very interesting

there is a good article in the NYT today about graduation rates among basketball players. the NCAA is apparently considering rules that will terminate some benefits (scholarships, post season play) if schools can't get their athletic team graduation rates up to at least 50%. if this rule was in effect now, only 4 of the teams in the sweet 16 would qualify. i think that's a little sobering.

i think the rule that the NCAA is considering should be a great idea, not only because i think a college education is important, but because watching a team develop over 4-5 years with the same players is really great. we experienced that when we were season ticket holders for stanford b-ball. stanford has had some folks leave in the past after their junior year (casey jacobsen, curtis borchardt, one of the collins twins), but these guys had to really qualify academically and maintain their grades even to get to the point where they could play for stanford. (and i think some of them somehow finished their degrees anyway.)

i do realize that college is not for everyone. there will still be schools and teams that get the superstar players who don't have the academics to get into a stanford or a duke or whatever and want to showboat for a year or two before going pro. i'm not sure if those are the best people to see with contracts worth large amounts of money, but what are you going to do?