Here is the opening to my Sunday column, explaining why college hoops are a joke:
College basketball is the most corrupt, lowdown, hypocritical sport I cover.
I prefer professional sports to college hoops. At least the pros are honest about their dishonesty, but the colleges pretend they really are promoting “scholar-athletes.” What a joke.
The topic of college basketball’s corruption is relevant because of the little black booklet NBA teams gave reporters covering the draft — on the cover it said “DRAFT 12 presented by State Farm.” It contained bios of the main draft prospects. As the first three scholar-athletes got drafted, I read up on them in the booklet and noticed each one completed — if he completed — just one year of college. Call them one and done.
To read the full column, please click here.
Albert Park
Lowell: Best damn column on the state of “college sports” I’ve ever read. Honest. To the point. And, truthfully, I must ask: What good will it do? Money rules. I’d like to see college sports return to true amateurism, and the NBA and NFL establish their own minor leagues. Maybe, if enough guys like you keep banging their heads against this brick wall, things may change. I hope so.
June 30th, 2012 9:26 pm
NeverWrong
Agreement 100%. Just typing in to add that because of this one and done or close to, the college game isn’t nearly as interesting for fans, at least not me. It’s like if you’re rooting at all anymore, it’s for a program, not a team. Teams develop identities over time. So now it’s about the coaches and their systems, and ho hum to that.
June 30th, 2012 9:46 pm
lameduck
Now I’m wondering how many of the Heat and Thunder have 4 years of college and if that correlates to the Warriors at all.
June 30th, 2012 10:33 pm
Dennis
Lowell, so what? Why should anyone care how long someone stays in college. The whole college eduacation system is one big rip off. I think a college education is one of the most over rated things going. These kids to day graduate with massive debt in student loans because some one told them it was a great investment. Baloney! And don’t talk to me about being more mature because you spent four years in college. I got kids and they got friends and they all graduated from college and I cannot concurr that it makes them any more mature than going out there and working for a living. These guys graduate today and all think they are entitled.
So to bad for the colleges that these baskball players don’t stick around and make the schools more money so they can build the girls a better gym because title 9 says they got to. I don’t feel bad for anyone and if I don’t like it I don’t need to watch it.
June 30th, 2012 10:33 pm
CohnZohn
Dennis, You seem bitter about college. Such a shame. I loved Lafayette College and Stanford, wonderful times of my life, learned so much, just thrilling. I wish you felt the same way.
June 30th, 2012 11:41 pm
Johnc
Great column, Lowell. I echo Albert Parks sentiments above.
It must be discouraging too for coaches to realize that the better the player they get out of high school the sooner he will be out the door to the NBA.. It is all quite cynical. A college basketball player should have to stay 3 years minimum. I would like it to be four years . Otherwise, don’t make a mockery of getting an education.
July 1st, 2012 12:41 am
mbabco
“Colleges have allowed themselves to become the de facto minor leagues for the NBA.” This is the key: colleges caring more about sports than about education.
July 1st, 2012 7:21 am
Dennis
I am not bitter at all. I loved college. I went to the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo School of Architecture. Then on to graduate school. 6 years total. I had a great time and learned a lot. I came out, started my own business, continued to have a great time and learned a whole lot more. My life and my learning experience did not end when I graduated from college.
July 1st, 2012 7:29 am
NeverWrong
@ Dennis: I’d agree with you, too, except you evidently didn’t notice the part where Lowell mentioned players used to be allowed to sign out of high school, and that he thought that worked. His column is about the system and how artificial it is. I don’t think he was praising college in any over-the-top way.
July 1st, 2012 8:00 am
RednGold1
The players in the game of Basketball are ready at age 18, 19, in many cases.
Football, a little older.
Baseball, a little older still.
For the most part.
The Pro money drives the workings of the system, I think.
And, I believe, the colleges get a lot of money from the current set up.
Requiring one year of college from great High school basketball players could be the colleges saying, “Hey. We want a slice of that money pie.”
To illustrate my point:
I heard a caller on a radio show complain the (Big Southern University) head football coach was making 7 million a year. The show host told him a winning football program brings in 80 million to the school. (per season)
Begs the question: What is a great basketball star worth to a college for just even one year?
And to the point about the sport and players of the *right* age:
Two commentators (in serious discussion) during an early match at Wimbleton a few days ago:
Commentator #1: She’s really old to just be turning pro. (She was 21.)
Commentator #2: Yes and she didn’t pick up her first tennis racket until late in her life. (She started when she was 8.)
