07.12.07
Hurricane Floyd
The hell with you people, I like sports, we’re going to talk about sports. Because between Chris Benoit allegedly murdering his family, Michael Vick being heavily entrenched in a dogfighting ring and Pacman Jones/Tank Johnson’s inability to stay out of trouble, the sports world is becoming the benchmark for the term ridiculous.
With apologies to Cincinnati Bengals fans, the most absurd story happening in sports this year did not belong to their mindblowing arrest record; (notice Chris Henry’s resemblance to a young Snoop Dogg) no, those kudos go to Coach Tim Floyd at the University of Southern California, a man who just received a verbal commitment from a fantastic young basketball prospect in Illinois. The kid is completely dedicated to the sport, taking time to go on campus visits and workout for coaches instead of hanging out with friends all summer; and in his free time, he somehow picked a high school to attend! That’s right, this kid is just over a month away from being a Freshman… in High School. He won’t drive for another couple of years, but rest assured when he leaves the DMV, there will be a car waiting in his driveway.
Pardon my French, but what the #*^$!!!!
In fact, let me run that last symbol by you one more time $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Remember in Blue Chips where the Larry Bird like dude said he wanted a gym bag full of money and marked the turning point where Nick Nolte finally decided, the hell with it, I’m going to pull a Barry Bonds and cheat (yes I know we weren’t talking about Bonds cheating back then)? This has to be the real life version of that exact occurrence.
Lebron’s Mom bought him an H2 a couple months before he was drafted, which was understandably possible because any dealer in their right mind was going to give her a loan. Did the following conversation actually happen between a sales rep and a manager?
Rep - Can I approve this loan for Lebron’s Mom?
Man - She has like NO income. Are you sure she’s going to be able to afford
this? Maybe sell her a used Plymouth Voyager instead? We can tint the
windows!
[AWKWARD SILENCE]
Rep - Uhh, yeah. She can afford it.
No, that conversation never took place because everyone knew what was going to happen in that situation. In two months you have a millionaire. But this is not two months, this is a 14 year old KID. One who’s never even played decent high school competition (AAU is the worst form of basketball you’ll ever see, possibly 2nd worst only next to the NBA). One who’s probably not even finished puberty; and who knows what will happen to his body during that process, not to mention over the next 4 years? Is this really something that a college coach is willing to gamble on? Does he feel he needs to recruit these kids so young? Especially when the coach is employed in Southern California?
“Hey 18 year old star basketball player, the most beautiful women in the world want you to come here, what do you say? You like cheerleaders? Ours are great!”
Wouldn’t this be your sales pitch? Wouldn’t this work for 90% of all heterosexual athletes even if other coaches decided to sweet talk them? Couldn’t you get any High School Senior to commit to that? Am I way off base here? This is my point about the Blue Chips money situation. When you recruit a kid that young, what can you say to get him to commit? “I’ll give you your very own set of Yu-Gi-Oh sheets?” No! There has got to be money being thrown around on this 14 year old. And the coach is jeopardizing his career for something that may or may not happen in the future? Is this accurate? Isn’t it true that if this coach gets caught giving money or gifts to any prospect, that it’s a rules violation and will result in the coach being canned faster than the intern in Ohio who lost several hundred thousand social security numbers? I’m so confused by this whole situation and I’m 11 years older than the kid! How does he have a Clue!?!?!
Forget about ramifications for the coach for a second, isn’t the kid basically mortgaging his high school years of friends, parties, football teams and any other extracurricular so that he can say he’ll go to USC down the road? Doesn’t this kind of eliminate the whole “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey” part of life? This kid isn’t going to be able to play other sports because what if he gets hurt? He’s not going to have a real high school experience at all.
This makes me sick. Listen, recruiting in college should be ILLEGAL. The NCAA has such a stick up its rear about so many other issues, and you can’t pay an athlete to play (even though D-1 sports is more of a job than the vast majority could possibly fathom, especially when you juggle whatever courseload you decide to take; i.e. underwater basketweaving), but it’s cool if a coach comes to a Rec League game to tell a 8th grader that he should go to college at his school? This is insane. Let the kid celebrate his good game with a Big Mac Meal or an ice cream cone and get back to coaching your grown men. You’ll be able to recruit him with real measures down the road. If you need help learning how, I hear Gary Barnett is available.
And we wonder what’s wrong with the world or why people outside our country hate us. Give me a break.
Be well.