Latest BIGSPORTSWRITER rant: SATs, racism and Derrick Rose

[Versatile]

I'll take the dissent here just for the rhetorical exercise.

- Since the ostensible purpose of college is education, it's not unfair to discuss a player's standing in those terms.

- That the system itself is corrupt is still no excuse for cheating. Don't like the rules? Change the rules.

- Why? Because the rhetorical endgame here is a kind of perfect ethical relativism in which nothing ever changes for the athletes - Nothing can be done! It's a whorehouse! - but sportswriters get to wink at one another at how smart they are for knowing it.

- Twitter is a great medium for unchallenged pronouncements - because it's a terrible medium for debate.

- I'd be more inclined to lavish praise if all the same brave thoughts about college athletics appeared beneath a byline.

- The point we're trying to make is that Derrick Rose didn't require a traditional college education.

- Those preserving the system are more corrupt than the system, but many efforts have been made in the past two years alone.

- Again, many have made efforts, well beyond the pages of sports publications and the scope of the media, to enact change. Ultimately, it's a matter for the courts, one that will be decided upon soon in the Ed O'Bannon case.

- Oh, I don't know. It provides a back and forth — often a fruitless one, sure — that wouldn't exist otherwise.

- You say this from an anonymous handle on a message board. It's the point, not the pointer, that matters.

 

[Stoney]

I was literally talking to one of Calipari's former players recently, and he put it like this: "I was a screw up in high school. I came from a really ****ty life. But he gave me a chance, and if he hadn't, I have no idea what would have happened to me. A lot of schools didn't want to give me a chance. They kept saying I was going to screw up when I got there, so they didn't want to take me. Coach Calipari told me "If you screw up when you get here, that's on you. You've blown your chance. But until that happens, I have faith you're going to make it." And this kid stayed a year, and then he was off to the NBA, but Calipari constantly checks on him, continues mentoring him, comes to his games and listens when he's frustrated.

I'll quibble with one point in this kid's quote: if he was a one and done straight to the NBA, then I can assure you plenty of schools were willing to "give him a chance," indeed a great many would've crawled on their knees begging for his services. All of Calipari's one and dones, including the ones with the worst off court reputations, chose him over plenty of other suitors. So let's not get carried away depicting him as some sort of father Father Flanigan providing last chance salvation to lost souls, that ain't what's happening.

That said, I basically agree with much of the sentiment expressed by you and others in this thread. I've come to think the primary difference between guys like Calipari (or Tarkanian in a prior era) and other coaches with cleaner public images may simply be that the Caliparis are blatantly honest and up front that they're playing a corrupt system for all it's worth, whereas other coaches put on a phony act pretending they're something else.

A good example of the latter is Roy Williams. The more I learn about the crap that's gone on at North Carolina, the more I've become convinced it's been as dirty and corrupt as any program out there the last decade. Yet, ole Roy launches into his "aww shucks, I'm just trying to guide young men" routine, the media buys the act, and he undeservedly gets a different public image (and, btw, appears the NCAA also buys the act, given the way it strains to look the other way whenever allegations regarding UNC basketball arise). Is Roy really any different than Cal? I doubt it. He just pretends he is.

 

[Azrael]

Versatile -

- If Rose doesn't need a college education, why is he in college?

- My point about his byline wasn't anonymity, it's about circulation. How many people see his anonymous Twitter feed vs how many see his bylined publication? How many of those followers are other sports writers? Is he just preaching to the choir? (If he is indeed a 'big' sports writer, I'll assume he has an audience larger than the number of his Twitter followers.) The question of his identity becomes interesting if you ask this: Is he writing one thing on Twitter and another under his byline?

 

[Versatile]

Versatile -

- If Rose doesn't need a college education, why is he in college?

- My point about his byline wasn't anonymity, it's about circulation. How many people see his anonymous Twitter feed vs how many see his bylined publication? How many of those followers are other sports writers? Is he just preaching to the choir? (If he is indeed a 'big' sports writer, I'll assume he has an audience larger than the number of his Twitter followers.) The question of his identity becomes interesting if you ask this: Is he writing one thing on Twitter and another under his byline?

- Oh, Az. You're just messing with me on this one, right? He's in college because he's more or less forced to go to college. He could play in the D-League and make $25K or go to Europe and sit on the bench halfway across the globe while learning a system he'd only play in for one year, sure. But even in doing those things, he'd risk his draft stock plummeting. He's in college because the system is twisted.

