Imperious Entertainment
You are here: Home
Blogs Gambling on Defense (Sports) Premature Pros: Why does the NFL Draft allow Junior Entrants? By Gabe Grossman | Premature Pros: Why does the NFL Draft allow Junior Entrants? By Gabe Grossman |
|
|
|
| Written by Gabe Grossman | |
| Monday, 23 July 2007 | |
Though a step in the right direction, only having players go through at least 3 years in college is short-sighted. With such an lengthy requirement already in place, why not make them stay a full four years. They’ve already begun to crack down on players leaving early following the draft with NCAA penalties for schools whose players don’t finish the semester, why not take it all the way?
A four year requirement benefits fans as well. College football fanatics wouldn’t have to fear their star players bolting after three years and causing upheaval of their team. What member of the longhorn nation wouldn’t have loved to see what Vince Young would have done in his senior season possibly bringing an even more miraculous Rose Bowl performance? It also might encourage a better spread of star talent, as roster spots at powerhouse schools would decrease from the retention of players who would have otherwise left after three seasons. There would also be less playing time available with a fuller depth chart making smaller schools more attractive. It’s hard for any fan to argue that parity wouldn’t make the college game even better and decrease the inequality among conferences as all teams would hopefully become stronger. While those projections might be as overreaching as evaluations of Yi Jianlian’s NBA potential, it’s hard to say that this years NCAA tourney wasn’t hugely impacted by the influx of players who would have gone to the pros, and it was one of the most exciting tournaments in years. Comments
(9)
"Giving up thier bodies for free?" The opportunity to go to college on a scholarship is vastly underrated if you really think that's not worth playing for, even if peole don't take the opportunities given to them from it. And I know plenty of people, myself included who worked their way through college or devouted countless hours of the week to student orgs and other causes and found time to studyand graduate. Granted Universities passing through atrhletes is an independent matter, but the message sent by allowing them to leave early is a separate problem. And ask any minor league player if they'd rather enjoy the quality of life that a football player at a D-I enjoys in comparison to theirs and I think they'd take on the responsibility of going to class as a trade.
Excuse my slip of the tongue with "giving up their bodies for free." I guess what I meant to say was giving up their bodies for far less value than the product they produce generates. For example if there CBS has a 6.3 billion dollar contract for the rights to college sports (the lion share of which is for basketball b/c football is done by conf). Then a 30,000 dollar a year education is hardly compensation for the athletes who are producing the large amount of tv viewers such as say a Greg Oden. The same goes for all of the corporate sponsorship and television contracts that are involved with football and the BCS. Essentially Vince Young and many other athletes are funding a billion dollar industry in exchange for training, exposure and what they can get of a college education (Even if you value this in the six figures, top athletes aren't receiving what they would in the open market for their talents). This system is more beneficial to border line athletes who go to college and rise from obscurity to becoming a top draft pick. In this system these athletes could still opt for college over the minors.
I think the mistake you are making is comparing yourself or even myself for that matter (being a student who worked two part-time jobs while maintaining an academic scholarship) with these athletes. We are students and we come to college to obtain a degree. Many of them(or at least the top tier, the ones that generate the revenue) are athletes and they come to college to market themselves for a career in the pros. When you talk about "taking advantage of an opportunity in front of you," YOU and I are positioned to do that. Because as I stated we wouldn't be in college if your scores weren't such that we were qualified to be there. There is no one there to inflate our test scores and gpa's. The athletes that I am referring to on the other hand can't say the same. Further I don't understand why you should force somebody to continue to attend school if they aren't taking advantage of the opportunity. It would seem that the real reason one would want them to continue to attend school is for the quality of college football and for the quality of professional football. As a fan thats understandable, but its their lives and if they aren't truly taking advantage of school then they shouldn't be there. And in regards to the comparison with minor league baseball players, I would have to again disagree on some levels. While there are some minor league players who have been there for a while and would like to reverse their fortune because they never quite learned to hit a curveball, they at least were given the opprotunity to be paid to develop(with salary depending on draft position and skill) or cultivate their talent on the college level. Some players like Ricky Williams and Jeff Samardzija went to college and played for the minor leagues in the summer. Point being that if the minor leagues existed it would simply serve as another option to the athlete. Players who wanted to attend college could still do so (see Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds). If they valued that exposure enough or valued education enough (that College provides them with) the players would still do so. But then there would be players like Drew Henson who received a multi-million dollar contract out of high school (the Lebron James' and Maurice Clarett's of the world would still be paid this). Another positive about this scenario is that players who didn't academically qualify for NCAA athletics would no longer take the desperate measures that they take now of intentionally failing their senior years of high school to attend sham high schools in their 5th year only to be given gpa high enough to cover for the low test scores. These players could graduate from high school and play their way up from the minor leagues. As it stands now there is a underworld of college sports that most people will never know about. Forcing more athletes into the college ranks, I maintain, is not the answer.
