Posts Tagged ‘Duke’

Please Pay NCAA Players

Posted: April 3, 2013 in Articles
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Kevin Ware

Truthfully, this should be a really short post. I just need to get something off of my chest. NCAA players have been taken advantage of for far too long and it needs to end, now. Universities have been able to boost their enrollment and pay coaches an obscene amount of money, but student-athletes are always left out in the cold. This became abundantly clear, once again, when Kevin Ware shattered his right leg during Louisville‘s game against Duke this past Sunday. A college player could ruin his entire career during one freak accident and have nothing to fall back on. It’s completely bullshit and the “hamster wheel” treatment has to stop.

Now before I continue, let me say I’ve heard all of the arguments against paying college players. I’ve heard the “they’re students, so if you pay them, you have to pay everyone” logic. Let me counter that by saying that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I can guarantee the kid dissecting a frog during a Biology lab isn’t bringing in millions of dollars to the school. I can guarantee the African Studies professor isn’t pulling in $5 million in salary per school year. Countless schools are visibly more successful due to the caliber of their sports programs. College players consistently put themselves on the line and get nothing in return. To top it off, if they even take a slice of pizza from someone, they could have their scholarships revoked. That’s some slave shit, son. Watching Ware suffer on the ground reminded me of the fact that if his playing days were done, Louisville wouldn’t do shit for him. They’ll just continue on as a program and where does that leave him, exactly? Just a gruesome segment during a sports highlight show.

To me, it goes without saying, NCAA players need to be paid. They risk far too much and make their respective schools far too wealthy to consistently get the short end of the stick. Let’s work on that. Deal? Deal.

P.S. I realize this post isn’t as short as I originally said it would be. I mean, shit gets real when I start ranting, son. You know you love it, bitches.

I’d Still Pick Jalen Rose In A Fight

Posted: March 16, 2011 in Articles
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So, I just read Grant Hill’s response to Jalen Rose calling him and other black Duke players “Uncle Toms” in the ESPN “Fab 5″ documentary, and clearly he missed the point. Now before some oversensitive sap gets on my case and tries to scold me for being ignorant, judgmental or whatever other adjective comes to mind, let me explain what I mean. I’ll be the first to admit that Jalen was out of pocket for using such a racially charged term, especially since the Duke players were nothing more than teenagers trying to play ball just like him. Jalen’s also wrong for directing his anger toward hard-working African-American families who just wanted to provide a stable environment for their kids to thrive in. With all that being said, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s absolutely right that Duke only recruits kids from a particular “well-to-do” background.

Just take a look down the list: Grant Hill came from a suburban household with two educated parents, Shane Battier also grew up in the suburbs, Nolan Smith was the child of a respected NBA star, and even Kyrie Irving has a father who played professionally in Australia, granting him dual citizenship between the US and Australia. When you look at a resumé like that, players with backgrounds like Rose don’t fit into the equation. Jalen even admitted himself that he was jealous of players like Hill because he had the type of family structure he craved.

Now of course Grant Hill is not going to throw shade on the school responsible for his education, but for him to even think that Rose doesn’t have a point about how Duke recruits its players is stupid. I understand that Duke is a private institution, and has the right to enroll students as they see fit, but this also means that players like Rose have every right to feel slighted. This tells young black children that the lifestyle you didn’t choose can potentially determine your ceiling. And let’s keep it all the way real Duke proponents, the day you see Mike Krzyzewski recruiting a player from East New York will be the day I get to challenge Obama to a breakdance contest.

When it’s all said and done, Jalen picked the wrong target to aim his frustrations. But I’d still pick him in a fight. I mean, c’mon, you saw the documentary son, he’s a goon lol…