So, I would agree with your column. Might change the title to:
“College basketball is a Big Money joke”
July 1st, 2012 8:13 am
lameduck
Well, yes the true student athlete is a rare individual. The middle ground of club sports isn’t the answer either because that is all self funded which limits the participants.
The change I offer is to regionalize recruiting. Sort of like in MLB where the Giants have their area and the A’s have their area. This would make it so the powerhouse teams would be limited to recruiting from their own backyard. Stanford/Cal would be limited to recruiting in Northern Cal, where as UCLA/USC would be Southern Cal.
I think this would lead to development of local athletes and closer connections to major programs and local schools. Any out of area recruiting would require some kind of permission which is doomed to some kind of corruption because people will have to make decisions.
The recruited kids would still see other parts of the country with the travel schedules of some schools. Also, it would keep an 18 year old closer to home with their support group, youth mentors, to help keep them inline. That is of course assuming that most of those individuals are honest as well.
It seems to cause issues, invite trouble to have a kid make a decision at 17 and then yank them from the life they’ve known and thrust them into the national spotlight, 1000′s of miles from home. Honestly, what should we expect?
Off to the Giants game
. Go Vogey!
July 1st, 2012 10:27 am
Brady
Dennis – I think you’re missing the point. Lowell is not saying that everyone needs to go to college; rather, he is saying that it is pathetic that an academic institution would recruit a “student”-athlete when they know that that athlete has no intention of graduating or getting an education in any form.
The mission statement of every college or university in the country is centered around academics. We should not be praising a system that gives gold stars to those who go to college with no desire to learn.
Wonderful article, Lowell.
July 1st, 2012 10:54 am
Tiburon Dave
I gave up on football & basketball in major conferences long ago.
It’s nothing more than modern day slavery as young men pretend to go to school while damaging their bodies so the head coach can get paid $2,000,000 for glad handing fat cat alums, TV execs, and sometimes blowing a whistle.
Almost none of these kids get anything out of it other than a limp and a job at the lumber yard.
The only positive about the whole thing comes when AD’s feel guilty and skim a few bucks to help fund “non-revenue” sports. That’s typically where the last true student athletes toil.
July 1st, 2012 12:27 pm
B-Rad
60% of NBA players are broke 5 years after retirement – maybe during their 1 year
in college they should take an accounting course and a logic class.
…………….
You mentioned Harrison Barnes from North Carolina.
In a 2009 article, Forbes.com mentioned that the N.C. basketball created a
net income of $25,900,000 the previous year which went to:
1 – it’s university for academic purposes
2 – it’s athletic department
3 – it’s conference
4 – it’s local community ( estimated incremental spending by visitors
……to the county that’s attributable to the program)
July 1st, 2012 1:33 pm
Stan
I don’t think its as bad as that Lowell…your going by the sure to be drafted players. That leaves a couple thousand young men who DO know they better play well..to keep that scholarship and degree they will need in four short years. And some who cant wait to get to the NBA..end up sounding like Monta..or some of the other unrefined players who missed out on the fun of college. Its a wonder LeBron makes sense,seems modest for a man in his position..I give him that.
July 1st, 2012 2:03 pm
Lo Sbandato
The notion that staying in college for any number of years means anything is ridiculous. What is 3 years of remedial English and math and a bunch of pathetic liberal arts and PE classes going to do to make any impact on these players’ lives? It’s just more hypocrisy, that they should stay out of some misguided belief in the glorious ennobling touch of sitting through boring ass lectures for 4 years. It certainly means absolutely squat when it comes to who’s a good pro player.
The only reason Barnes stayed another year was the lockout. Green stayed because his draft status was never high enough to warrant leaving early. Ezeli is a special case, given his lack of background in organized ball, and he’s another who wouldn’t have been drafted before this year. Don’t go trying to make a virtue out of a necessity, especially a virtue of such dubious value.
July 1st, 2012 2:16 pm
Stan
Maybe Lo to you college is just “Four more years of High School”..and “Teachers dirty looks”..but for athletes who know they wont go to the NBA and do have interests in science (as an example)..meeting others who have great ideas and the like?.. that’s exciting. Its where you meet scholars who listen to your ideas. Or student peers. And smart chicks.
Not everybody will make the NBA or be in a great rock band..college for some is as close as they will come.
July 1st, 2012 2:27 pm
Ralph Melaragno
“One and done” has been in effect for a long time. That just reinforced my earlier decision to forget college basketball. I used to care about UCLA, my team, but not for a long time. Once I realized that the scholar-athletes of my era did not exist in today’s universities, I stopped caring.
