Ruling in Favor of Clarett Could Open Huge Hole Into N.F.L. – Football may come to resemble basketball, with underclassmen leaving school earlier or attempting to jump from high school to the National Football League, if Maurice Clarett’s successful challenge to the league’s eligibility requirement is upheld, coaches, administrators and other experts said yesterday.
[ “(extlink)NYTimes”:http://www.nytimes.com ]
I’m not sure this is necessarily a bad thing. College in many ways has become less of an academic qualification, and more of a default stage of life. I can’t help but think that if everyone who was attending college was actually there because they were interested in a degree that the level of work would increase, as would the value of that degree.
It seems that there is a large number of students currently at colleges (I was probably one of them) who would greatly benefit from taking some time off between HS and college. In many towns however, that kind of break is almost unthinkable. I can only imagine what my parents reaction to the thought of their son not attending college would have been.
If students had time to get the independence steam out of their system, and really assess what they wanted out of college and life before committing to school and earning a degree, I can only think that they would benefit.
I’m still undecided wheather or not athletes should jump from high school to the NFL, but I will say that I’m terrified that you’ll get a lot of seedy, slimy agents start talking to kids about fortunes and women availble to them should they go pro.
Is it worse for the kids to have a shot at training straight for the pros than to put them in schools where they’re not learning?