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O.J. Mayo took money from an agent before college? Shocked, I tell you.

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by spinning27, May 11, 2008.

  1. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    I honestly don't know if anybody on this board is proven to be more wrong on more issues than Devil.
     
  2. schiezainc

    schiezainc Well-Known Member

    Not even me?
     
  3. GB-Hack

    GB-Hack Active Member

    The benefits of this system is that players are hand-picked by clubs to enter their academies. High school sports, which I played, are purely recreational, with the occasional player getting spotted to go to a club or national academy.

    The downside is that once they're in an academy of that sort, the education is not of the highest quality, and most are out of school by the age of 16 to concentrate on their profession, most commonly being a soccer player on an apprenticeship. Those that fall by the wayside will sometimes make it to college, but many others don't.

    By no means is the American system perfect, but for those who for whatever reason don't make it to the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, MLS, etc. it does at least provide the opportunity of an education to fall back on, something a lot of European athletes don't get.
     
  4. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    And what the fuck do 14-year-olds playing football have anything to do with replacing high school football?

    Did you even look at that glorified Pop Warner site?

    Those are fucking 10, 12 and 14 year olds.

    I'm the fucking idiot?

    Isn't this the shit that Snoop Dog coaches?

    Notice how these leagues stop WHEN THEY GET TO HIGH SCHOOL!!!!
     
  5. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    http://aaufootball.org/pdf/08FootballNationalChampionshipSchedule.pdf

    The games for the oldest kids are 45 minutes long.

    Fuck.
     
  6. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    Also hockey, in Canada anyway
     
  7. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    And if high school football goes away or is legislated out of existence, you don't think the AAU football groups would not step into the void?

    The school district here is cutting back drastically. Freshman football? Gone. Traveling more than 50 miles outside the county? Gone, unless it's a district game. If high school sports become a too-expensive proposition, AAU will be all that's left.

    Going back to my original questions that you never addressed, should educational institutions (high schools and colleges) should be doing double duty as community sports franchises? Would both the schools and their athletic departments be better off if split apart?
     
  8. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Would schools be better off to drop athletics? Yes. They are too much of a draw on the educational budget. If a high school team draws 1,000 for five home games at $7 a ticket, that is $35,000. You really are scratching the surface when you look at cost of the stadium, upkeep, grass, equipment and liability. A school district would LOVE to not have to buy the extra land for fields when they build a school.

    Would athletic departments be better off? No. No way could they afford paying the salary of the coaches and the cost of the land and the stands. Shit, were are not even talking about a gym. A gym would be well over $1,000,000.

    Would kids be better off? No. Schools at least have some (and this is debatable, but I think it is true for the most part) control over their coaches and the conduct of its players. Plus, the kids who have no money can still play. I think if you went to a non-school style, the kids would be asked to pay money and this would leave a lot of them out.


    Keep it the way it is on a 2-1 vote.
     
  9. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the input, GB, this stuff interests me. There're certainly pros and cons both ways.

    I recently talked about this with a Mexican fella who once played some pro soccer, and I thought his experience gave an example of one way the club system can be more fair: he described the turning point in his career being changing clubs in his teens to one where the coaches and system better suited him. As a result, he went from a nobody to the team star who got noticed. And he didn't have to move to a new home to do this, and he didn't have to change his high school, academic pursuits, or daytime friends. It caused no upheaval in his life in any area other than soccer where he wanted one.

    But take, for example, an American high school football player in the same situation: he doesn't like the coach, his skills are appropriate for a passing system but his school runs the option, he believes he could thrive somewhere else, so what can he do? He can't just change teams because our law requires him to play for the public high school in the district where he lives. So, unless he can afford private school (or get a scholly), his options are either to bite the bullet and stay in the wrong place, move to another residence in another district, or try to fraudulently get into another district.

    And he can't just change the football part of his life, he has to completely change the academic and social parts too. In most cases it's just not worth it and the kid spends the rest of his life wondering if his athletic career would've turned out differently if he could've played for who he wanted to play for. But, in club system countries, young athletes have a freer opportunity to test the market.
     
  10. Pilot

    Pilot Well-Known Member

    You have to know it's not that simple, right?

    Look at it like this: if there were no enforced districts and boundaries the Mighty Ducks never could have quacked. And how much would that have sucked? A lot.
     
  11. lantaur

    lantaur Well-Known Member

    Early on in this thread a lot of people were taking aim at the NCAA - which usually deserves it - but quick question: Is the "you have to go to school for one year" rule an NBA thing or NCAA? Without knowing or looking it up :) seems like NBA to me.

    Anyway, why anyone is shocked Mayo would do this is beyond me. He transfered to a school in Cincinnati not exactly known for its academic or athletic excellence (he helped change the latter for one year, along with Bill Walker) and then just as quickly transfered again to a school in West Virginia.

    I don't know what the answer is here. I don't think players should be paid - I think that would get into a dangerous territory sooner or later of players being offered more money to go one school over another (not to mention how could a small school compete with paying players on the same scale as a big school). Player can't have jobs during the season currently, but they often get "cake" jobs in the offseason. Bottom line: No matter the situation, how the hell do you control the alumni?

    Oh, and one last thing on ESPN televising high school games. I remember when they televised LeBron's games and claimed it was a special circumstance. I didn't believe them then and am hardly shocked at the things they do ...
     
  12. Shaggy

    Shaggy Guest

    OJ Mayo making a mockery of the NCAA is not the NCAA's fault.

    The NBA is the reason OJ Mayo went to college to begin with. It was Stern's rule, not Miles Brand's.
     
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