Everybody, their Uncle LeRoy and cousin Man-Man have been fired up about the foolishness that the NCAA pulled this week. They threw some ignorance on the table about agents having to have a degree to advise players looking to test the waters on their potential NBA draft status. LeBron James immediately slammed it calling it #TheRichPaulRule because it was aimed at his boy Rich Paul because he’s come into the NBA agent world and taken over without having a degree. His roster includes cats like LeBron, Anthony Davis, Draymond Green, Eric Bledsoe, Ben Simmons and John Wall.
Then everybody started to pile on the NCAA and rightfully so. However, FS1’s Chris Broussard tried to jump on the bandwagon to give his two cents. He started off great then hit the rails talking crazy and totaled the ride. He blasts the NCAA not calling it #TheRichPaulRule but calling it what it is, straight up racist.
That’s exactly what it is. However, we already knew that the powers that be would try to change the criteria because some young black hustler figured out how to use his power of influence with his peers and young ball players to make some bread. What’s so ridiculous is that in this country they’ll tell cats to stop doing illegal things to make a living and use those same skills to make a legal living.
However, when Rich Paul gets into the game and does it better than anybody in the business folks panic. All of a sudden, they want to throw some ignorant rule on the table that doesn’t even effect him. Paul represents the top players in the league that wouldn’t ever be testing their draft status anyway. His roster includes cats like LeBron, Anthony Davis, Draymond Green, Eric Bledsoe, Ben Simmons and John Wall.
It does however, effect the young up and coming agents trying to do what Rich Paul has successfully done. It’s like locking a brother up for selling drugs then figuring out that those same drugs can boost the economy of an entire state. Therefore, they make it legal to sell those same drugs without letting those that were initially locked up out and giving them their money back. That’s racism in America 101.
Now I was in the ride with Broussard when he called it what it was. Then the dun slammed into the guard rail doing 135 mph with no head lights on. He started with the “what if” foolishness that made absolutely no sense. It sounds good but it makes no sense because it will never happen and to jump into the “What If” business on it is crazy.
He says that what if the young black top level D1 prospects started going to the HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) instead of going to places like Duke, North Carolina and Kentucky and start going to places like Howard, Morehouse and Xavier (New Orleans). That way we could empower our own schools and bring those millions to those universities.
Don’t get it twisted, it sounds good if you want folks to cheer in the background and hit the like button but it makes no sense. The best of the best want to play at the highest level. The HBCU experience is the best there is from an educational and cultural standpoint for our people. Both of my parents went to Texas Southern and both my wife and son are graduates of THEE I LOVE, Jackson State University!!! Did I mention that her entire side of the family went to JSU? So I’m not telling you what I heard. I’m telling you what I know. I love the HBCU and what it continues to offer us. The kids that look like me coming out of those schools get better jobs than the kids that look like me coming out of the predominantly white schools. Why? Because they’ve been nurtured and prepared better. I’m not telling you what I heard, I’m telling you what I know because I’ve seen both sides of it. I went to both Purdue University and Indiana University graduating from IU.
However, to just jump out of the birthday cake butt naked foamin’ at the mouth saying this “What If” foolishness is crazy. As it stands today many of the HBCU’s have athletic budgets of some high schools bruh! They play in arenas and stadiums that are smaller than most high schools in America. A big time D1 prospect isn’t going to sniff their way if Kentucky or Duke or you name any large state school comes calling. The weight room alone at some of these schools are worth more than the entire athletic budget at an HBCU. It’s not even close.
And yes, I realize that our players we’re attending the HBCU’s during segragetion. However, the flood gates have been opened for good and bad because our kids are being exploited by the NCAA, the networks and the schools themselves. But like we used to say in the hood, “Once you shoot the gun. You can’t get the bullets back.”
Once our kids have gotten an opportunity to play at that level with the amount of resources available at these big schools you can’t talk a kid into playing at a small school. It ain’t happening.
So to throw the “what if” out is as silly as folks saying “Man what if all of the black NFL players decided not to play in their games on Sunday in support of Colin Kaepernick or against police brutality, racial and social injustice?” It sounds good but it’s not going to happen. Folks have to eat and those contracts aren’t guaranteed. Not everybody playing in the NFL is rich and self sufficient and even those that are may not want to take the chance of losing what they have.
That’s like saying “What if every black person in America decided not to go to work for the next three days? It would destroy the American economy!!” It probably would. However, how many folks would/could actually do it and keep their jobs? So the probability of it happening is slim to none because folks gotta eat and unfortunately, everybody isn’t willing to go broke for the cause. It takes a special person to want to do that.
So to jump off of the deep end and suggest that players that have the DNA that very few people have been blessed to possess go to play high school basketball again is crazy. Yes, if all of the best players decided to start going to the HBCU the money would follow but it’s not going to happen because the money is already at the major schools. Therefore, the players are going to keep going to the big time schools to play big time college sports.
The cat playing at Morehouse didn’t get offered to hoop at Kentucky. The cat playing at Jackson State didn’t get offered at North Carolina to hoop. The cat playing at Howard didn’t get offered at Michigan State. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t academically qualified to go to those schools he just wasn’t qualified to hoop at that level because if he were he would have been there. Stop it!!!
Athletes want to play at the highest level. Just like “students” want the best possible situation for themselves academically. A ball player wants to work out in a $300 million facility not a high school caliber facility. A ball player at that level wants to play in front of 17,000 plus home fans and on national television every week not in front of 300 hundred fans and a streamed live. I’m not slamming the HBCU because I’m 100 percent for the HBCU experience. If I weren’t I wouldn’t have sent my child to one. I’m just telling you what makes sense and what doesn’t from an athletic recruiting perspective. You’re not taking the job with the small mom and pop if you can go to work for Microsoft right out of college. Stop with this foolishness!!!
Stop just throwing stuff on the table just to get likes. Broussard makes a living in the sports world so he understands what makes sense and what doesn’t. Don’t fall for the Oakey Doak when boyz just throw stuff in the air and stop me when I start lyin’!
Playas Thesaurus:
1) Dun: noun – the person in question, dude, guy, etc. It’s whoever I’m talkin’ about and its non-gender specific.
