Halftime (I)

Can you believe that one-half of 2009 has already passed by?

In some sports depots around the country, this year can’t end soon enough (talking to you, Detroit and Washington DC, despite your successful NHL teams). In others, the fun shouldn’t stop (the state of Pennsylvania and the city of Los Angeles). However, as we move into the second half of the year, there are six more months for a city/town to experience nirvana. There are also six more months for a city/town to discover sports’ version of The Ninth Circle.

You will undoubtedly read, listen to and watch a plethora of previews, mock fantasy drafts and ‘fearless’ predictions as all of the inactive leagues return this fall. If you’re fortunate to have a team in the active sports still in a playoff chase, you’ll certainly get swept up in the push for the postseason and beyond. However, between today and tomorrow, here are a few stories that you should keep an eye on as summer cools into fall and fall freezes into winter.

Today will be a general look at the sports industry while tomorrow will take on specific games.


“You know? I could do without the senior prom.”: For starters, there has been much made in recent weeks about gifted young athletes (and their families) trying to capitalize on their talents sooner than American society has traditionally expected them. Those of us who have followed sports long enough are certainly aware that leaving college early or forgoing it entirely is nothing new. However, there are players who are forgoing their senior years in high school because they feel that there’s not much left to accomplish at that level.

Bryce Harper and Jeremy Tyler are going to grab those GEDs and take faster tracks to their lofty professional goals. The ultimate senioritis, if you will. This has the “get your education” crowd up in arms because as opposed to dealing with athletes who rather pass on being essentially rented by colleges, now they have to contend with those see little opportunity to mature against players they routinely dominate.

While the next six months are far too short of a time to answer these questions, hopefully, we can finally ask what our country seems to avoid; Why is it such a problem for kids with NBA dreams – or truthfully, American kids – to take a different path where prodigies of nearly every other sport save football can get a leg up on their pro careers without a college degree? Will Harper, Tyler and many others who will follow be better players for the extra year they are giving themselves? Most of all, is it time to redefine, if not eradicate amateurism as we know it?



“Recession-proof? Yeah, right.”: There is this long-held belief that both sports and alcohol are recession-proof industries as the consumer demand is supposed to be so strong and insatiable that it will buoy both business through the tough times. Yet, you can’t change the channel or read something online without noticing beer ad after beer ad after hard liquor ad during programming that historically strayed from those spots.

Not too long ago on Scribe (via Advertising Age), you may have read about NBA teams taking advantage of relaxed rules about liquor ads in stadiums and team paraphernalia. MLB and the NFL have a longstanding relationship with the liquid courage producers – you can even say that those leagues were founded on them – but they have given those companies more opportunities to advertise. Even ESPN has taken to adding more hard liquor companies to sponsor and integrate their products into their shows and broadcasts.

This may reek of desperation or speak to a well-designed strategy, but with so many media and entertainment vehicles hitting them up for money, is when will the alcohol well run dry? Also, with the controversial, but effective means of PETA in terms of the Michael Vick scandal, should we expect organizations like MADD and the NCADD to pressure the NFL in light of Donte’ Stallworth’s vehicular manslaughter?




“Geez, did he really say that?”: A few weeks ago, you read about a rich-media application currently being used by the New England Patriots to keep fans abreast of their comings and goings. This came about because of a previous discussion on social media as the NFL used fake MySpace and Facebook profiles as part of background checks on draft prospects. Now as players, coaches, even teams and commissioners are gravitating to Twitter, there has been plenty of news about what’s being said on the micro-blogging service. Unfortunately, it’s not always for the right reasons.

Social media – more specifically, Twitter – is something that we are still trying to understand, if not, master. As Yahoo!’s Charles Robinson points out, there are some pros and cons of these figures being able to use 140 characters to speak their minds without a middle man (which isn’t all that bad, despite the access I have through the Beacon). Within the last few days, we’ve read a Twitter war of words between the Cincinnati Bengals’ Chad Ochocinco and Shawne Merriman of the San Diego Chargers, we found that Dwayne Wade may not be getting a NAACP Image Award any time soon (a screen cap of an n-word laden tweet was removed) and Charlie Villenueva may be a free agent because of his Tweets… okay, so maybe not the last one.

Some of you probably have your own accounts to follow your friends and family, favorite athletes and entertainers, media figures and bloggers. Because of that, I must ask the all-important question: is this only the beginning thanks to its increased use from our stars or has Twitter jumped the shark?

And if you’re wondering, Facebook is just enough for me and Scribe.

Say What?!?!: It’s been quite a while since you’ve been treated to a video. While it’s not going to be the most anticipated video posted on this blog (from the new Yankee Stadium), I hope you enjoy what’s to come tomorrow night/Thursday morning.

Maturity

And now, for something completely different.

Yesterday on ESPNews – “What’s with Scribe and that channel?”, you must be asking – Fran Fraschilla discussed the evolution of pre-draft scouting by NBA executives over the past decade. As he talked about the increased efforts and resources invested from team officials, the former St. John’s head coach then elaborated on the fundamental difference between international and American players.

For years, Fraschilla has said that international players have a greater maturity than their stateside counterparts. He believes that because they come from countries with tougher and lower standards of living, the internationals are far more appreciative of the chance to play in the NBA compared to American prep school and college kids who see a spot in the Association as a birthright.