- Who's to say he has more than 6,000 followers on his real handle? I don't buy that he's necessarily all that much of a "big sports writer" as much as a sports writer who created the Twitter handle to mock the Jay Mariottis and Woody Paiges and Mitch Alboms, et al.

 

[Azrael]

- Oh, Az. You're just messing with me on this one, right? He's in college because he's more or less forced to go to college. He could play in the D-League and make $25K or go to Europe and sit on the bench halfway across the globe while learning a system he'd only play in for one year, sure. But even in doing those things, he'd risk his draft stock plummeting. He's in college because the system is twisted.

Nope.

I'm saying that if you're trying to make smart arguments about factory basketball, you have to work your questions all the way back to first premises.

And that if people want to invoke their ironworker grandpas, it might be worth remembering that every craftsman in every trade serves an apprenticeship.

 

[Versatile]

I would love to see apprenticeship. Major League Baseball has them in its minor-league system. Top talents still get paid for their value.

 

[Norrin Radd]

- Why? Because the rhetorical endgame here is a kind of perfect ethical relativism in which nothing ever changes for the athletes - Nothing can be done! It's a whorehouse! - but sportswriters get to wink at one another at how smart they are for knowing it.

- Twitter is a great medium for unchallenged pronouncements - because it's a terrible medium for debate.

Agree with these two points, especially the bolded one. If there's one thing sports writers enjoy more than patting each other on the back, it's patting themselves on the back and receiving such accolades.

Az, when a system is totally corrupt, IMO the people it's exploiting have every moral right to exploit it right back. I repeat myself, but Twitter is great for wisecracks and breaking news, and has no other sportswriting function of merit. Issues, even sports issues, require more space.

If the entire system is "totally CORRUPT!!!" then I would argue that its main victims are the youngsters who came from the same educational/socioeconomic/familial/school system background as a Derrick Rose, but have no opportunity to play basketball (or any other avenue to education and perhaps a lucrative career). If it's agreed that the only reason we care about Derrick Rose is because he can play basketball, then my response is "at least he can play basketball. What happens to his peers?"

Rather than worry about how poor Derrick Rose (and perhaps some of his peers) was exploited into a lucrative NBA career, I'll save the bulk of my sympathy for youngsters who have all the same limitations, but none of the advantages (i.e., singular athletic ability). Young people whose future life options are severely limited probably wouldn't mind being "exploited".

 

[Versatile]

Az, when a system is totally corrupt, IMO the people it's exploiting have every moral right to exploit it right back. I repeat myself, but Twitter is great for wisecracks and breaking news, and has no other sportswriting function of merit. Issues, even sports issues, require more space.

If the entire system is "totally CORRUPT!!!" then I would argue that its main victims are the youngsters who came from the same educational/socioeconomic/familial/school system background as a Derrick Rose, but have no opportunity to play basketball (or any other avenue to education and perhaps a lucrative career).

Rather than worry about how poor Derrick Rose (and perhaps some of his peers) was exploited, I'll save the bulk of my sympathy for youngsters who have all the same limitations, but none of the advantages (i.e., singular athletic ability). Young people whose future life options are severely limited probably wouldn't mind being "exploited".

It seems to me that one point is capitalist and the other communist. Derrick Rose is being restricted by a set of rules from earning his market worth. The random inner-city 18-year-old who struggles on the SATs and can't get into any college is never getting a fair shot because of a cyclical system. The latter is the more important plight, sure. But the sports (and, you know, as sports journalists, we tend to write about sports, even if there are bigger fish to fry) argument has nothing to do with the intelligence of athletes and everything to do with their exploitation.

Really, Derrick Rose is a bad example because of his academic struggles. They open up another can of worms entirely, the one you're bringing up. Take Greg Oden, though. Oden seems like a bright enough guy, one who reportedly did fine academically in high school and college. But he lost a year of earning potential by going to college. He would have been the No. 1 pick without hesitation in 2006. Who knows where his career goes if he's capable of leaving early. Either way, he would have made more money, potentially a lot more money given his free agency situation and the bad timing of his injuries regarding it.

 

[Norrin Radd]

Az, when a system is totally corrupt, IMO the people it's exploiting have every moral right to exploit it right back. I repeat myself, but Twitter is great for wisecracks and breaking news, and has no other sportswriting function of merit. Issues, even sports issues, require more space.

If the entire system is "totally CORRUPT!!!" then I would argue that its main victims are the youngsters who came from the same educational/socioeconomic/familial/school system background as a Derrick Rose, but have no opportunity to play basketball (or any other avenue to education and perhaps a lucrative career).

