Why Not Go Pro?

[Dan_ref]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/opinion/06SHIE.html

May 6, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Why Not Go Pro?
By DAVID SHIELDS

SEATTLE — The decision by Sebastian Telfair, the basketball star from Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, to enter the N.B.A. draft is being met with the predictable finger-wagging. Following the Supreme Court's rejection of a plea by the football player Maurice Clarett to be allowed to enter the N.F.L. draft after his sophomore year at Ohio State, it's bound to strengthen the resolve of David Stern, the N.B.A. commissioner, to enact a minimum age requirement of 20 for his draft. "The reason I'm in favor of an age limit is not because young players can't play," Stern has said. "But I think it's better for them to stay in school."

Better for whom? Some 80 percent of high schoolers drafted by the N.B.A. since 1995 became multimillionaires by the age of 21. Of the 29 prep stars who declared for the draft and hired an agent between 1975 and 2003, nine — including Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett — became stars, and all but three have had decent careers. And Telfair has already signed an endorsement contract with Adidas that he says will pay $15 million.

Considering the relatively brief careers of professional athletes, teenagers who are good enough to play at the highest level should be able to exploit that market. The N.F.L.'s rule on underclassmen should be abolished, and the N.B.A. should be discouraged from adding an age limit.

For the third consecutive year, the No. 1 pick in the N.B.A. draft will probably be a high-schooler — perhaps Dwight Howard of Atlanta. Seven of the first 10 players selected could be high schoolers. Most every N.B.A. team's director of personnel has said Telfair should go to college, but added that he would probably be a lottery pick — one of the first 13 players chosen and thus the recipient of a multimillion-dollar contract.

I suspect the real reason the N.F.L. and N.B.A. don't want high schoolers and college underclassmen to play with their ball is that they don't want to jeopardize their relationship with National Collegiate Athletic Association, which serves as a sort of free minor league and unpaid promotional department for the pros. The N.C.A.A. is a multibillion-dollar business built on the talents of players who are often unqualified for or uninterested in being students and who benefit materially from the system only if they are among the few who turn professional.

Teenage pros are hardly limited to football and basketball. In his first season of professional hockey, Wayne Gretzky was 18. The new star of Major League Soccer is 14-year-old Freddy Adu. John McEnroe turned pro after his freshman year at Stanford. Tiger Woods did so after his sophomore year. Venus Williams and her sister Serena left school in their early teens to play tennis. Gary Sheffield entered the major leagues at 19, as did Mickey Mantle.

Most baseball players don't attend college, and few graduate. Only 22 percent of the players in the N.H.L. attended college. Yet there is never an outcry over youthful debuts in hockey, soccer, tennis, golf and baseball. Why not? Here's my guess: those sports are dominated by whites, while 78 percent of N.B.A. players and 65 percent of N.F.L. players are black.

Americans are rightly shamed over our nation's racial history. But, perversely, in the sporting world this guilt seems to be expressed through a tendency for white people — coaches, sports writers and commissioners — to play guardian to black teenagers in a way they wouldn't think of doing to white ones. Sebastian Telfair is old enough to vote and to die for his country in war. He — along with his basketball and football peers — is old enough to get paid.


David Shields is the author of "Body Politic: The Great American Sports Machine."