Re: The Boston Celtics Mailing List Dige

["Nissen, David" <DNissen@ventnds1.telstra.com.au>]

This is slightly of the current thread, but I though it might spark a little

interest and/or get a few soap boxes out of storage :)

A couple of friends of mine and I, while pondering the whole college 
basket ball thing, came up with a solution that we feel addresses many of
the 
problems associated with having atheletes busting their guts to perform for 
their college sporting team, while still keeping up their grades.  I admit 
that not being Americans we may be making some nieve assumptions re: your 
college system, but here are our theories for you to mull over, flame etc :)

First the motivations:

1) The colleges want the best players because the sports bring in a lot of 
money and help raise the overall profile of the college.  IE in many ways, 
the academic side of things can be viewed as a favor from the college for
the 
service the players provide by playing for the team.  This however appears
to 
be less of an incentive than it once was.

2) Some players want an education, but couldn't get it for one reason or 
another, without a sporting scholorship.

3) Some players want to become professional sports people and view the 
academic side of it as a necessary evil.

3) Some players are part way between 2 & 3


The proposed solution:

1) Seperate the sport from the academic side of college, ie some people go
to 
college to study Medicine, others Law or Libral Arts etc, some people go to 
college to study their sport.  Instead of forcing people to study basket 
making between practice sessions and games, get them studying their game - 
eg  Tactics, basic physical education, basic physiotheripy, history of the 
sport etc.  In short, give them skills that will be useful to them as
players 
and could help them get related jobs (eg coach, PE teacher etc) if they
never 
make it to the big time or for after their carrer has ended.  Hopefully many

players will find such courses interesting as well as useful. Some people 
will still find this a turn off, so let them concentrate more on their game 
and less on the theory - remember, they are performing a service for the 
college every time they help to win a game.

 
2) For those that want to concentrate on their sport(s), but also want an 
academic education, give them vouches or something similar, allowing them to

come back and try a more academic degree after their sporting life is over.

In this way, people who have the smarts and the sporting skills have a
chance 
to excel at both, rather than having to choose one or the other, or possibly

risking being mediocre at both.


3) With the extra time spent on the game, some game related skills that will

both benifit people while playing the game and possibly after, and the 
prospect of getting that education thing if the sport thing doesn't pan out,

is cut short etc, hopefully more sporting people will be encouraged to go to

and stay in college, and the standard of rookie will be improved by the
extra 
experience and skills.


OK, so this is our solution, what do those of you who are actually familiar 
with the American college system have to say / suggest ?


            Have fun,

                        David N.
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>         Reply to:   Re: The Boston Celtics Mailing List Digest V5 #314
It will be interesting to see what happens with the CBA. Besides this new 
"college pro" league, there is another startup league (the International 
Basketball League) that's looking to compete head to head against the CBA. 
The CBA is planning to counterattack by hiring Spike Lee to design a new
logo 
and image! And I think I read they're trying to rework their deal with the 
NBA - right now the league gets just a few million dollars from "The
League," 
and in exchange they can get their best players called up at any time, which

makes it difficult to build a fan base. I think they want to have CBA teams 
affiliate with NBA teams, as in the minor league baseball system.
You're right that college scholarships, from a dollar value perspective, do 
amount to 'paying' collegiate players, but as we've already noted, many of 
these players arent necessarily interetsed in an education anyway -- they
see 
college hoops as a stage on which to gain notoriety and springboard to the 
pros. So how 'valuable' to them is this commodity they're receiving, 
especially when they have to put in long hours just to make the minimum 
grades that will allow them to play -- on top of which, they're not given
any 
spending money OR the right to get a part time job to earn some? Can anybody

out there explain to me how an athlete who plays minor-league pro baseball
in 
the summers, and receives money for it, can still retain his collegiate 
athletic eligibility, but a player can't get a pizza delivery job during the

year to earn some beer money? At least that's my understanding of how it 
works.

Jim Meninno wrote:
>I'm curious about that league too, although I have to say I would rather 
>there was a professional developmental league akin to minor league 
>baseball.  If you ask me, major college athletic programs are >professional

already.  Considering that the scholarships athletes are >given are worth, 
what 20, 30 grand a year or more at some schools.  >Consider that the 
athletes often couldn't come close to fulfilling the >entrance requirements 
at these schools, it seems that they are simply >being paid to play sports.
>
>I don't know much about the CBA, but you don't seem to get players with
>NBA 
potential heading there straight from high school as an alternative >to 
college.  That's too bad, in my opinion.  I think minor league >baseball 
helps ensure that the players are much better grounded in the >fundamentals 
than in basketball.  Just think how much better prepared >players would be
if 
they were playing professionally for a few years >before entering the NBA. 
 Of course, if a player had the aptitude and >desire to attend college, that

road would still be open to him.
>