Limitations Meant To Protect Us

You must be "this tall" to ride the rollercoaster or drive a go kart.

I always thought those restrictions were dumb growing up, especially considering that I commonly found myself a couple inches below the margin. I could control my stomach on 50ft drop or a 20 mph racecar round u-turn far better than some of the other children permitted to ride, but still it was a safety hazard, and today I understand why. For every 14 year old kid who hadn't hit a growth spurt there were ten times as many immature and unprepared 10 year olds who would be allowed to ride if the limits were lowered to accommodate those like myself. Ten times as many injured children because they didn't buckle correctly or were utterly unprepared to handle a motorized vehicle.

Until recently the NBA had let the youngsters run wild and free, and why not? Kobe, Garnett, and McGrady had all emerged straight out of high school and when Lebron entered the picture no fan would've even imagined raising the age requirements. But what the fans weren't seeing were the dozens, even hundreds of kids who had staked their lives on the draft only to be disappointed. They had punched their ticket to the NBA and had recklessly disregarded every other option, and once again why not?

No other profession allows you to utterly skip college and go directly from third period Calculus to multi-million dollar contracts in a matter of months. The students had been sold on the whisperings of greedy agents, overly biased coaches, and vicarious parents.

So what happens if they don't get drafted? ESPN finally dedicated 30 minutes on Outside the Lines to follow the life of a teenager who went through the tragic process of aiming for the NBA and landing a minimum wage job where he is now stuck for the rest of his life. The story was riveting but was buried at mid-day and midnight time slots while draft predictions aired every 15 minutes on sportscenter. Still, there are more kids (I prefer kids to "young adults" because it’s hard to expect any 18 year old to maintain a professional and educated composure in these scenarios) ignoring college scholarships and high school academics to focus on basketball every year. Or at least there were.

David Stern made the bold move to finally install an age requirement last year and not surprisingly received harsh criticism. Analysts and fans howled at the change, claiming that "The quality of players in the draft will be diluted and high school phenoms will become extinct". Their words were far harsher and less objective than the paraphrased sentence above, but still their opinion was clear.

I have strongly supported Stern’s decision since the instatement of the rule, but was only provoked to vocalize my opinion after Skip Bayless wrote yet another atrocious article for ESPN's Page 2. The article's purpose is to blame the NFL's draft eligibility requirements for Maurice Clarett's array of problems. In the process of building his case Bayless blatantly disregards the future of all the young athletes, asserting that "Some [18 year olds] have no interest or business in college."

Bayless' whole argument hinges on his claim that Clarett would have been a stud had he been allowed to enter the NFL at a premature age. And yet, he openly admits that Clarett was (and is) "a kid without much of a work ethic" and needed to land with the "the right coach and system". Clarett's attitude was his fatal flaw, but the NFL's regulations offered him an escape. Rather than bounce in and then out of professional football directly from high school, he was given the opportunity to mature and further pursue an education in college (sadly he failed to grow on both accounts). Yes it is tragic to see such potential wasted, but the age limits gave Clarett a shot at a future, they didn’t restrict it. The same is true for all other college athletes.

Our attention will always be shifted towards the rags to riches miracles or the apocalyptic collapses, but we should always remember those caught in the middle ground. Thanks to the new rule, how many NBA driven teenagers will find themselves in a college class room instead of at McDonalds after missing the draft? How many will get a chance to grow athletically and mentally after disaster strikes on draft day, and potentially get another shot at their dream? Think about those kids and their lives before you start complaining that your team won't get the best possible draft options. Maybe a couple million people can suffer a little less thrill and excitement if it means the futures of hundreds of kids grows exponentially.


The quotations included above were taken from Skip Bayless' article published on ESPN's website on August 11th.