GrandeDavid
06-29-2005, 08:34 AM
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050626/COL03/506260380/1082/SPT
New rule means NCH star might - gasp! - go to college
By Paul Daugherty
Enquirer staff writer
We'll begin the regularly scheduled column momentarily. First, let's deal with the Asinine Comment of the Year, made recently by shoe-company barker Sonny Vaccaro to The Enquirer's Dustin Dow, as it applied to a local high school kid, O.J. Mayo:
"I pray to God O.J. doesn't have to spend a day in college."
Yeah, the tragedy of an education is a killer. Why crack a book when you can slip on a pair of sneakers and play basketball? Why work a couple nowhere jobs to pay for the 15 hours you're hauling this quarter? Why waste your time studying, learning, aspiring? Listen to Vaccaro. Pray you don't go to college.
It looks as if God didn't listen to Sonny. O.J. Mayo probably will have to spend a year in a hellhole of higher learning, for free. May the angels watch over him.
The NBA and its players agreed in principle Tuesday on a new contract. Part of the agreement would bump from 18 to 19 the league's minimum eligibility age and make U.S. kids wait a year after their high school class graduates before entering the draft.
What it means for 17-year-old high school junior O.J. Mayo is, he'll be cooling his heels for a year after he gets his diploma from North College Hill.
He doesn't want to spend a post-graduate year in prep school. Why should he? So he can get up at 6 every morning and make his bed? He doesn't know much about the National Basketball Developmental League, where he'd be better than almost everybody there the first day he pulled on a jersey. He doesn't want to sit for a year on some shoe company's dole.
On Saturday, O.J. said he always wanted to go to college. The NBA's new age limit "doesn't make a difference," he said. A couple weeks ago, O.J. said, "Why go to college and stress all the studies when you can go to the NBA and do what you love and get paid millions?"
He's a kid. Kids change their minds or take coaching on how to say things. Or both. Maybe tomorrow, O.J. will say he wants to get his MBA or study cooking at the Sorbonne.
It's not O.J. who's got it wrong. It's the adults. We do our best to screw up kids. It's a wonder we don't succeed more than we do.
O.J. said he had 12 text messages from college coaches within hours after the rule change Tuesday. He said his guardian and AAU coach, Dwaine Barnes, had received 30 phone messages. This, even as college coach after college coach decried the age- limit change as insignificant.
"Very seldom does one year of college benefit either the player or the program," decided Arizona's Lute Olson. Right, and if O.J. had Arizona on his list, Lute and his lackeys would be on the kid's porch tonight.
Not only is O.J. Mayo the best 17-year-old basketball player in America - as determined by those strangely concerned with such things - he's a very nice kid who, incredibly, is not yet oiled by the slicks that cover the sport he loves.
"Thank you, sir, for taking the time to call," is what O.J. said, long distance, on Saturday, from yet another basketball camp/audition/meat market. This one, something called the National Basketball Players Association Top 100 camp, was in Richmond, Va. The best kid players spend their summers shuttling from this camp to that tournament. Usually, it's college coaches they crave. In Mayo's case, it's NBA credibility. Or at least it was, until Tuesday.
Should an 18-year-old be allowed to pursue his dream immediately? Of course. Eighteen-year-olds die in Iraq, don't they? Case closed.
"College is good competition," O.J. decided. Good for him. He said UC is "definitely" in the mix. He also said it wouldn't matter to him who the coach was. Of course, in the past, he has said having Bob Huggins there was important. Kids say the darnedest things.
Meanwhile, the hope is that O.J. does what he wants. The wish is he can do it in a vacuum, free from bloodsuckers who'd suggest college is for saps and sinners. It's a big, tall wish.
"Tomorrow is never promised," O.J. said. "I just want to be me, be a kid."
Thanks for taking the time to call? Nope, O.J., thank you. For the humility. May you keep it as handy as your jump shot. It will serve you every bit as well.
New rule means NCH star might - gasp! - go to college
By Paul Daugherty
Enquirer staff writer
We'll begin the regularly scheduled column momentarily. First, let's deal with the Asinine Comment of the Year, made recently by shoe-company barker Sonny Vaccaro to The Enquirer's Dustin Dow, as it applied to a local high school kid, O.J. Mayo:
"I pray to God O.J. doesn't have to spend a day in college."
Yeah, the tragedy of an education is a killer. Why crack a book when you can slip on a pair of sneakers and play basketball? Why work a couple nowhere jobs to pay for the 15 hours you're hauling this quarter? Why waste your time studying, learning, aspiring? Listen to Vaccaro. Pray you don't go to college.
It looks as if God didn't listen to Sonny. O.J. Mayo probably will have to spend a year in a hellhole of higher learning, for free. May the angels watch over him.
The NBA and its players agreed in principle Tuesday on a new contract. Part of the agreement would bump from 18 to 19 the league's minimum eligibility age and make U.S. kids wait a year after their high school class graduates before entering the draft.
What it means for 17-year-old high school junior O.J. Mayo is, he'll be cooling his heels for a year after he gets his diploma from North College Hill.
He doesn't want to spend a post-graduate year in prep school. Why should he? So he can get up at 6 every morning and make his bed? He doesn't know much about the National Basketball Developmental League, where he'd be better than almost everybody there the first day he pulled on a jersey. He doesn't want to sit for a year on some shoe company's dole.
On Saturday, O.J. said he always wanted to go to college. The NBA's new age limit "doesn't make a difference," he said. A couple weeks ago, O.J. said, "Why go to college and stress all the studies when you can go to the NBA and do what you love and get paid millions?"
He's a kid. Kids change their minds or take coaching on how to say things. Or both. Maybe tomorrow, O.J. will say he wants to get his MBA or study cooking at the Sorbonne.
It's not O.J. who's got it wrong. It's the adults. We do our best to screw up kids. It's a wonder we don't succeed more than we do.
O.J. said he had 12 text messages from college coaches within hours after the rule change Tuesday. He said his guardian and AAU coach, Dwaine Barnes, had received 30 phone messages. This, even as college coach after college coach decried the age- limit change as insignificant.
"Very seldom does one year of college benefit either the player or the program," decided Arizona's Lute Olson. Right, and if O.J. had Arizona on his list, Lute and his lackeys would be on the kid's porch tonight.
Not only is O.J. Mayo the best 17-year-old basketball player in America - as determined by those strangely concerned with such things - he's a very nice kid who, incredibly, is not yet oiled by the slicks that cover the sport he loves.
"Thank you, sir, for taking the time to call," is what O.J. said, long distance, on Saturday, from yet another basketball camp/audition/meat market. This one, something called the National Basketball Players Association Top 100 camp, was in Richmond, Va. The best kid players spend their summers shuttling from this camp to that tournament. Usually, it's college coaches they crave. In Mayo's case, it's NBA credibility. Or at least it was, until Tuesday.
Should an 18-year-old be allowed to pursue his dream immediately? Of course. Eighteen-year-olds die in Iraq, don't they? Case closed.
"College is good competition," O.J. decided. Good for him. He said UC is "definitely" in the mix. He also said it wouldn't matter to him who the coach was. Of course, in the past, he has said having Bob Huggins there was important. Kids say the darnedest things.
Meanwhile, the hope is that O.J. does what he wants. The wish is he can do it in a vacuum, free from bloodsuckers who'd suggest college is for saps and sinners. It's a big, tall wish.
"Tomorrow is never promised," O.J. said. "I just want to be me, be a kid."
Thanks for taking the time to call? Nope, O.J., thank you. For the humility. May you keep it as handy as your jump shot. It will serve you every bit as well.