IN OTHER SPORTS:
Softball enters pivotal weekend

Sports Shots

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From the Press Box
By Nathan Bierma

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You can almost hear the ivy peeling off the walls at austere Duke University. Last week the school’s celebrated tradition – and, yes, a bit of its snooty elitism – suffered major dents as Elton Brand and William Avery became the first Blue Devil basketball players to enter the NBA Draft before graduating.

As much as the news serve to jolt the school’s apoplectic fans and sage coach Mike Krysewski (who said he supported Brand’s decision but not Avery’s), there is broader reason to worry for the greater basketball public, both college and pro.

You may think I’m overreacting just because I’m a die-hard Blue Devil who was born one Avery three pointer away from Cameron Indoor Stadium at the campus hospital. But the departure of these two truly signals a full-fledged epidemic. If Avery and Brand couldn’t find reason to stay at a prestigious college and play for one of the best coaches anywhere on a team rich with tradition and rivalries – and with a heck of a lot to prove after flopping in the Final Four – it’s hard to imagine future talented college sophomores summoning more reason to return to school.

Avery and Brand just are not ready yet. It’s our problem because this is ruining the college AND pro games.

College, because the game’s star power is decaying and team identity is evaporating.

Pro, because the league is collecting soaked-behind-the-ears players who couldn’t hit a jumper if the rim were a hula hoop.

Refresh my memory: was that Brand or somebody ELSE plowing over Mateen Cleeves like a sports utility vehicle to collect a crippling fourth foul in the Final Four? Wasn’t that Brand who got shut down like a Microsoft program in the championship by – da dum! – Jake Voskuhl?

Now he wants Karl Malone?

Avery was similarly stonewalled in the championship by Ricky Moore. Now he wants Gary Payton?

This is as premature as seeing Dr. Kevorkian for a skinned knee.

But money talks, and after all, which of us can claim to unfailingly tune out its seductive voice? This is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be addressed.

As such, a few steps need to be taken. The first is making freshmen ineligible to play, so as to restore at least a little dignity to the “student” part of “student-athlete.”

Another is to make sophomores ineligible for the NBA Draft. Both college and NBA fans deserve at least that much. Remember, the NBA has an interest in this too: offenses are decaying shamefully before our eyes, laden with raw personnel. The formerly mighty Chicago Bulls scored 49 in a recent game. The pros would be interested in some better-groomed recruits.

One of the most troubling but no less necessary measures is – and here I’ll pause for college presidents far and wide to prepare to cringe – to pay college athletes.

Volunteer athletes are destined to become a thing of the past under the current system. The math is just so skewed. College hoops and football swallow millions of dollars in tickets, merchandise, and television deals. The college game is beginning to look more like the NBA every day – even going as far as to stage games in pro arenas (imagine a Roman Catholic Easter Mass being moved to Willow Creek’s megaplex).

But as college presidents count their bucks, the athletes who earn them go unpaid.

Of course, a full ride to a place like Duke is no couch change, but that won’t give anyone a buck for a drink at the snack shop.

And while no one is going to stay in school for a few bucks when the several digits of NBA paychecks hover overhead, the college game does at least need more reasons not to leave if not outright reasons to stay.

From there, the lessons just have to be learned by hit-and-run college athletes. Is Brand really better off leaving one of the best college basketball programs in the nation to join the Grizzlies? Will Avery enjoy playing in, say, the Clippers’ vacuous Memorial Coliseum more than raucous Cameron? As early entrants proceed to stumble and even flop, successors cannot ignore the perils of their choices.

So as Avery and Brand hoist bricks for a lottery team next season, we’ll see just how troubling this trend is. Plucking players before they’re ripe doesn’t help any of the parties involved. Sure, money talks, but whenever it completely drowns out the best interests of the game it governs, it’s time to go watch team handball.