So let’s get this straight, NBA Commish Adam Silver wants to raise the league eligibility age requirement for entering the draft at the same time collegiate star athletes are complaining of going to bed hungry?
Man, what’s a poor, worth millions in equity, young, gifted and black teenage athlete to do?
UConn star guard Shabazz Napier added yet another cathedral-sized layer to the biggest mismatch in the history of sportsdom earlier this week when he revealed there have been times when he and his teammates have gone to bed “starving” enroute to leading the Huskies to the shiny, gold encrusted trophy — not to mention the millions in added revenue — they recently hoisted as newly minted NCAA champions.
It’s simply no contest. The NCAA is running game like nobody’s business over overwhelmed, underserved student athletes across the globe and Napier’s lament, heart-wrenching as it surely pulsates, is but a footnote amid an institution built on unabashed ruthlessness.
NBA league owners hosted NCAA president Mark Emmert this week to better coordinate NCAA and NBA business and while I wouldn’t as yet go as far as to assert Silver is working in conjunction with the man to essentially further step on the necks of vulnerable athletes everywhere, there’s no denying there are times when pure evil can run so deep it can permeate everything and anything around it as it relates to bottom-line results.
I say that to say Adam Silver may just be caught up. Caught up in being so desperate to do what he and his owners think is best for their league, namely coming face-to-face with more polished and mature would-be rookie players at first glance by increasing the age requirements from 19 to 20, he may be leaving himself open to entering into a deal that, as currently constructed, cripples them as much as any imaginable.
“If we’re going to be successful in raising the age limit, part and parcel in those negotiations goes to the treatment of players on those college campuses and closing the gap between what their scholarships cover and their expenses,” Silver told ESPN. “We haven’t looked specifically at creating a financial incentive for them to stay in college. That’s been an option that has been raised over the years, but that’s not something that is on the table right now.”
Well, Mr. Commish sans putting some of the money they earn in their pockets, you might, at the very, want to start making certain a little more cheddar is invested in their weekly meal plans. Scratch that, Emmert and the NCAA made sure to do just that this week by eliminating all restrictions on food for athletes.
It’s all so vintage NCAA, only what do what is surely required, only do what’s essential to bring the least amount of attention to just how little it is they’re truly doing for all those who make them who they are.
As for the Napier situation, Emmert told ESPN “the biggest problem was the NCAA has historically had all kinds of dumb rules about food. The infamous one is you can provide between meals a snack, but you can’t provide a meal. Well, then you got to define what’s the difference between a snack and a meal? So it was literally the case that a bagel was defined as a snack — unless you put cream cheese on it. Now it becomes a meal. That’s absurd.”
Almost as absurd and heartless as the NCAA itself.
