Graduation Speech : College Athletes

Imagine a young man, straight out of high school, with dreams of playing in the NBA. What if he was one of the four players who, between 1975 and 2001, declared for the draft straight out of high school never made it to the NBA (Should high school players be eligible). What are his options after that? Sure, he could always go to college, but what if he never applied to one? Another option is to play in a European league, but how is an eighteen or nineteen year old expected to live on his own in a whole new country? This is just one downfall to being able to enter the draft straight out of high school. While many are successful, the young men who are not may be forced to give up their dream and must make serious life decisions to move forward. For this reason alone, the rule should stay the same to allow players to mature before they are able to enter the draft.

While it is unfortunate that many of these athletes will be unable to immediately afford college, even with full-ride scholarships, becoming a pro athlete is easier than ever without a college degree. In fact, the amount of NBA athletes being drafted from outside of the college level is peaking (Business Insider), meaning that many of the players that were too poor to go to college and instead played professional basketball overseas are being drafted as NBA players. For athletes who had full-ride Division I scholarships in hand, obtaining a professional job overseas is hardly an issue. As it happens, LiAngelo Ball, an average basketball recruit for UCLA (who Adrian Wojranowski of ESPN predicted would never join the NBA and would never start for UCLA), recently took his talents to a Lithuanian professional team, where he will prepare for a possible NBA future. As a mediocre college prospect, LiAngelo Ball is a great example of the process impoverished athletes can go through to be successful.

The basketball players took him to a LSU football game and he loved it, he loved the atmosphere of it so he decided to play for them. He went to LSU for three years until he got drafted in the NBA.

I’m a fourth year varsity soccer player at an all-boys private school of less than 550 students. Despite our small enrollment, for athletics we play in the division of the largest schools, mainly ones with enrollments over 2000 students. We can argue the fairness of our placement as long as we like, but it won’t change our position. We have to accept the challenge of playing larger schools.

Marty Blake and other NBA scouts said, ?No high school player belongs in the NBA? (Unknown 1). They don?t have the body type or mental strength to withstand night-in, night out beatings by bigger and faster people than them. Getting your education should be your first and most important priority in life. Scholarships and other academic money will help you learn things that you will never learn in your life. College ends up tapping into your outside sports life and lets you learn there are greater things and achievements than just sports. A more mature and literate person tends to be of better use to

Emerson once wrote that "Unless you do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." By stating this quote, Emerson is trying to help us understand that doing more than what we are comfortable with doing, will help us grow more as an individual. Going above and beyond in school, our work, and sports will help us grow, because we are pushing our brain, and body to do more than it has always done. How often do we say that we do not understand a topic, just because we do not want to actually think about it? Many times in the past, high school students will whine and fuss about not understanding the material within the class because they simply just do not care to push themselves to think past what they know. If we do not understand the material, nor do we ask for help, this will

Stars: I attended Lee High School in Huntsville, AL for 4 years. As a general, I participated in many varsity sports, but anyone who knows me knows my favorite is football. Looking in as an 8th grader the varsity team at Lee was pretty good under head coach Kinte Welch; however, finally graduating and becoming a part of the team my freshman through junior year was pretty awful. Our program was awful because of many reasons, but you can 't blame it all on the head coach. Ending my junior season, we 'd maybe won 4 games in 3 seasons. At the beginning of baseball season my junior year the athletic department decided to release him from his head coach position. After many potential coaches filled out for the position our principle filled the spot. He was familiar with the football in our area and he also coaches at a rival school Huntsville High School. Coach Woods has been around football all his life also playing linebacker at the University of Arkansas. Woods taking over and hiring a new staff made our life so much easier. The senior class who came in as a freshman, and stuck through the tough times help lead the team to the 6A playoffs after not being a contender for the last 10 years. I played a huge role as a defensive captain and we were ranked one of the top defenses in our region. As a three-year starter for the Generals, we turned the whole program around my senior season and made it to the second round of the playoffs where we lost to a power house.

One of the top reasons that high school players choose to skip college is because they can make a lot of money instead of getting an education in school. High school players need to think about what they could get out of college before making a decision to go to the NBA. For example, Tim Duncan, who has been one of the most dominant players in the NBA in the last five years, went to college for all four years and then went to the NBA. Duncan attended Wake Forest University where he earned a degree in Psychology, and had a successful college basketball career. In the NBA, Duncan has been a two-time MVP, has two NBA championships, and has been named to the first-team all NBA five of the six years he has been in the league (Duncan Player Profile).

