Turning Pro

This week’s blog is about the rhetoric of becoming a pro athlete. I know that I’ve already talked about the rhetoric of being pressured as a phenom, but what about the ultimate goal of those “student” athletes.

With stars like LeBron James or Kobe Bryant who leave straight from high school to go to their respective professional leagues, what kind of message does that send to today’s youth? Though those two examples are extreme, the amount of times that it happens really isn’t that small.

Think about the Major League Baseball draft – oddly enough (and against statistical advice) most teams draft high school players. Personally, I know three kids that got drafted before any of us went to college. Those three guys all went on to college (in baseball, you can deny your drafting and go to college anyway), but it isn’t always the case.

The NBA started seeing what they thought was too much of this “lack of higher education” and so they made what people now call the “one and done” rule. Quite simply, the NBA now requires that before declaring eligible for the draft, draftees must play one year of college basketball. Football has a similar rule (you need to be at least an academic junior).

In baseball, though many suspect a similar ruling coming, there is not yet one in place. Just two years ago the Washington Nationals drafted a 17 year old for instance named Bryce Harper, heralded as the next big thing.

The controversy in all of this, like many things, deals with the money involved. Say you’re a kid from a family who needs the money, how can you turn down millions guaranteed in your rookie contract, to go to college for a few years while your family still struggles to get by? This is the argument that many of the kids are faced with.

Unfortunately, because playing careers don’t last forever, and many of the athletes turn out to be busts, they are left with an inadequate education. Because, this last part is unforeseeable, it is why the decision is so hotly debated. More than anything else, the people whose careers end up not working out, often terribly regret their decision to forgo school. And they become the biggest advocates for education over immediate immersion into professional sports.