He may certainly have a point as some of the best American players currently in the league are guys whose names we have heard about since at least their senior year in high school. The NBA is the end result of years of coddling, hyping and protecting these prodigies in order to have their names called by Commissioner David Stern in late June. However, Fraschilla – whether he was careful to not condemn or condone the American powers-that-be – left out another reason; the difference in basketball development here in the States compared to Europe and Asia.

Here in the States, we have relied on colleges as the minor leagues for the NBA. Whether or not the nation’s high schools and the NCAA have done a good job in being that free feeder system is up for debate (though truthfully, it’s been pretty bad these days), yet the system is an American construct only. Here, we ask our athletes to become the ideal Renaissance (wo)men; Academic and Athletic All-Americans who can juggle The Odyssey, a Spaulding and aid for a few underprivileged kids simultaneously.

Overseas, you have the choice early one to be an academic or an athlete. Players can go into basketball leagues as young as fourteen years of age, even becoming professional if a kid is deemed talented enough to run with a few grizzly veterans. There may not be much of a childhood for those who choose this route, but at least there is little interference and conflicts as there would be if both school and ball had to be balanced.

In a basketball sense, having the chance to play in a league with players of varying experience and styles seems to do more for the internationals than playing in a somewhat stymied league for young Americans. How those development styles translate on the court isn’t very easy to determine as players on either side succeed and fail at about the same clip, according to knowledgeable men like Fraschilla and others who have been around the game for some time.

Just observe the adjustment levels between some of your work or school colleagues. Some who have traveled the traditional path – graduating from an esteemed program of a major four-year college – may struggle in the first few months, or even years, of a job because real life differs greatly from the textbook. Some who had to work their way around to come to the company – transferring colleges or working immediately after high school, working in other industries, etc. – might perform very well in their professions because they were exposed to real-life challenges while their peers were still hitting the books.

No matter what, the beaten path is not a requirement for any player aspiring for the NBA life anymore. It’s an option on both sides as not only are American prep stars such as Jeremy Tyler following in Brandon Jennings’ footsteps but there are more international recruits in US colleges year after year.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Say What?!?!: A couple of weeks late, but best of luck to you, Epiphanny Prince. Even you have chosen the Jennings route. I love it!

Intrepid

For those who have been reading Scribe for a while, you are well aware that the NCAA is as close to a cuss word as there is on this blog. It’s not so much about the action as it about the politics surrounding the surface of play. There’s no question that as long as basketball and football continue to be the engine that drives the organization, the debate about compensation for its athletes beyond scholarships will rage on.

Yet, though it may not appear to be the case right now, the future of the NCAA hinges on a couple of intrepid kids.

Last year, it was Brandon Jennings who decided to jump across the pond – bypassing the NCAA in the process – to play professional basketball in Italy before offering his services to the NBA. Now, we have Jeremy Tyler, a 6-foot-11 prospect from San Diego, who has decided to take things to another level by forgoing his senior year in high school.

High school.

It appears that Jennings’ gamble, which was to join a league where he would be tested by seasoned pros and endure a more grueling schedule than even the top NCAA teams create, has paid off as he’s projected to be at least a middle first-round draft pick in June. While many believe that his decision was based on not performing well on the SATs in order to enroll at Arizona (a test is not a measure of someone’s aptitude, contrary to popular opinion), Jennings understood that he would be wasting time in playing against peers that he easily dominated or would toss aside in college. Having played numerous invitational games (high school and AAU) seemed to have been all the evidence Jennings to see that there would be little challenge to spend the mandatory one season away from prep school to play in the NCAA.

So, in the face of those whose extol the virtues of a ‘free education’ while pocketing money for the work of these athletic marketing representatives (which is what a student-athlete essentially is), Jennings essentially became an apprentice. He decided to build his craft in a foreign land among men who are playing for more than mere dreams, but for mere employment in an über-competitive industry.

Tyler would have been a lottery pick in the pre-age limit NBA. Where Jennings appears to be the best young American point guard not in the Association, skilled big men are coveted with as much fervor as finding reasons to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. Yet, deciding to skip his senior year in high school seems to be for similar reasons as Jennings; being a man among boys. Why go through another year of quadruple teams against kids nowhere near your size? Why deal with an eventual college coach who is going to work to only keep his job or look ahead for the big program?

Yet people will be up in arms about Tyler’s decision to skip the senior prom, the senior trip, the aptitude exams and missing out on a 400-karat high school ring from a mail-order catalogue. The thing is that Tyler understood that the NCAA isn’t the only organization that feeds off of young talents, but his high school as well.

He understood that in high school (including those AAU teams and basketball factory prep schools), there isn’t a foundation or even interest to cultivate more than a handful of talented kids. Much of the reason for the age limit in the Association is because when a bunch of random names threw their names in the hat, there were too many ‘raw’ prospects, unfinished products and unprepared youngsters who were pushed through the traditional channels too fast.

This isn’t to say that either Tyler or Jennings will become multiple All-Star selections and win NBA titles. It’s quite possible that both completely bomb out when they reach the NBA (next season for Jennings, 2011 for Tyler at least). Yet, it’s hard to get upset at two kids willing to take such drastic steps to get one step closer to making their dreams come true.

For all the histrionics about the one-and-done players who are apparently wasting a college’s resources by not being engaged in the classroom, just be happy that there are a couple of teen phenoms who don’t want to do the same to some high school.

Say What?!?!: Further commentary found here.