food in the world isn't going convince you college for a year is the right choice.
I love college sports - I find that the genuine intensity and spirit you see in college athletes is rarely reciprocated on the pro level. But that is partly due to the fact that college sports are, and always have been about, the schools and their students. When you force kids who would rather be professionals into playing for a school, you jeopordize all that is great about college sports. Kids who would normally get a shot to play for their schools are forced to sit behind would-be lottery picks eager to show off for NBA scouts. Students, faculty and fans form ill-opinions of athletes who give their programs bad names by misbehaving or treating their academic obligations as secondary. And worst of all, you risk the longevity and sustainability of the program by inviting greedy agents, eager to tempt young athletes with a taste of their future profits, who can bring NCAA sanctions onto the schools these athletes play for.
Brandon Jennings will almost certainly make a big splash in Europe, and the Europeans have the NBA to thank for it. The only question is, how many more will follow in his footsteps before the NBA realizes how flawed their policy is?
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