Are High School Athletes Ready for the Pros?

Imagine being eighteen years old again. You are a broke high school teen who struggles to make it day to day on the joke of a paycheck that you get from your minimum wage job down the street. You wonder if your rusted and sputtering car is going to make the five-mile trip to school and back every day. In order to impress the cute girl that sits next to you in you English class, you have to borrow money from your penny-pinching parents. Now imagine that you are the next coming of Michael Jordan. College basketball is out of the question. You are a broke high school senior that needs money, and the National Basketball Association is telling you that you can make millions playing for them. This is the situation that a growing number of high school student athletes are finding themselves handling. This is what is ruining college and professional sports in America.

Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett are examples of these young men that encountered the same situation their senior year of high school. They were given millions of dollars to skip advancing their skills at a university to be paid as a professional. However for every Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron J

Kobe Bryant was criticized for his decision to skip college in 1996. However, he was the first high school basketball standout to be successful at the next level. Though Bryant struggled his first year in the NBA, he has been nothing but exceptional since. He has won three NBA titles and is a member of the last five NBA All-Star games. Kobe is also bringing in $12.3 million dollars a year from the Los Angeles Lakers, not to mention the millions that he is making from endorsements from Mattel, McDonalds, Sprite, and Adidas (www.jockbio.com). After Kobe’s success, every star high school player wanted a piece of the cash.

Some high school players believe that the money they make while playing will be enough to allow them to live comfortably while they finish their college education. Well, nationally only 10% of professional athletes who go pro early return to college to complete their degree (www.kent.edu/athletics/baseball.htm). How can someone get a decent job these days without a college degree?

Though professional sports are a great way to make a living, they provide a false reality for high school athletes. The NCAA and professional teams need to bridge together to prevent the destruction of the lives of many future star athletes. Perhaps if NBA and MLB would implement drafting rules and restrictions for underclassmen and high school seniors every athlete would have an education to fall back on. They could also further their talents at the collegiate level before going to the professional ranks. Who knows what may have come of Korleone Young or Toney Key if they would have taken the opportunity to attend college. Maybe they would be leading successful careers on the basketball court or even sitting in a desk at a prestigious job on Wall Street. However, neither of these can happen until NCAA, NBA, and MLB make revisions to the rules and regulations of early draft applicants.

The growing trend of high school players going pro applies to all sports, not just basketball. In the 2003 MLB armature draft, 61 high school standouts were drafted. Though being drafted in baseball does not forfeit your college

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