Insider's comments are longer than the article!
To begin with the discussion about working through college and devoting time to extracurriculars was not about how they should place value, but rather an indication that it is far from unreasonable to expect college athletes to be able to balance both sports and their education. You mentioned the difficulty of taking on the rigors of a top flight educational institution and essentially a full time job, which is something that many people face the prospects of, yet still are able to graduate. Clearly it could not be simply forcing players to attend school, but also changing the culture surrounding it. It would also require players using tutors appropriately, rather than having them do the work, and having professors who worked to help these students rather than simply passing them through.
In regards to the Vince Young's and the Maurice Clarett's who could enjoy the success of the minor league system, the fact is those cases are rare. The majority of players who make it to the NFL are those who improve their game greatly in the college system and the identification of the top talents in high school is rarely reflective of collegiate and NFL success. Furthermore, players tend to overestimate their abilities, especially because of the vast amount of lesser competition they face at the high school level. The huge numbers of high school athletes make the rare college level talent look unbelievable. Then when faced with decisions relating to the level of their talent, their functioning on an understanding of the situation that is horribly skewed towards making the wrong decision. A minor league system that allows players to continue to attend college might be great for those athletes that teams see enough value in to pay them huge dollars out of high school. However, the average minor league contract does not get the contract that Drew Henson would and get paid closer to basic living expenses which are included in a college scholarship. The only difference is that the system better rewards the amazing standouts then the current one. However, every player who is trying to play college ball to get to the pros thinks of themselves more like Vince Young than Jason White, a player with great ability that never got a pro career. What happens to these players in the end is that they have to then find a career and something to do with their lives, which is much easier even with a college degree that you didn't learn much from. Furthermore, with the greater incidents of injury in football than baseball the minor league system presents less of a safety net than the college football program. If a player loses their football career to a destroyed knee, they still have the opportunity to finish off their education in college. Yes, schools take away athletic scholarships once they no longer play, but the individual is still in the educational system, and have better prospects than someone whose entire life was devoted to something they can no longer do. I'm not saying that this alone would fix the system, or that it's the only fix to an institution with many flaws, but it is something that recognizes we need a change in the culture of college athletics. You can argue on the side that a minor league system would be better for rewarding the rare standout, and it's completely valid. I think taking it in the other direction might be more useful to the average player. In a society that's moving towards virtually every entry level job needing a B.A. its difficult to rationalize telling someone "Forget about your education, we just want to watch you play ball."
And as far as the NCAA being a business that makes ridiculous amounts of money off of the talents of college players, it's true and it can't be argued against. That's the reality of any business functioning in the system. Workers make greater profits then they enjoy. Yes, college players have no bargaining leverage to change the amount that they receive, whereas workers in other markets have slightly more control, but there are also enormous perks to playing D-1 sports at a school like UCLA or a Texas that few ever experience.
There are definitely programs that do what you mention. UGA for example under AD Damon Evans has taken great measure to insure student athlete success. But, that doesn't change my feelings that College Athletics is not for everyone and athletes should have a choice what they are going to do with their lives.
Is it really our place to tell an athlete of any caliber not to take a chance on his or her talents, and that he has to go to college for four years. Well then shouldn't we make all students stay in college for four years for the sake of education and higher graduation rates because at the end of the four years they will be better off. With the minor league argument, of course it will work for some players and not for others. But doesn't college sports work the same way. There are a ton of players who didn't materialize and had their scholarships revoked and never got a degree or pro career out of the deal. All i'm saying is that the athlete should have that choice instead of being frozen out for four years. "That's the reality of any business functioning in the system. Workers make greater profits then they enjoy."--> Thats the falacy in the whole system that it is not supposed to be a business enterprise. Thats how they justify not paying the athletes. They are amatuer athletes and students first. The minute they become workers and this becomes a "business functioning system" then this becomes a whole different animal and all the education and school talk is thrown out the window. As for the safety net. The minor leagues presents more of a safety net than college athletics because at least the athlete can be a part of a unionized sport where the will be provided certain benifits and have earned some salary as opposed to college sports where a career ending injury can mean that you will be out of college, no money, career over, never earned a dime, and possibly stuck with medical bills. The point is at the athlete should have the choice.
