SoCalHoops Recruiting News

There's an interesting debate which has been going on for years in college sports, especially with college basketball, and many believe that the debate is getting more and more pointed as time passes, that college athletics, and basketball in particular, have reached a critical stage.  We noted recently in response to several posts on our message forum that we believed the term "Student-Athlete" was meant to convey a particular meaning. . . . that the phrase isn't nor was it ever intended to be "Athlete-Student" but that the emphasis is supposed to be on the former (i.e.,  the "student" rather than the "athlete"). . . and we don't think this particular phrase developed simply as an accident of the English language. . . we think it was and always has been quite intentional that "student" came before "athlete".

But if the latest rush to the NBA is any indication of where most young players heads are these days, you might as well reverse the phrase. . . and there are some who believe that the NCAA's $6 billion deal with the CBS is more telling than using phrases such as "student-athlete". . . .

Today's Long Beach Press Telegram carried a piece by Bob Keisser, a regular columnist for the paper, and it gives us all more to think about:  Should freshmen be ineligible?  What really is an "athletic scholarship" and should it be abolished?  The article uses an interview with George Raveling as the springboard to discuss some of these topics. . . It's well worth the read.  If you can get the paper, go buy it and spend the quarter to support Keisser.   If not, visit the PT's website and support their advertisers. . . In the meantime, we're not sure we completely agree with either Keisser or with Raveling, but there's a lot to think about. . . .

Raveling prefers college contract 

There's two perspectives on where college basketball stands today, and neither is very optimistic. 

One says the sport is on a collision course with disaster. The other says the disaster has already taken place. 

A field that only a few years ago seemed robust and healthy, especially in contrast to the ebbing interest in the NBA, is being torn apart from the inside, like victims of Sigourney Weaver's "Alien."

The rush to the NBA by underclassmen continues, underscored by UCLA losing three players Jerome Moiso, JaRon Rush and Jason Kapono off a team that made a late run to the Sweet 16. More and more high school stars are ready to skip right to the pros. Summer sneaker agents have become a virus, but their personal greed is merely counterpoint to the NCAA's institutional greed.

It's hard to feel compassion for a college system that allows the schools to split $6 billion in TV money, the size of the latest deal with CBS, but prohibits a coach from buying a prospective student-athlete a Happy Meal.

I went to former USC coach George Raveling, now working for a Nike grass roots youth basketball program, in search of some answers. No one is a bigger advocate for the student-athlete, and no one has more real-world experience with the issues that plague the sport.

First, I threw him a solution for consideration: Do away with college athletic scholarships completely.

It's an extreme idea, but these are extreme times. All of the problems with college sports can be traced to the scholarship as a unit of value. Once upon a more naive time, it included a basic quid pro quo the student-athlete would get the opportunity to earn a degree while playing sports that benefited the university on several levels.

Alas, it's mutated. Gender equity created more opportunities but less return. Financial demands forced schools to cut other sports. Now, more and more athletes in the revenue-producing sports, football and basketball, flaunt their disdain for the academic thing, to the dismay of everyone except their agents.

If college has become little more than a layover, maybe it's time to null and void the entire system. At least those athletes playing college sports would have their priorities in order.

Raveling doesn't agree. He prefers to look at the sociological big picture: Athletic scholarships give thousands of young men and women an opportunity they wouldn't otherwise have because of the costs.

"The statistics overwhelmingly support the fact that most scholarship athletes couldn't afford to go to college," he said. "Most of these kids come from a lower (social) rung. I know in my own case, coming from a single-parent household, I wouldn't have gone to college without a scholarship.

"Not once in my life did my mom say, 'I want you to go to college.' She didn't encourage me to read books. We were just trying to survive. For so many kids, college is their one way to escape this kind of background."

Plus, he says, one or two years on a college campus is better than none.

"People don't like hearing this, because they're bothered by so many kids leaving early, but it's the truth. It wasn't until I got to college that I learned education could be fun. A lot of young men find themselves intellectually in college even if they're only there for two years," he said.

"For a lot of kids, it's the first time they've ever spent time in a multi-ethnic setting. I remember from sociology class that association beings on assimilation. Just being in that kind of environment provides an appreciation and a sophistication they might never have had."

OK, then how about this idea: Nurture the NBA's fleeting thoughts of launching a CBA-like development league that would attract college-age kids who really have no interest in attending classes.

"If you believe most of the best players would play in this league, then you're talking about the cream of the crop," Raveling said. "And if you water down the quality of college basketball, would the networks still pay billions to televise an inferior product?"

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe no one would know the difference. Maybe alums would accept a shaggier version of college basketball if it meant players spending four or five years on campus.

"If a development league comes about, it will be operated to the benefit of the NBA. They get the players, and at their price," Raveling added. "It won't help the process of educating young men. I think more and more kids would see it as an easy way out."

Raveling has two ideas that sound like a good start: make freshmen ineligible, as they once were, and turn the athletic scholarship from something that's renewed annually to a minimal three-year contract.

"If colleges say they're interested in the kids academically and socially, there's no reason why they shouldn't go back to freshmen being ineligible," Raveling said. "If the problem is too much emphasis on a student's athletics, this would give it equal weight.

"If you assume being ineligible has them on campus for a year, you can feel pretty sure they'll stay for two more. And I think most student-athletes who are serious about college would be willing to sign a three-year contract if it were offered it."

Whatever new standards are implemented, Raveling said, has to be based in reality, and reality on the playground today is an intersection of the Great American Dream and our fast-break capitalistic culture.

"For a young, talented high school basketball player, the lure of the NBA is the greatest temptation, greater than drugs and sex," Raveling said. "Kids honestly believe in their mind that they're talented enough to play, and there are a dozen guys in the street telling them they're ready, telling them they're as good as Kobe (Bryant) at the same stage.

"Of course they're wrong. But let's also be honest: The guy who graduates first in his class from the Harvard Business School isn't going to start his career with a three-year, $5 million dollar contract, either.

"I was talking to a friend this morning who wonders if we're not going through an evolution and don't realize it. We grew up thinking education was the pinnacle of our mind, and it is, but we shouldn't devalue the physical skills.

"In a society driven by the dollar, where one is judged by how much money he has, we shouldn't be so quick to judge a kid if he decides to make his money on a basketball court.

"Even if we don't agree it's as important as a college education, and even if they need an education more than ever once they sign a $5 million contract, at the very least we should be able to understand the temptation."

 
©Copyright 1997-2000 All rights reserved
Questions? Comments? Need Information?
E-mail: jegesq@socalhoops.com