AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > April > 06
Friday, April 6, 2007
Show ‘em the money!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The next time someone tries to sell you on the sanctity of the college game and the virtues of the “student-athlete” and the growth and development that’s supposed to happen during s0-called best four years of your life, remember this time.
Remember the days and weeks following the Final Four every year when the posturing, money grabbing and filthy underbelly of college basketball is exposed for all to see.
Guys like Billy Donovan will forever escape my wrath in this instance, because he’s proved with his action and his words that he’s about something more than the almighty dollar. But there are others - Billy Gillespie, Bob Huggins and friends you know who you are (you saw the Creighton coach doing the pig-sooey dance one day and then shuffling back to Omaha the next after a change of heart about taking the Arkansas job) - whose actions can only make me wonder how anyone, fan, parent, recruit and otherwise, can buy the steaming hot pile of garbage most of these coaches are selling.
In most cases, loyalty in college basketball is just a seven-letter word attached to a seven-figure salary. And if you’re school is willing to pay, there are bevy of supposed teachers of the game willing to shift allegiances immediately to ply their trade in the name of Old State U.
This is the same reason I went on that tirade a few weeks back about this idea of players improving with more and more years of college (who has time to develop players when you’re waiting around for the Final Four to go on safari for a new job?). Unfortunately for us (watchers of the game), there is seldom such skill development at the college level. I tried to make this point before and many of you assumed it was Blog-Z talking from inexperience. But I’ve seen how the college game works from the inside and out over the span of the past 18 years. And I’m telling you, this notion that the more college the better most players become is an absolute myth.
That’s why I hope they all declare for the draft. And I’m talking about Greg Oden, Kevin Durant and the rest of the youngsters who feel the urge (the Florida boys already did, which I think we can all agree was a wise move). If these guys wanted to move on from their respective schools to another simply because it was a better offer or a better fit, they’d be penalized. The coaches go on about their business with a wink and a nod and no one seems to care.
It’s a ridiculous system, fortified by the NBA’s foolish age-limit rule that has absolutely no positive impact anywhere other than the bank accounts of CBS and the universities cashing those NCAA Tournament revenue checks.
But then again, money is all we’re talking about anyway. Everybody wants somebody to show ‘em the money. Yet somehow the players who bolt for the money are chastised for doing so while the coaches who do it are celebrated as saviors at the new schools they’re paid to lead.
April 29 (the deadline day for underclassmen to declare for the June NBA draft) can’t get here fast enough for me. I hope the names keeps pouring in as fast as these college coaches change jobs.
