Whitlock talks about race too much for my cup of tea, but he is a good writer and after being the only one to call out Mark Schwarz as an azzclown he earned my respect here is his idea to fix college basketball from his article . Only change I would make is that kids could leave after their Junior year like they can in college baseball.
http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebas...tes-can-work-if-you-follow-these-steps-041013
Here’s my project/proposal for Adam Silver, the NCAA and the NBA players association. This proposal is strictly for men’s college basketball. It’s a yearly $60 million proposal that should be split 50-50 between the NBA and the NCAA.
Step 1: Get the NBPA to agree to change the draft eligibility requirements to four years after you graduated from high school or age 22.
Step 2: The NBA starts the NBA Summer Internship Program, which is a one-month program that includes basketball instruction, classes about the NBA, professional athletics and life skills. This program would be paid for by the shoe companies and a TV network that would broadcast a small handful of games from the Summer Internship Program.
Step 3: The NBA and the NCAA — through scouting, recommendations and high school academic achievement — identify the top 100 high school seniors entering college basketball. Enroll those 100 players in the NBA Summer Internship Program that pays them $100,000 each. The players would receive half the money in two checks received at the start of each semester. The other half would be invested conservatively by the NCAA/NBA and given to player upon the completion of his four years of eligibility.
Step 4: The initial 100 class will be trimmed to 75 when they become sophomores. All college basketball sophomores at any level will be eligible to apply for the NBA SIP. The NBA and the NCAA — through scouting, recommendations and academic achievement as a college freshman — will identify the 75 sophomores. They will be ranked 1 to 75 based primarily on their NBA prospects but also on their academic achievement. The top 25 sophomores will be paid $175,000. The next 50 will be paid $125,000. Again, they’ll receive half of their money in two checks at the beginning of each semester. The other half of their money will be invested conservatively by the NCAA/NBA and given to the player upon the completion of his four years of eligibility.
Step 5: The following year the NCAA/NBA will identify 75 juniors using the same criteria. Everything will remain the same except the top 25 juniors will earn $275,000 and the next 50 will get $225,000.
Step 6: The senior class will be trimmed to 50. The top 25 receive $500,000 and the next 25 receive $350,000. Everything else remains the same.
By Year 4 of my system, there are 300 basketball players — 100 freshmen, 75 sophomores and juniors and 50 seniors — enrolled in the NBA SIP. That’s a payroll right around $60 million. It’s a bargain for the NBA and the NCAA. Instead of having unprepared, no-passionate-fans kids tying up space on an NBA roster, NBA owners would get 22-year-old TV stars and superstars entering their league. The NCAA and its television partners would get ratings-driving stars in their sophomore, junior and senior seasons.
College coaches wouldn’t lose their leverage over their best players. They would get kids incentivized to embrace the academic process and coaching because academic achievement and recommendations would play a role in whether a player could enroll in the NBA SIP. A player would be very reluctant to transfer because he wouldn’t be eligible for the NBA SIP during the year he sat out as a transfer. If a player ran into academic trouble and needed summer school, it would prevent him from participating in the NBA SIP.
The kids would benefit because the best players would earn $1 million over four years and half of it would be conservatively invested and given to them as they entered the workforce. They would also benefit from the chance to mature on a college campus.
Obviously, this plan would need to be refined and safeguards would have to be put in place to protect the athlete. I’d make the athletes sign an agreement forbidding them from taking out any loans (or co-signing) during their four years in college. No credit cards, either. You would want a wall to protect them from themselves and predatory lenders.
As for the non-NBA prospects and role players? I say grant any Division I player who doesn’t qualify for the NBA SIP as a junior or senior a fifth year of playing eligibility and one year as a full-time traditional student. That’s right. Six years of school. Many of the athletes arrive on campus academically unprepared. Why not give them two extra years to catch up? And why not give the prepared ones, two years to work on a graduate degree?
As much as I regret not playing football my fifth year at Ball State (and I deeply regret it), the chance to spend one year as a legitimate full-time student has paid off for me tremendously. I worked for the school newspaper and actually made good grades. All of these athletes, particularly at age 22 or 23 when they might appreciate it, deserve one year on campus solely as a student.
