The NCAA filed a brief yesterday in support of the NFL in their effort to prevent players from entering the league until they are three years out of high school. Well, no surprise there. The NCAA certainly has an interest in seeing that their supply of revenue generating free labor doesn't dry up.
But doesn't that strike you as just plain wrong? These players go to college to get an education. Not the type of education that you would immediately think, since their scholarships are all but worthless. These football players are, in many cases, underprepared for the rigors of college and, even were their preparations adequate, the demands that athletics makes on them makes it impossible to take advantage of their opportunity to study towards a college degree. NCAA regulations to the contrary, most of them work more than 40 hours a week on their athletics with a demanding travel schedule thrown in half the year to boot. But that doesn't mean that they aren't in college to get an education. Most of them, unlikely as their prospects might seem, are there to be trained in the vocation of football. And why not? That's the career they've chosen and to pursue it they have to go to college. I wouldn't begrudge them their ambitions any more than I would those of an aspiring artist or musician or history professor.
What's wrong is the NCAA, which should be looking out for their interests, undermining them. Can you think of any other discipline where colleges conspire with employers to prevent their students from getting jobs?
Comments