bullysleftnut said:
RebelBruiser said:
The "student athlete" in major college sports is a farce of an idea.
It took me a while to learn to accept that, but it's the way it is. I say they should embrace it and work around it.
They don't require doctors to run a certain 40 time to be able to practice. Why should they force athletes to pass college algebra to have a chance to pursue a professional sports career?
If they want to pursue a degree and be a "student athlete" good for them, and leave them that option. If they don't want to pursue a degree, that's their choice, and if it doesn't work out for them in sports, then they walk away the same as they would if they went to school and faked it through an athlete friendly major like University Studies without gaining a degree.
In the John Wall example, everyone knew he was in school only because he had to be. Some players have decided to just to go Europe these days to avoid having to pretend to be students, but they have to give up some of their spotlight to do that. Why even make them pretend?
Holy crap...
1) The NCAA is only semi-pro ball because ******* boosters can't seem to wrap their minds around the fact that football and basketball are games and not life-and-death.
2) Doctors aren't required to run 40 times but they are required to pass their classes.
3) There is no rule stating that you must play college football to get on an NFL team - but it will definitely enhance your chances. Someone could easily work a job for two years and then tryout for an NFL team if they really didn't want to go to college. However, if they *choose* to go to college, why should they get to shirk the expectations just because they can run a 4.4 40?
I understand what you're saying, but the system is set up in a way that there are very few routes to the pros that DON'T include college in some fashion for football or basketball (the money sports).
Golfers, tennis players, baseball players, really just about any other pro sport athlete all have routes that are easily accessible to get them to the pros that don't include college.
That's not quite the case for football or basketball players. If they want to make it, yes they could take other routes, but they are ushered to college to pretend to be students. You are much less likely to be able to sit out a few years and make it, go to Juco and make it, or go overseas and make it.
It's not the boosters by the way, it's the everyday fans that make it life and death and turn college sports from amateur to semi-pro. There is so much money filtered through the sports because you have basketball games with 20,000 fans, football games with 100,000 fans, and mega-TV deals for the sports. That's not amateur athletics, and it NEVER will be again. Baseball and the other sports at the college level are still amateur sports, but not basketball and football at the highest levels.
My point is, if everyone is going to make so much money off these guys by forcing them to pretend to be student athletes, why not open it up and allow each football team 16 spots for non-students and basketball teams 4 spots for non-students just to throw out numbers? Why make John Wall or Derek Rose pretend to be a college student when they clearly have no interest in a degree? The answer is, because the NBA has a free training ground to develop its future stars and give them another year to sort through the talent via scouting at a higher level. They don't want to give that up. The NFL has a 3-4 year developing and proving ground that costs them nothing. The boosters and fans fund it all. The pro leagues have no reason to want to give it up. The loser in it all is the athlete that has no interest in education but wants to use his talents professionally. The guys that have the talent but fall by the wayside because of academics don't concern the NFL or NBA, because they aren't hurting for talent. They could be better with a few more of those athletes, but the leagues will survive without them.
And back to my analogy, what if you forced students to be athletes to some extent to try to enter a professional field? It seems absurd, but it's no more absurd than the culture we've set up that forces athletes to pretend to be students if they want to pursue a sports career.
If the NBA and NFL aren't going to fund semi-pro leagues right out of high school to develop those players, and why would they, why should the NCAA keep up this farce of amateur athletics at the highest level of the sports that make millions and millions of dollars.
Maybe you like to pretend the basketball and football players are at MSU because they want a degree and want to better themselves. Granted, some of them are, but a good number of them are there to get to the league. If they pass enough classes in a crap major to graduate, so be it, if not, they don't care. Do you think Dee Bost came to MSU to get a degree? What about Renardo Sidney? They came as a route to the NBA, because the other routes aren't nearly as likely to work out for them. Why make them pretend to be students when they have zero intention of earning a degree?
