Two Solutions: OJ Mayo Situation Shows Need for Improvement in College Sports

In light of the recent O.J. Mayo accusations that are currently hounding USC, along with the host of NCAA rule violations and academic suspensions across college sports in general, I would like to suggest two possible solutions:

MLB and the NHL.

Both of these professional sports organizations have developed minor leagues or farm systems to groom young players not quite ready for the big show. While both sports can and do draft college players, colleges and universities are not their primary venue for developing up-and-coming talent. Nor should they be.

Universities are academic institutions, whose student-athletes are supposed to be students first and athletes second.

It should be an individual’s choice as to whether he or she chooses to enter a college or join a minor league roster of an NBA or NFL team.

This will keep athletics at the college level competitive. It will also enable those athletes who are hardship cases to receive compensation and possibly a signing bonus while playing for a professional minor league team. They will no longer have to try to sneak under the radar of the NCAA to receive a clandestine gift from a booster or bribe money from an agency shill.

Furthermore, this will keep the leeches, who are bribing these young athletes in the hopes of a big payout down the line, away from college campuses.

To those who say it will damage the attractiveness of college sports, I say look at college baseball. Regular season games are televised on ESPN and Fox Sports Network throughout the Spring along with the College World Series. Even collegiate women’s softball receives air time.

But when was the last time any of the networks televised a minor league baseball game? And some of these teams have very expensive bonus players on their roster along with a few "name" players from the big show, who are trying to regain their Major League form.

The same is true for college hockey. Junior hockey has not tarnished the popularity of college hockey—especially in the Northeast and Midwest.

Does anyone really believe that alumni and fans across the nation would stop watching Notre Dame or USC football if there were an NFL semi-pro minor league? Would they stop watching and rooting for Duke or UCLA basketball even if there were a host of NBA developmental teams with 18- and 19-year-old potential LeBrons?

Let’s get these one-and-done athletes out of college sports and into a sanctioned developmental league. There is no need, other than because David Stern deems it so, for O.J. Mayo to spend time in college while he is secretly on the take (if the accusations prove to be true). There are many mid-sized cities that would readily host a semi-professional team composed of future greats, even if they only stay in town for one season.

If David Stern and the NBA ownership want high school kids to spend a year maturing, let them put up the money to expand their D-League into a profitable farm system. They can even sponsor junior leagues like the NHL does to develop promising high school underclassmen.

If the NBA is unwilling to expand their developmental league for high school seniors as a part of the NBA draft complete with signing bonuses, then the only other alternative is for the NBA to either abolish the one-year college rule or extend it to two years.

By extending it, they make the player at least somewhat academically accountable, and give the alumni and fans a feeling that the player is truly one of their own. I never got the feeling that players like O.J. Mayo or Kevin Love were truly a part of their respective teams. I felt that they were just performing a season-long audition for the NBA.

Finally, if the NCAA is willing to let its major sports teams continue to be a farm system for the NBA and the NFL, then they must work out a binding contract with both professional sports, in which the NBA and the NFL agree to blacklist any agency that has in any way caused a member institution to become ineligible due to rule violations.

The NCAA, which has always dragged its feet in important matters, must act now to save college sports and stop this travesty that David Stern’s leadership has wrought upon alumni and fans.