So there is a group of folks out there, known as the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Sports, would like the NCAA to limit participation in championship games to school were 50% of their student athletes are on a pace to graduate with at least a four year degree. They seem to feel that with the runaway budgets of College sports these days added to the lack of attention to classroom performance is undermining the integrity of higher learning in the United States.
I think they have a very valid point. More than success on the field we need the student’s athletes of today to be educated. A professional sports career will hardly last a lifetime, and these young men and women must have something to fall back once their playing days are over. There are only so many coaching and analyst jobs to go around. Selling out ones education for glory on the field is misguided short term plan; someone must get through to these students and educate them.
Personally I would like to see every league develop a rule like the NFL. A player in the NFL draft must be three years removed from his senior year of high school. For the most part this forces kids to go to college, because they still want to play and have three years before the can cash in the NFL.
In the NBA the rule is one year removed from high school, and that undermines the whole idea of College. One kid gets a full ride scholarship to a University potentially taking that away from a more deserving student, only to dump it a year later and enter the NBA. School must come first, as a 33 year old man who just finished his under graduate degree, I sincerly wish I had gone to College right out of high school. That way my focus would be solely on my career at this point, not both school and work.