Rather than worry about how poor Derrick Rose (and perhaps some of his peers) was exploited, I'll save the bulk of my sympathy for youngsters who have all the same limitations, but none of the advantages (i.e., singular athletic ability). Young people whose future life options are severely limited probably wouldn't mind being "exploited".

But the sports (and, you know, as sports journalists, we tend to write about sports, even if there are bigger fish to fry)

But we sure do want to write about politics, apparently. Have you seen the begging and the outcry here? Crazy!

I'll state here that the one-and-done rule is complete garbage. If they're good enough, they should go pro after high school.

But as for exploitation of athletes, I'll put it this way: a college athlete on scholarship, no matter what sport, sits in class and says "The system is exploiting me! The media says so! And this isn't right!" The student next to them, with their $50,000 in student loans, thinks, "Hell, I'd take a shot at being exploited like that!"

Athletes at least get to be "exploited" in ways that give them opportunities.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Versatile -

- If Rose doesn't need a college education, why is he in college?

He was in college because the NCAA and NBA wanted him in college. Aside from having. Him play for free, they wanted to market the hell out of him during the tournament without paying him a dime for that either.

Your question is honestly one of the dumbest points I've seen posted here in quite some time. I can't tell if you're doing your ****-disturber thing or you truly think he was in college because he needed to be there.

 

[GeorgeFHayek]

... it might be worth remembering that every craftsman in every trade serves an apprenticeship.

"One motive for guilds to establish and enforce formal apprenticeship contracts was to create barriers to entry into the crafts and trades in question and hence to establish and reinforce the monopoly position of those who completed the relevant apprenticeships" (Mitch, D., 2003, "Education and skill of the British labour force," in The Cambridge Economic History, Roderick Floud & Paul Johnson (eds.), Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, U.K.).

College basketball players' required "apprenticeship" serves three parties:

1) the NCAA, which gets access to an almost free (relatively speaking) pool of highly marketable labor;

2) the NBA, which sees its minor-league pipeline (the NCAA) strengthened;

and 3) the NBA players (through their union's enhanced ability to extract a premium wage for players' services rendered).

Note that an extraordinarily talented 18-year-old has absolutely no input into the terms of his apprenticeship. Further note that he most likely will benefit not a whit from said apprenticeship.

 

[Stoney]

Versatile -

- If Rose doesn't need a college education, why is he in college?

He was in college because the NCAA and NBA wanted him in college. Aside from having. Him play for free, they wanted to market the hell out of him during the tournament without paying him a dime for that either.

Your question is honestly one of the dumbest points I've seen posted here in quite some time. I can't tell if you're doing your ****-disturber thing or you truly think he was in college because he needed to be there.

Exactly. The rule exists for one reason only: because it serves the financial interests of those who pushed for its passage. It's a helluva deal for the NBA, they make more money off their rookies as they now come in as pre-marketed products, and don't have to pay the kid a dime for it. And the NCAA, universities and shoe companies are also cashing in off their images during that year. It's a year they're forced to spend generating money for all sorts of people except for themselves.

Which is why it's hard to fault em for cheating on entrance exams and taking phony no show classes during that year. It'd be different if they actually wanted to be in college. But they don't. They're there only because the men in charge have told em they first have to put in this year of unpaid servitude before they can go get their own NBA dollars.

And, btw, there is a racial angle to the rule that I'm surprised doesn't get more discussion. We don't restrict the rights of pro athletes in other sports to earn their full market value right out of high school, instead only the two leagues that have African American majorities--the NBA and NFL--feel the need to impose these arbitrary age requirements. Is there some reason why an 18 year old basketball prodigy should be regarded as less prepared to take that step than one who plays baseball, hockey, soccer or tennis?

 

[GeorgeFHayek]

And, btw, there is a racial angle to the rule that I'm surprised doesn't get more discussion. We don't restrict the rights of pro athletes in other sports to earn their full market value right out of high school, instead only the two leagues that have African American majorities--the NBA and NFL--feel the need to impose these arbitrary age requirements. Is there some reason why an 18 year old basketball prodigy should be regarded as less prepared to take that step than one who plays baseball, hockey, soccer or tennis?

In baseball, you can sign right out of high school, but if you don't do it then, you have to wait three more years. Whose bargaining position is strengthened by that rule?