I would have to agree with insider on this one. College athletics is a billion dollar industry that has been basically abusing athletes for years. I knew a college player at a major D-1 school, which will be ranked in this year's pre-season top 10. The player showed me a copy of the book, and it was the size of an encyclopedia. And on many occasions, he told me how the coaches explained to the players point blank that the playbook was their first priority, not school. So basically, the coach was telling him that football was his job and do school with the little free time he had. Why would a D-1 football player then stay an extra year for a free education? While he is taking classes, he is working for free because the NCAA is making billions. More than likely, the coach is making over 1.5 million, and you are getting a "free education". That doesn't seem worth staying when you have the possibility of making at least the league minimum (which I think currently is 250,000). And worse case scenario, you don't make the pros, and you can go back to school. Now, you may say he would then have to pay out of pocket. But my answer to that is he would then have more motivation to graduate because if they are going for free and playing college ball, the statistics show that they aren't graduating and aren't earning many credits toward a degree of any substance. So, by the time they have to pay themselves, hopefully they would have thought about a career path and then be more committed to truly starting a career outside of football.
reggie bush is really good at football
Copyright 2007. All Rights Reserved.       |
|
| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 August 2007 ) |
Vince Young
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Subscribe
Subscribe to our free week in review newsletter. The "name" field is optional.
Do the Right Thing
Here lies the "Do the Right Thing" poster to remind people what they're supposed to do.
Add in the fact that the NCAA changed its method for analyzing graduation rates by no longer included transfer students as non-graduates (which shot some schools graduation rates up as much as 14%), and the fact that some schools pad their statistics by accepting walk on players with high gpa’s who are likely to graduate on time and you have a situation that isn’t truly very beneficial to the athletes.
*Just for a little more perspective I once met a rep for U. of Michigan star athlete who returned for his senior year to win the heisman trophy and lead his team to the national title. The representative said he was shocked when he talked with the player and found out that in all of those years of school he only had obtained freshman level credits hours*
This situation is however beneficial to the Universities and all of the people who have managed to carve a multi-billion dollar industry out of college football and basketball. At a recent Sports Law Conf I attended. A players association executive said that he feels that the age limitations are definitely motivated by nothing more than money. He further stated that we shouldn’t be telling grown ups they aren’t old enough to enter any portion of the work force if they are old enough to go to war. The only reason that the players associations signs off on this is because the leagues want it so badly that they are able to use it as a bargaining tool to obtain higher salary caps and higher league minimum salaries. The players association represents current players so the age limit is not as big a deal to them because they have already entered into the league and are more concerned with how much they can make now. The league benefits because it gets free training and player development from college athletics and the college athletics benefits because they get free labor which results in a billion dollar industry. The relationship is a mutually beneficial one. This is why the NCAA submitted an amicus brief supporting the NFL in the Clarett case. They stated it was bad for education to let players enter the draft early, but they subsequently denied Clarett reinstatement into college athletics. So is it really all about the education? Remember the NCAA is only an association made up of membership schools. Nothing will be passed if the schools do not draft the legislation and vote to pass it on a divisional basis (with the D1 schools from larger conf’s having greater voting power than the smaller ones). So we can’t look for the change from that level. And as already stated the pro’s appreciate the free breeding ground that is college football and basketball so what is the incentive to change?
My answer to this quandary that this situation provides is to move to the mold that baseball has with its minor league farm system where teams have minor league affiliates where they train their own talent (note that in this sport players have “non-agent family advisors” starting at a young age and can enter the draft and still attend college in many scenarios and until recently could transfer schools without losing a year of eligibility). Make the NFL truly support a program like NFL Europe or the CFL or the AFL and make the NBA do the same with the NBDL. Draft the players out of high school and gamble on their talents and that gives you a much larger incentive to put them in a position to succeed. With that mold players like Lebron James or Maurice Clarett who are the exception to the norm would likely have been called up immediately any way because of their ability to give the team an immediate impact. Players like Darius Walker and the many others whose names could be inserted here would still be in the minor leagues, or back in college instead of back on the street an unable to go back to school. BUT…this probably will never happen because too many people would lose money.
With all of this said it seems that one more year of college athletics for a D1 football player is another year that they are giving of their body for free when their bodies only have a finite amount of football in them. I once heard a sports lawyer say that a student athlete isn’t smart enough to attend college if he can’t figure out that it would be more beneficial to enter the league when there is good money waiting on him in the present and the college education will always be available on some level once he makes the money. So maybe it was in fact worth the risk for Darius Walker. It seems to me is that all we really have in Darius Walker is an athlete who got some really bad advice from an agent. Or possibly, better yet an athlete who didn’t have the confidence in his abilities and thought that with Brady Quinn leaving the passing attack would fail teams would key in on the run and he would be seen for what he truly is: a running back with really good instincts when the holes are open but a marginal athlete at best (see NFL combine numbers).