A COMPLETE college education is an experience that should never be skipped over. The primary goal of any university or institution of higher learning is an education -- that's a given. Some students come to learn history, some biology and some football. Many venture to earn a diploma that might or might not have a practical use in the working world. By the same token, some venture to polish athletic skills or to be recognized by scouts for professional athletic teams. Such is the nature of a collegiate education.
Part of this university educational experience is intended to prepare students for a professional career, be it in medicine, law or even athletics. The other part of such an experience is intended to open young minds to the issues and ideas always present in a university setting. The point of an undergraduate education isn't to learn a professional trade per se; it's to learn. We're here to learn how to think differently, how to write eloquently and how to manage our time efficiently.
Isn't it inconsistent and to some extent ironic that a university might tolerate -- or heaven forbid, support -- a seemingly commonplace decision by some collegiate athletes to withdraw early to pursue a career in professional sports? If the goal of a university is to provide a complete education, it has failed when a student leaves without accomplishing the academic requirements to earn a diploma.
Life is a progression -- a series of incremental steps that everyone must take. Sometimes, it's easy to seize the urge to leap past some of these stairs and often such a risk is a necessary part of growing up. It's how a person learns hard lessons. We might choose to drink before 21 or to buy a dog before we're truly responsible enough to care for it. There's danger in such decisions because the higher we jump, the farther we have to fall -- not to mention the skipped experiences we'll never know about. But it's about how we learn and grow as people.
Some experiences are vital: A first kiss, a pat on the back from a respected instructor and a college education, to name a few.
Monday night's NCAA men's basketball championship game showcased two teams of talented and bright student athletes. But before the game had even begun, in fact before the championship series even had started, the sports community was buzzing with rumor and speculation.
Duke University has a star in Jason Williams. He's worth all the hype he has received because Williams is one of the best players in college basketball today. And he's only a sophomore. If Williams decides to forgo his final two years at Duke to play professional ball, many NBA executives and scouts predict he could be the number one pick in the upcoming pro-basketball draft.
Granted, talk is cheap, but Williams has said that he intends to fulfill an earlier promise to stay with the Duke team for his junior year. Williams needs to keep his word.
A university cannot require or even suggest with a straight face that its student athletes remain in school, especially when professional sports teams extend multimillion-dollar offers to young broke college kids.
Moreover, it isn't reasonable to expect the NCAA to require all student athletes who play college sports to agree to receive a diploma before they are allowed to enter the professional arena. But by not strongly speaking against early student athlete withdrawal, the NCAA appears ambivalent, or worst supportive, of such student decisions. The athletic and educational community should discourage the forfeiture of an academic experience.
It's a slap in the face to the educational goal of any university when a student or a professional team uses the national attention afforded collegiate sports to gain exposure for student athletes and convince them to leave early at the expense of an education.
A collegiate diploma is worth more than money. The opportunity to play for classmates who stand behind a team through the worst losses and upsets is priceless and doesn't exist in professional sports. Is the money a professional team might pay really worth the lessons an athlete can learn about himself and the world around him? College is a time to grow, a time to become an adult without forgetting the kid in each of us.
Shame on the professional sports teams, the scouts and announcers who might claim otherwise. They've had the experience of a college education and they know what it's like. To think that someone would persuade a student to give up the opportunity to learn so much for the all-powerful dollar, is disgraceful.
(Luke Ryan's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at lryan@cavalierdaily.com.)
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