However, the same issues are true for other college athletics—with two exceptions. Women’s sports don’t have the problem, and neither is it found in men’s gymnastics where the athletes are generally superior students.
When it comes to the big-time sports (football and basketball) the quality of teams depends on which non-students are brought aboard as hired guns. The Bruins lost me, and so did both spots in general.
July 1st, 2012 4:59 pm
Steve
I know the major sports generate a lot of money, but the real shame is that so much of it is squandered on full scholarships for the one and doners. There should be a rule that requires them to pay back in full every cent they received from the university when they hit the NBA lottery jackpot. And now there’s a movement to pay the players in addition to their scholarship – give me a break. I, too, have lost interest in college basketball. But on a related note: gotta love Andrew Luck; he missed part of his first OTA so he could take his finals and get his degree.
July 1st, 2012 7:15 pm
chris
gotta be happy with the Warriors first draft pick…….he spoke well and appeared intelligent……the kids from Kentucky that were drafted higher could barely put a sentence together while being interviewed.
July 1st, 2012 8:50 pm
Brady
Lo – If college is useless to some people (and it is), then they shouldn’t be in college. College is about education. It’s fine if you don’t want a higher education, but you shouldn’t go to college if you don’t.
July 1st, 2012 8:55 pm
Dennis
Brady, What is higher education and how long should it take? Can it be a night time course for adults or does it need to be 4 years or don’t bother going? Does it need to be a certain number of units and if so how many? What I think you are missing in this discussion is that colleges aren’t there to educate as much as they are there to make money. If they don’t make money first, they can’t educate. The fact is that colleges pay for all the other “student/athlete” sports programs on the back of these one year wonders and the football program. Without them, there would be no ‘student athletics’ because student athletics don’t make money. Title 9 saw to that.
July 2nd, 2012 7:35 am
Brady
Dennis – That’s actually not true. I just graduated from a very well respected college that is division 3 and thus makes no money off of athletics. They are doing just fine.
A friend of mine at the University of Oregon, says the football and basketball players get brand new $150 shoes “nearly every day of the week, or whenever they feel like it.” The money generated by college sports is then spent on….ding ding ding! college sports. Not on academics. “Student” athletes are pampered, given thousands of dollars of equipment, and state of the art facilities. If you think that the money a D1 football team gets is actually benefitting the academic aspect of the college, you are painfully naive.
July 2nd, 2012 12:45 pm
Dave T
Until Universities and Footwear/Apparrel companies can’t profit anymore from selling jerseys, t’shirts and anything else they can get a number on while the “student” athlete gets very little, then we will continue to have a system such as it is.
Look, I loved my college experience as well, but the fact is that most of the top -level athletes are just that, athletes, and they are in fact using the college system to get some higher level of coaching to better their prospects. One can only hope they get someone who can help mentor them, even a little bit, because if they went straight to a professional level, they would be even more grossly unprepared for not just life as a professional athlete, but life in general. The college “program” is likely the most structured thing they have ever had in their life and many fail even with that. I would like to see the NBA go the route of the NFL and it’s college rules, of at least 2 years or three years from graduation, to better prepare them. If that happens you might see a few more of them stick around for 3 or 4 years, heck, maybe even graduate early. It is possible…
July 2nd, 2012 2:21 pm
Dennis
Brady, You are correct, but I wasn’t talking about division 3 and neither was Lowell. And whatever the one year wonders get isn’t enough for all the money the schools are making off of them.
July 2nd, 2012 4:17 pm
Brady
But that’s my point, Dennis. If Division 3 schools don’t need athletic-generated money, neither do division 1 schools. And the only place that athletics-generated money goes to is athletics. If you think a music department or environmental program benefits from a football team playing on national television, you’re wrong.
July 2nd, 2012 8:27 pm
Dennis
Brady, They almost got rid of the Cal Berkeley baseball program because they could not afford it. Now why would that be?
July 3rd, 2012 7:09 am
Brady
Dennis, why is that relevant? Obviously they couldn’t afford the baseball team because it wasn’t generating any money. College baseball generates very little money.
But that is completely tangential to what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that the $100M + that Cal’s football team makes goes to….Cal’s football team. Not the academic part of Cal.
July 3rd, 2012 1:46 pm
Dennis
Baseball programs are afforded one the backs of basketball and football programs. Cal has not had any 1 year wonders and their football program has not been to a bowl game in, I can’t remember. Thus no money for baseball. Add that is my point: The schools make a lot of money off of their basketball and football programs and spend it on Title 9 compliance and other sports programs that can’t pay for themselves. Everybody wins.
July 4th, 2012 7:03 am