 

[sm72]

But as for exploitation of athletes, I'll put it this way: a college athlete on scholarship, no matter what sport, sits in class and says "The system is exploiting me! The media says so! And this isn't right!" The student next to them, with their $50,000 in student loans, thinks, "Hell, I'd take a shot at being exploited like that!"

Athletes at least get to be "exploited" in ways that give them opportunities.

I get that point, but here's the kicker for them: Derrick Rose, Greg Oden or whoever is getting a free $50,000 worth of schooling because the NCAA is so generous to give such things to those with athletic talent. Great! His friends in college and those back home struggling to make ends meet are jealous of that. They should be!

Meanwhile, Rose and Oden can't get a job to help their families pay for day-to-day things. They can't accept free meals. They're too busy working a double-shift job — one as a basketball player, the other as a faux-student who is in classes for all the wrong reasons. Instead of sending their families a check at the end of the week, they're sitting in a dorm room waiting for the next game, while the university and NCAA in general make millions off of merchandise from their brand. Oh, but don't put their names on the jerseys. That's exploitation.

I don't buy that argument. So what if a player gets free tuition? In terms of what he could be earning, a college education is worth nothing. Absolutely nothing. He could be making millions in the NBA. He could get the massive shoe deal Rose recently nabbed, and he could be doing a hell of a lot more good for his community with that money. Instead, he's forced to give the NCAA everything he has and get very little (in relative terms) in return.

I'll take a line from Taylor Branch in his "The Shame of College Sports," feature from The Atlantic here: "the whiff of the plantation." That's strong in the NCAA. And with every single piece of publicity under intense scrutiny now, that whiff is a much stronger odor at this point.

 

[Stoney]

So what if a player gets free tuition? In terms of what he could be earning, a college education is worth nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It's especially worth nothing if the player never gets a degree, and virtually none of these one and done prospects ever do. And, of course, the Universities damn well know they never will when they offer the scholarship.

The whole "getting a free education" line of reasoning is a sham when it comes to the 5 star NBA prospects. He's not getting an education he can use or actually wanted, and an education has essentially nothing to do with why the kid is actually at the school.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

Instead of going to college, wouldn't it serve a superstar kid to go overseas for a couple of seasons out of high school? instead of going to classes, holding a double-shift job and dealing with the NCAA rules, they can make some decent cash ($500,000?) a year. They can always come back to play in the NBA.

Don't know if that is always feasible, but its not like the kid won't get noticed if he is producing.

 

[Drip]

Instead of going to college, wouldn't it serve a superstar kid to go overseas for a couple of seasons out of high school? instead of going to classes, holding a double-shift job and dealing with the NCAA rules, they can make some decent cash ($500,000?) a year. They can always come back to play in the NBA.

Don't know if that is always feasible, but its not like the kid won't get noticed if he is producing.

It worked well for Brandon Jennings. Jennings was a highly acclaimed high school player, averaging 32.7 points and 7.4 assists as a senior, and won all major player of the year awards in his senior year. After graduating from Oak Hill Academy, he decided to play professional basketball with the Italian club Lottomatica Roma instead of playing collegiately for the University of Arizona , leading to controversy and debate on the NBA's "prep-to-pro" policy adopted in 2006. After a year in Italy, Jennings declared for the 2009 NBA Draft and was selected 10th overall by the Bucks.

 

[Stoney]

Instead of going to college, wouldn't it serve a superstar kid to go overseas for a couple of seasons out of high school? instead of going to classes, holding a double-shift job and dealing with the NCAA rules, they can make some decent cash ($500,000?) a year. They can always come back to play in the NBA.

Don't know if that is always feasible, but its not like the kid won't get noticed if he is producing.

Brandon Jennings did that, and it seems to have worked out well for him.

But I don't know how many overseas clubs would be willing to invest much in a kid they know is only biding his time for one season until he can enter the NBA draft. These kids get their fat contracts based upon future worth, but how much future value does an 18 year old for only one season have? You're basically just paying him to learn the ropes and then some other team reaps the benefits when he moves on the next season.

I'd think for that to become a widespread viable option you'd need more players willing to commit to a long term contract, instead of just one season, and I doubt that's gonna happen with kids who've been dreaming of nothing but the NBA their whole lives.

 

[Versatile]

"It worked well for Brandon Jennings," in the sense that he was miserable for a year riding the pine because he waa learning an entirely new system and language.

 

[Drip]

"It worked well for Brandon Jennings," in the sense that he was miserable for a year riding the pine because he waa learning an entirely new system and language.

It worked because he learned the game, even though he sat the pine.