Lexington Herald Leader Editorial Suggests: 'One And Done' Has Consequences: UK Trustees Must Determine Direction.
'One and done' has consequences
UK trustees must determine direction
The four freshman basketball players leaving the team this year were not really at the University of Kentucky as scholars, even though they received scholarships.
They weren't the student-athletes the National Collegiate Athletics Association lauds. They are talented athletes who needed a high-profile place to spend the requisite year before entering the National Basketball Association Draft.
There's nothing wrong with that from the players' perspectives. They made perfectly well-reasoned calculations about their careers.
The disconnect, the irrationality rests with the universities. They exist to educate, yet they are recruiting people who come with the fervent hope they won't stay to earn a degree, or even complete two semesters of class work.
UK President Lee T. Todd Jr., recently acknowledged that to Herald-Leader sports reporter Jerry Tipton. "It's a system problem," he said.
Todd, who will soon join the NCAA Division I Board of Directors, said he plans to raise the issue of one-and-dones there. Tipton reported that Todd is favorable to baseball's approach in which players can go professional after high school, but if they choose college, they are committed for three seasons.
A Kentucky native who earned a doctorate and succeeded in engineering, Todd campaigned for his job saying Kentucky would be a better place with a better-educated population.
He has to wince when the annual accounting of graduation rates in big-time college basketball programs are released. This year Kentucky, although seeded No. 1 in the tournament, was sixth lowest among 65 teams in graduation rates, with a pitiful 31 percent.
But Todd also has been in his job long enough to know you don't mess with basketball unless someone's got your back. That has to be his board of trustees. When the excitement over this remarkable season and these thrilling players dies down a bit, Todd and the trustees need to talk this over.
They need to determine — regardless of Coach John Calipari's skill at recruiting the rising stars — just how much they want the basketball program to become a one-year training camp for the NBA. And they need to weigh what consequences that could have, fairly or unfairly, on building a reputation as a top research university.
Whatever the solution, this problem can't be allowed to fester and undermine, in the most public way, the university's central mission.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/04/28/1242420.html#ixzz0mPAUS3oj
UK trustees must determine direction
The four freshman basketball players leaving the team this year were not really at the University of Kentucky as scholars, even though they received scholarships.
They weren't the student-athletes the National Collegiate Athletics Association lauds. They are talented athletes who needed a high-profile place to spend the requisite year before entering the National Basketball Association Draft.
There's nothing wrong with that from the players' perspectives. They made perfectly well-reasoned calculations about their careers.
The disconnect, the irrationality rests with the universities. They exist to educate, yet they are recruiting people who come with the fervent hope they won't stay to earn a degree, or even complete two semesters of class work.
UK President Lee T. Todd Jr., recently acknowledged that to Herald-Leader sports reporter Jerry Tipton. "It's a system problem," he said.
Todd, who will soon join the NCAA Division I Board of Directors, said he plans to raise the issue of one-and-dones there. Tipton reported that Todd is favorable to baseball's approach in which players can go professional after high school, but if they choose college, they are committed for three seasons.
A Kentucky native who earned a doctorate and succeeded in engineering, Todd campaigned for his job saying Kentucky would be a better place with a better-educated population.
He has to wince when the annual accounting of graduation rates in big-time college basketball programs are released. This year Kentucky, although seeded No. 1 in the tournament, was sixth lowest among 65 teams in graduation rates, with a pitiful 31 percent.
But Todd also has been in his job long enough to know you don't mess with basketball unless someone's got your back. That has to be his board of trustees. When the excitement over this remarkable season and these thrilling players dies down a bit, Todd and the trustees need to talk this over.
They need to determine — regardless of Coach John Calipari's skill at recruiting the rising stars — just how much they want the basketball program to become a one-year training camp for the NBA. And they need to weigh what consequences that could have, fairly or unfairly, on building a reputation as a top research university.
Whatever the solution, this problem can't be allowed to fester and undermine, in the most public way, the university's central mission.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/04/28/1242420.html#ixzz0mPAUS3oj
Labels: News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 8:28 AM
1 Comments:
So, I assume, the UofK BOT would be willing to return the untold millions of dollars that these four earned the University in revenue, some of which most likely went to academic scholarships and activities?
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