A (Derrick) Rose By Any Other Name *Is* Just As Sweet

I'm working on very little sleep but had a few things on my mind and needed to vent (I have the good fortune of needing to unwind and watch TV when I get home, no matter how late it is...), so here goes:

As we all suspected, the University of Memphis basketball player whom the NCAA is investigating about his involvement with some academic integrity issues (i.e., having someone else take the SAT in his stead and changing a high school grade from a D to a C) is none other than your now-NBA (Sprite? KIA? Quicken Loans? (not just yet)) Rookie of the Year, Derrick Rose. Of course they're interviewing everyone under the sun from the NCAA to students at Memphis to the NBA to discuss the potential impact of this. I just heard a lawyer explain why all of his endorsers are watching this closely and yada yada yada. I don't have the time to get into this like I'd like to so I may need to revisit, but needless to say if you've been here before, I find this all to be a bit ridiculous. Rose actually seems reasonably intelligent and learned, but even given that, let's be honest: did Memphis really recruit him for his academic prowess? Is he the only athlete who has ever had a grade changed? Sure, it's not a good thing to have someone take the SAT for you, and there should be punishment for that.

But that's not what this is about. I don't know if people truly understood the great lengths that the NCAA goes to pursue their goals of free labor and higher revenues. They have succeeded in convincing people that they have a genuine interest in the education of their athletes and that playing for nothing more than the "love of the game" (while the schools and the organization rake in millions of dollars every year) is sports at its most "pure." And, oh yeah, that "one and done" rule the NBA adopted? Well, one year of going to class and socialization is better than none, right? Two years would just be overkill.

When I was in law school, having played college sports myself, I considered filing a lawsuit on behalf of other NCAA student-athletes to get the organization to change its oppressive system but then I realized that I wasn't the first person who had tried nor would I be the last. Instead, I settled for writing a paper on the topic. And, thankfully for the NCAA, I'm not a big fan of litigation. Ha.

But the point remains the same: Everybody in and around basketball knows the deal. It's not that these kids are dumb, it's that people don't even want them to try for fear that they won't succeed and, therefore, won't be able to play. (Then we wonder why they have trouble trying to balance life as an adult...) How genuinely surprised would folks in the NCAA or NBA, or companies handing out these millions of endorsement dollars really be if it turned out that every single NBA star had received a grade they didn't deserve at some point in their scholastic careers? Considering that people representing each and every single one of these groups have been following these kids since they were in 7th and 8th grade, I'd have to say not many. No one can claim they were left in the dark, and in many cases, these same folks now crying foul (no pun intended) were the ones providing the "light." After all, the [insert name of basketball shoe/clothing company] guy who came to all of their high school games is the same guy who connects the kid with his college team, which team often leads him to his NBA agent, who leads the kid back to the shoe/clothing guy. Given all of this, I find it hard to believe that the NBA, NCAA and endorsers are banking on the fact that these kids are actually doing their own work; rather, I'd say they're banking on you and I not thinking about that.

Now, the NCAA wants to strip Memphis of the games they won (including their tournament run) if they find these allegations are true. But even if they take away the games from the "record books" (they must be kept in a library and not on the Internets), there will always be an asterisk there, not to mention that people have memories - they can't quite erase those.

So if the NCAA, the NBA (the "A" apparently used to stand for "academia"), and Rose's endorsers decide to distance themselves from him now that he (and more likely, if this is true, the others around him) allegedly had low academic integrity a few years ago (he is a pro now, last I checked), that's fine. As long as they don't mind being called on the hypocrisy.

I've got at least one more bone to pick this week. Stay tuned . . .

MYSM . . . A Little Bit Late

Funny stuff. Congrats to King James on the MVP award.