January 15, 2010
Education Secretary Urges N.B.A. to Drop Age Limits
By KATIE THOMAS

ATLANTA — Education Secretary Arne Duncan entered one of the most contentious debates in college sports on Thursday when, in a speech at the N.C.A.A. Convention, he called for stricter consequences for college teams that fail to graduate their athletes and asked the National Basketball Association to do away with its age-minimum policy.

“Why do we allow the N.C.A.A, why do we allow our university, why do we allow sports to be tainted when the vast majority of coaches and athletes are striving to instill the right values?” said Duncan, who was a co-captain of his Harvard basketball team and played in an Australian professional league from 1987 until 1991.

He said his time as a college athlete was one of the most formative periods of his life, but feared the N.B.A.’s age rule, which requires that a player be at least 19 years old and at least one year removed from high school before entering the league, sets young athletes up for failure.

“They are simply passing through your institutions on their way to something else,” he told the audience of university presidents, college athletic officials and N.C.A.A. bureaucrats. “Some of them make it, some of them wash out very, very quickly.”

Duncan also said basketball coaches and the universities that hire them can do better at graduating their star athletes, and recommended the N.C.A.A. adopt legislation to penalize programs that do not attain a certain graduation rate, perhaps by not permitting them to play in postseason competition. He said 25 of the teams in last season’s men’s basketball tournament graduated fewer than 40 percent of their players. “If you can’t graduate two out of five of your players, what are they doing at your university?” he said.

The N.B.A. age policy has been controversial nearly since it was initiated in 2005 as part of the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the union. Critics have said the policy essentially forces athletes to attend college when they have no desire to do so and represents a double standard because sports with a large number of black players, such as basketball, impose age restrictions while those with mostly white players, such as hockey and baseball, do not.

Some say the basketball rule has been ineffective in encouraging athletes to pursue a college education and has led instead to a parade of so-called one-and-done athletes who breeze through a year of college before entering the professional draft. In 2008, the high school player Brandon Jennings opted to play in a professional league in Italy rather than spend a year in college.

Last June, Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, called the N.B.A. rule a “vestige of slavery”, and the union has said it expects to revisit the issue when the collective bargaining agreement, which expires in 2011, is renegotiated.

Meanwhile, N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern, who has advocated raising the age limit to 20, has said the policy is about hiring athletes who have matured as players, not about nudging them to attend college. Players also have the option of competing for a year in the N.B.A. Development League. Foreign players must be at least 19 years old, but they are not required to be out of high school for one year.

While the age restrictions are decided by the professional leagues, Myles Brand, the former N.C.A.A. president, who died last year, supported the policy, saying that although the basketball rule was not perfect, it was better than no rule at all.

In remarks after his speech, Duncan said that he had discussed his views on the N.B.A. policy with Stern, and that baseball’s policy — in which athletes are allowed to enter the draft either immediately after high school or three years later — could be a better model.

Duncan’s remarks were the latest example of the Obama administration’s willingness to voice an opinion on some of the hottest debates in college sports. Obama, an acknowledged sports fanatic, has expressed his support for a playoff system in college football.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Otherwise why force a kid to go to school it it's clearly only to play basketball.

Pro Hockey 16-19 years old that give up scholarships instead to play in canada get tuition paid as part of compensation if they so choose. I know a few players who at 21 are not gonna make it and are back in school but with tuition paid.

Baseball does similar if kids come out of highschool and right into minors.

NCAA basketball is the minors for the NBA.

Is one year of education really suck a waste? We are not talking about a lot of players here. NBA drafts 60 players in two rounds. Of those, maybe 40 will make rosters?

Junior High players can move to europe and do that if it so suits them. Nobody stopped Jennings or the other kid who is in Isreal. Jennings is wearing out shooting 25% this month and average down to 10 pts a game.

few pro players in any sport is really physically ready for prime time.

We talking 5-10 players a year at most who could benefit.

What about this, Let the NBA draft the kids and pay for thier educaton and pay them based on a fair rookie schedule and the schools deveope an education plan around them. Some can get degrees after they leave or others stay 4 years. Its a hybrid but it could work.

So Kobe could have played a year for Duke while his rights owned by the Hornets and paid by the Hornets to be in school.

Not all critics of the NCAA are on the money.

Too many players are not getting to the pros, too bad they can't take advantage.

if the school is good or has a large fan base, the football and mens basketball programs will not end up - on the balance sheet (very few womens programs make $$$, tenn and uconn women bball i think are among the exceptions). you can for sure see the angle of the bigger programs wanting the age limit, at least for bball.

orangeblobman wrote:interesting that womens programs don't make cash money. the ncaa should not exist, this is the problem at hand. something real fishy.

considering the cost of the sport (coaches salaries, travel, etc) vs revenue (ticket sales, concessions, etc), its easy to see how many of the mens and womens sports lose $$$. elite programs in any sport for either gender may break even or generate some +'s on the balance sheet.

ncaa allows scholarships to be renewed every year... consider that and see what happened at kentucky recently when calipari came in. a few guys basically were told to get lost so he could bring in better players. ncaa punishes schools for recruiting violations yet coaches involved can walk away (unless you are todd bozeman and a few others) at the drop of a hat. incredibly lame.

yet, i wouldnt do the 'no age limit' until the nba gets itself a legit minor league system. seeing "pros" learning OTJ sucks badly.

orangeblobman wrote:

sidsanders wrote:

orangeblobman wrote:interesting that womens programs don't make cash money. the ncaa should not exist, this is the problem at hand. something real fishy.

considering the cost of the sport (coaches salaries, travel, etc) vs revenue (ticket sales, concessions, etc), its easy to see how many of the mens and womens sports lose $$$. elite programs in any sport for either gender may break even or generate some +'s on the balance sheet.

ncaa allows scholarships to be renewed every year... consider that and see what happened at kentucky recently when calipari came in. a few guys basically were told to get lost so he could bring in better players. ncaa punishes schools for recruiting violations yet coaches involved can walk away (unless you are todd bozeman and a few others) at the drop of a hat. incredibly lame.

yet, i wouldnt do the 'no age limit' until the nba gets itself a legit minor league system. seeing "pros" learning OTJ sucks badly.

It does suck watching them learn on the job, lol. And a legit minor system would be great.

What's really alarming is that even elite teams generate very little income or break even. What's wrong with this picture? What should alarm people, I think, is that these 'student-athletes' are being subsidized by and to the detriment of real students, the ones that go to college to learn.

The biggest losers here are not the NCAA players, but the students that are unfairly propping up a very fishy system.

that isnt totally fair though. most athletic depts have a sep budget and all try and break even. some aspects of the sports programs are picked up by boosters and donations through various sports related rally groups. if its an elite basketball or football program, id wager the likelihood of those schools making $$$ is very high (plus boosters and donations go up), or at least the AD is breaking even as the big rev sports pay for all the others... there is a reason the larger conferences want to keep who is in the bcs small... consider what happened with the miami hurricanes.... the school was able to add academic facilities via the football teams success. heck, applications go up considerably (non refundable app FEEEES!!!). my school saw this when they won a natty in 2002 basketball (go TERPS!!!).

as you dig into this, you find things arent always as clear as it appears, like most things. you will find cheaters, waste, and schools using sports to pay for other aspects of the school. you will also find decent balance as well.

check this site: http://ope.ed.gov you can look at expenses and rev for quite a number of schools. quite interesting. i looked at mine (2008) and the mens programs made $$$ because of basketball and football and the womens totals were in the negative area, no shock.