Diploma or Contract?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 22, 2001 | by Deborah Simmons

Increasingly, student-athletes are foregoing degrees for lucrative pro contracts.

We know the stories about Tiger Woods and other athletes who attended a year or two of college and then decided to turn pro. How about a student who doesn't even finish high school? Should student-athletes skip their studies and jump into professional sports?

On one hand, the answer is fairly obvious. After all, signing a contract with a sports organization is like accepting a job offer, and we encourage teen-agers to enter the workforce after graduating from high school. On the other, talented child actors, musicians and other artists work in their chosen fields long before they reach age 18.

Consider Bobby Convey. A midfielder for Major League Soccer's D.C. United, Bobby was, at 16 years and 8 months, old enough for a driver's license yet too young to sign a contract. His father did the honors.

Indeed, the rosters of professional sports teams are loaded with student-athletes who hurdled from high school or college to the pros before earning their degrees. The National Basketball Association (NBA), whose annual June draft list lengthens considerably each year with NCAA standouts who leave school, is a perfect example. The list includes stars such as Kobe Bryant (Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania/Los Angeles Lakers), Kevin Garnett (Farragut Career Academy in Illinois/Minnesota Timberwolves), Allen Iverson (Georgetown University/Philadelphia 76ers) and Vince Carter (University of North Carolina/Toronto Raptors).

Iverson was a product of the rough-and-tumble streets of Hampton, Va., where he was a phenom on asphalt courts and schoolhouse parquet. But more than a few Iverson fans wondered whether this renegade would wind up spending his adult years in prison rather than the pros. Even after he won a gubernatorial pardon as a teen-ager, wowed Big East fans as a Hoya and was drafted by the Sixers, Iverson tangled with the law (including drug and gun charges), trying the patience of his coaches, teammates and mother.

Today, thanks in part to his own persistence (but certainly in part to his coaches, teammates and mom), this 25-year-old tattooed, frank-speaking 6-foot guard is the NBA's No. 1 player in points, steals and minutes per game. That's not at all bad for a troublesome young man who joined the workforce after two years of college.

Interestingly, the rules for women are a lot tougher. While NBA guidelines merely dictate that a high-school player must have graduated, the Women's NBA attaches many more requirements. A woman must either have played at least two seasons in a pro league, graduated from a four-year college, exhausted her college eligibility or be at least 22 years old.

The Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) and its women's counterpart, the Ladies PGA, are biased as well. The PGA places no restrictions on teens, while the LPGA requires that a woman be 18 for the regular tour.

As for Convey, he has been hitting the books since he left home, with special tutors in math, English, public speaking and (given pro athletes' salaries) finance. He will test for his GED this summer.

Deborah Simmons is an editorial writer and columnist for sister publication, the Times.