Next, by an athlete staying and completing their education teaches the athlete maturity levels and raises maturity levels of an athlete. By staying in college an athlete can grow, develop, and mature throughout the course of their years in college. The athletes brain is more developed. The athlete has a more mature, developed mindset that benefits the athlete by allowing them to see game plans in a different perspective and allows the athlete to face challenges with a clearer mind, because college has equipped them with more experience in tough situations. For example, Michael Jordan, also known as MJ, received a full athletic scholarship to North Carolina University in 1981. Jordan played for the North Carolina Tar Heels for 3 years. Although Jordan was drafted in the 1984 NBA draft, he was only a junior in college.

As the governing body over collegiate sports, the NCAA demands athletes to maintain an amateur status while competing throughout their collegiate career. With global recruiting becoming more common, determining the amateur status of prospective student-athletes can be challenging. All student-athletes, including international students, are required to adhere to NCAA amateurism requirements to remain eligible for intercollegiate competition.(NCAA) To maintain amateur status, student athletes must not obtain contracts with professional teams, salary for participating in athletics, prize money above actual and necessary expenses, benefits from an agent or prospective agent, agreement to be represented by an agent, nor delayed initial full-time collegiate enrollment to participate in organized sports competition. They are also unable to tryout, practice, or compete with a professional team.(NCAA)

First off, players considering going to the NBA will have their draft stock grow by graduating college before going to the Pros. But in some disappointing examples, teams take gambles with unknown teenagers and most times they do not pan out. A perfect example would be high school phenom Leon Smith, he grew up homeless bouncing around from orphanage to orphanage, when an NBA paycheck was placed in front of him he could not resist. The Dallas Mavericks were not aware of Smith’s tortured past when selecting him in the first round; playing only a handful amount of games in the NBA his career did not work out (Coomes). Who knows how his career would have played out if he went to college before the pros. Mark Tracy would agree with that story in his 2016 article where he declares, “It’s no secret that the NBA would prefer most players to stay in college for longer.” That statement can be translated to the equation: longer one stays in college, higher the draft pick. Many factors lead into scouts wanting players to compete in college for longer, one example from Kiki Vandeweghe, Basketball operations VP for NBA, explains familiarity, “The longer you stay in school and play, the more information we would have about you… the more familiar we would be with your game, the better predictor you can have for success.”

Ever since Kevin Garnett, a teenager who by-passed college, was drafted as the fifth overall pick in the 1995 National Basketball Association (NBA) draft, more and more high school teenagers have been making the jump straight to the pros. Since the league draft of 1995, 17 first round picks have been high school players. This means that about 7 percent of first round draft picks in the NBA have been high school teens skipping out on their college education to make the jump to the NBA (Chylinski).

The time has come finally suiting up to play the first game as a nba player.It was a moment that he had dreamed for in a long time to finally right before his eyes.Palying it nba I had to do a maditory year of college and you have to have a high school diploma become a star at the age of 19 wasn't easy you have to be responsible.Nba players would make a lot of money.The average salary of a nba play was four point nine million dollars a year.

You can also play for your college football team and consensually having a chance at playing on a NFL football team. When you play for a college football you must play for four years. When the time comes you will be asked to come to something call the NFL combine. The combine is a place where you will do different types of workouts based on what position you are playing. The coach from different NFL team will be there to what the players are good at and what they can improve on. When all the players scores come in on how they did at the combine they go to the draft. The draft is where you will get picked by a team. The order that the teams go by is based on how good or how bad the team was the year before, if you had a bad record you would be at the beginning of the draft, if you have good record you would be at the at the end of the draft. The reason the NFL does that is because if the good teams get more good players it would not be fair. Once a player gets on a team it doesn't mean he will always be on that team. He must fight for his spot on the team just like everyone had to. When the time comes every team has training camp. Training camp is when the teams get back into the flow of things and they start to see what the players can do. When training camp comes around it is where most people bring their A

College athletic programs offer athletes specialized training, which is very difficult to get anywhere else. Every team has a trainer for the athletes. The trainers give the athletes specialized workouts and diets to make the athletes the best they can be. Most of the trainers have degrees in physical training or a similar area. The training makes athletes tremendously better than when they arrived at the university. The training also makes athletes ready for the professional level. It is extremely rare for an athlete to be physically ready to play professionally when they are in high school. the college training helps athletes be physically ready to play professionally and shows them the work ethic needed to be a professional athlete.