by Kent Sterling
You never know with a new guy until he starts talking. People are hired to run organizations, and no one is sure whether the hire is good, bad, or indifferent until some quotes start dropping. Incoming NCAA president Mark Emmert spoke on KJR-Seattle’s morning show yesterday about a variety of topics, but one caught my eye, and makes me want to welcome him with a bundt cake and balloons as he moves his family to Indianapolis in October.
Emmert told Mitch in the Morning yesterday (click on the arrow to listen to the full interview) that he favors a baseball style draft rule determining eligibility for the NBA Draft. This isn’t an NCAA rule – the stupidity of forcing kids to play one year of college before being eligible for the NBA Draft is owned by the NBA – so Emmert has little to do with it other than as a guy who can sit down with NBA commissioner David Stern and NBA Players Association head Billy Hunter to “persuasively” explain why this puritanical rule causes nothing but problems for schools, programs, coaches, and the very fabric of college basketball as a game featuring athletes who are also students.
This is such a bad rule, and baseball’s rule is so logical, that its implementation would mean a tidal shift in the recruiting of kids who have no need, reason, or desire to go to college. The rule is that a prospect can declare himself eligible for the draft after he completes high school, or wait until he plays three years of college or turns 21.
That would drive the NBDL toward relevance as a true development league for kids who want to earn money and support their families playing basketball, and college basketball could return to being a place where kids get an education while playing basketball.
For the NBA to implement such an illogical rule that keeps players like John Wall, Greg Oden, Mike Conley, Eric Gordon, O.J. Mayo, and on-and-on from pursuing their dreams for a full year he pretends to give a damn about classes knowing that he is never going to complete the work needed for a degree is a travesty, and invokes a hardship that is beyond unfair to his family. What is gained by a kid who is able to play in the NBA by spending a year in college?
The baseball rule works exceptionally well for the kids, so adopting it is a very logical step in the right direction to drag college basketball away from being a minor league for the NBA and back toward its true purpose of being a place for superb athletes to enjoy playing the game while preparing for a productive adulthood by becoming educated.
While Emmert asserts correctly that this rule effects only 10-12 kids per year, there is a stigma that college basketball is nothing more than a way station where the stars of game loiter until they can finally cash in.
Emmert spoke about other issues where an evolution in the dynamic and enforcement of NCAA rules is being considered. He champions a point system for coaches similar to a driving record where points accumulate for bad acts, and would disqualify a coach from being able to coach for an NCAA member if his point level reached a certain level – much as a drivers license is suspended for points.
Listening to the interview, I really like this Emmert guy. He seems like a guy – a really smart guy, but a guy. He’s a fan, and has a fan’s vision. His hire takes the NCAA in a direction that I can’t wait to see it travel.
College athletics are not for the fans, as much as we enjoy watching them. They exist for the student-athletes, and it should be designed to facilitate the most positive experience for them. Emmert gets that, and I can’t wait for him to get here. Sanity’s holiday is over.
Kent, Love you like a brother, but this statement is so inherently wrong… “back toward its true purpose of being a place for suburb athletes to enjoy playing the game while preparing for a productive adulthood by becoming educated.”
Read it to or three times and you will see underlying elitism of this statement. You are better than this (which is another elitist thought on my part.)
As long as you are elitist toward others, that’s okay. I’m not sure what your connotation is – that the idea of athletes going to college for the purpose of getting and education is elitist? Is it that African-Americans thinking education first is inconceivable? Or maybe it’s that the thought of a connection between a college education being preparatory for a productive life is absurd.
I think, worded with a little more grace, the sentence you quote should be the mission statement for every college basketball program in the country.
Kent, the elitism comes from “SUBURB athleletes” who will enjoy sport while getting prepping for a productive life. I am hoping you meant either “superb” or “subpar” and just didn’t proofread. Otherwise, at face value, you have to see that A)you imply that innercity kids (white, black, and latino)don’t belong in college sports B) you further imply that the becoming educated at college is THE choice for being productive later in life. I infer from reading this sentence that you feel colleges and their athletic programs should become more like bucolic country clubs of sports where true gentlemen of society (read: privileged class) meet in civil competition clean of the dirt of the world outside. I could be wrong, but the Kent I remember hated pretentious assholes. But this sentence seems more in line with that same pretentious mindset than with the protection of the sanctity of college athletics.
I think you want to say that those who truly want to attend and finish college are the only ones who should play college sports. You see how this statement differs from the one you published.
That’s funny. No, I meant “superb”, and thanks for catching that. I’ve corrected it. I want all kids who want to get an education and play ball to get that opportunity. To force a kid to go to college when he would otherwise have no interest in it is silly and takes a scholarship that might be invested in a kid who is actually going to use it.
My thoughts about college is that with several exceptions, most of the people I’ve known who attended were better prepared for life as a result.
Still proofreading with something less than 100% accuracy.
I loathe pretentious assholes even more today than ever.
Kent: You are simply wrong about Myles Brand with your “haughty and high-minded” statement. I spent considerable time with him and got to know him. Trust me, he was not as you describe.
Perhaps that was just his style in public speaking efforts. I spoke with him personally once for a very brief time, but listened to his speeches often, and drew my assumption from those experiences. As it has no bearing on the overall post, and that I felt it a little less than fair to talk about Brand in that way now that he’s passed, I’ll omit the reference.
Whats insane is you could literally walk into any bar in America, sit down over a beer with a table of people, bring up this issue, and within 2-3 minutes someone would say “just do what baseball does”. Hardly original, but coming from the NCAA, it sounds earth shattering.
If I understand him correctly, I have to think it effects a lot more than 10-12 kids a year. Baseballs minor leagues effects much more than that.
@Bill above, Myles Brand was an unmitigated disaster at Indiana University, I challenge you to prove me wrong. Perhaps being circumspect about nearly destroying one of the finest NCAA sports programs in the nation was humbling to him in his later years.
It would affect more than 10-12 kids because with a legit minor league, there would be a lot of kids who would opt out of the college experience to be able to make a little bit of money and work full-time on game development.
If there MUST be a draft, why not let the teams draft the kids and let them continue to play in college? Who has the rights to a player and whether that player goes to college need not be connected.