By Justin Albright Posted April 17, 2013
College sports are the source of the greatest sporting events in the nation. From bowl games to March Madness, the atmosphere of these games, and the will of the players wanting to earn their school a National Championship, is second to none.
Yet, the integrity of college basketball is diminishing each year. Every year, schools try their hardest to recruit the best players in the nation to come to their schools, in hopes of making their teams the best they can possibly be.
Kentucky is the perfect example, every year Coach Calipari and the Wildcats get an influx of talented freshmen, and every year, all of these freshmen leave college after their freshmen year to pursue their dreams of becoming professional basketball players. Last year, Kentucky was the national champion, and this year, after losing five freshmen to the NBA draft, Kentucky lost to Robert Morris in the first round of the NIT. For those of you who don’t understand why that is bad, let me tell you.
There has only been one school in the illustrious history of college basketball to lose in the first round of the NIT tournament the year after winning the national championship, the other was Jim Valvano’s 1984 NC State team NCAA national championship team.
There are nine freshmen projected to go into this year’s draft, so who can blame these athletes for skipping school and going to pursue their ultimate dream of playing professional basketball? Yet how many of these athletes actually find success in the NBA? You never know what may happen in your career, at any given point in time, you can suffer a career-ending injury.
If by chance you get an injury, what are you going to fall back on? Sports are only temporary, education is forever. A prime example of this is South Carolina’s running back Marcus Lattimore. Lattimore was a first-round pick before he blew out his leg in a game this year, now most teams are shying away from him, due to his gruesome injury.
Businesses all over the world won’t care if you were a professional athlete, if you don’t have a solid education with a college degree; you’re not going to get hired. College is supposed to be a time where you decide what you want to do with your life, so you can make a living for yourself, and your family, not a gateway to the pros.
