The New York Times had an article today on "one and done" players who spend their freshmen year in college before going to the pros.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/23/sports/ncaabasketball/23ncaa.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

The Times article was generally positive, with Greg Oden of Ohio State (an honor roll student in high school) talking about the benefits of being in the college environment for a year. Players like Oden, who already have NBA ability, are in college for their freshmen season mainly because an NBA rule keeps them there. Players must be 19 and one year removed from high school to apply.

There is a point missing in all this and that is the question of when a college student is really a college student. Are players who leave for the pros after a year really representing their college, or are they hired guns passing through town on the way to the big pay day? If that's the case, what do Greg Oden and Daequon Cook at OSU or Kevin Durant at Texas really have to do with the schools they play for?

Put another way. Suppose you're applying for college and you get to the essay section of the application. Try telling Home Town U. that your intention is to hang around campus for a year and leave to get a job. Better still, that you intend to blow off most your second semester courses to work on getting ready for what you'll be doing next year. The college admissions personnel might rightly ask why you deserve a place in their freshman class over students who might actually graduate? Or why faculty should waste their time on you, or your peers have their time wasted by your presence in class?

Take it from the player's point of view. How would you feel if you were the next Bill Gates and were forced to attend college for nine months before going off to invent the next big thing? It's an absurd proposition, but one the NBA and NCAA have devised for their own financial benefit. Players like Oden are on record as resenting the rule, but so far it hasn't been challenged in court.

The NBA's minimum age rule has no compelling reason behind it. It doesn't protect players from physical harm (after all they will play in the league in just one more year). The arguement that it protects players from foolishly declaring for the draft and then not being drafted is, at best, paternalistic and insulting. So, why does the rule exist?

The NCAA likes the rule because without it the truely great players will never spend so much as a day on campus. They would like a rule that puts LeBron James in their employ for four years, but if a year is all they can get they will take it. The NBA wants GMs to be protected from their own unwise decisions in drafting players they have seen compete only against high school players. They want the league's future players to spend a year in the minors so they can evaluate them against older competition.  Nest season O.J. Mayo will be at USC.  Mainly, according to his advisors, because he wants to associate himself with USC's athletic success for later endorsement reasons.

Recently, Congress looked at removing the NCAA's tax exempt status. It won't happen, but it is past time. When it comes to the revenue sports, the NCAA is running minor league sports teams and exploiting their employees. It's time for the NCAA to go out of business, and for college sports to go back to having some connection to the institutions it represents.