I Choose Canada

As many of you Seniors get set to graduate from high school with a few lucky ones the opportunity to play the game you love, I'd like to create some dialogue and discussion on where to play at the next level. The dream of many of course is to get that D1 full-ride scholarship. But I'm here to play devil's advocate and make people think about it a little more.

It's all about the Benjamins

Let's get one thing straight. There is nothing amateur about NCAA sports, especially football and basketball. College football and basketball are multi-billion dollar businesses, corrupt ones at that. Consider that Fox Sports signed a 4-year $80 Million deal to broadcast 4 annual bowl games and the National Title game, and CBS inked an 11-year $6 Billion deal to broadcast March Madness, it's clear that College sports are big business. When you think about all that money floating around, you would think that the student-athletes would get some piece of action. But in fact, it's the student-athletes that can barely cover their costs even with a full-ride scholarship. The hypocrisy that is the NCAA doesn't allow it's students to be sponsored, yet the NCAA sells almost every piece of itself to sweatshop outfits like NIKE, Reebok and Adidas. Something is wrong when the NCAA won't even permit students to get a part-time job on campus forcing many to live in student ghettos.

What about a Free Education?

Unless you receive an athletic scholarship to play at an Ivy League school (of which almost none are competitive in either Football or Basketball with the mild exception of Stanford in Basketball), an undergraduate degree from Canada is just as good if not better that the majority of public or private universities in the US. At least in Canada, schools still pride themselves in their student-athletes academic acheivements. In contrast, a published report by the NCAA showed that recent BCS National Champion LSU graduates only 40 percent of its football players, Oklahoma a pitiful 33 percent. In fact, if schools were required to graduate 50 percent of it's student-athletes, 26 of 28 Bowl games would've been cancelled in 2004. What kind of education are you really getting when student-athletes are faced with waking up for 8am classes after getting back at 3am from a weeknight away game so that ESPN can fill their College Gamenight primetime schedule. Thanks, but no thanks.

I want to go Pro

One of the most idiotic rules ever instituted was the age restriction rule put in place by both the NFL and now the NBA. From a money standpoint, it's great. The pro leagues have a free minor-league system called the NCAA to milk and exploit the "student-athletes" before they get to the pros. If a kid is good enough to go pro, why not go straight from high-school?? With scouting as good as it has ever been, it's the All-Americans that are the ones going pro even after college anyways. The reality nowadays is, if you're not good enough to get to the pros coming out of high school (ie. ranked on Scout.com), you can forget playing in the NFL or NBA.

Closing Thoughts

Don't get me wrong, I love watching College Football and Basketball. The entertainment value is unquestionable, the games are thrilling, the rivalries unmatched, but it stinks from an educational perspective. Money is the ultimate corruptor, the networks and corporate sponsors will do anything and everything to make more of it especially at the expense of you and your education. Are Canadian schools perfect? Hell no. Do I think Canadian schools should offer full-ride scholarships? Absolutely, it's the least they can do to help struggling student-athletes pay the bills. After all, it's not like they're part of the Physics club or something, they're elite athletes for christ's sake. I say, play your sport at a high level, get an education, choose Canada.

As always, post your take or email it to me at BCSportsFanatic@yahoo.ca.