Don't Blame OJ Mayo, Blame the Big Guys at USC and the NCAA

Recently, ESPN has released a report on OJ Mayo receiving gifts in forms of money and material items during his high school and college careers. Being an avid sports fan, I wasn’t surprised at all that he received “gifts” in high school and college. Top amateur athletes in the US including top basketball prospects like OJ Mayo will naturally attract people that will attempt to take advantage of their talents. And in OJ’s case, he’s been dealing with people like this since he was in 6^th grade. How can we condemn the guy, if he was getting consistent mixed messages ever since he was 12 years old?

I don’t believe anyone is in the right to criticize Mayo for receiving these gifts. By no way am I justifying his actions of accepting the gifts, on the other hand, I believe all athletes should make decisions that are within the rules that are in place. OJ Mayo isn’t the problem, he’ll keep on living his life, looking forward to his NBA dream, and he can’t and won’t even suffer any serious consequences.

Instead, the criticism should be directed at USC and the NCAA for letting things like this happen. Will the NCAA do something this time around? If they don’t enact severe punishment on USC, then they’re sending the wrong message to the league, college sports, and amateur sports in general. Athletes aren’t bigger than the law; by letting them and the participating parties off, the whole point of college sports is lost. And it’s wrong to totally focus on just USC; it’d be false to say that this isn’t happening anywhere else in the country.

People like Rodney Guillory (the person who gave gifts to Mayo) are a growing population in amateur sports culture. Something needs to halt the growth of this breed. Whether it is coaches, recruiters, agents, family, friends, or people just hoping to make a quick buck, it’s almost become some what of normality now. As a high school student, I daily see athletes receive preferential treatment in the school environment. Most notably, they suffer fewer consequences for breaking the rules. And it’s not just on the high school level, it happens on all levels of amateur sports. No matter how ethically wrong it is, and although there are rules put into place by the appropriate authorities to prevent “favoritism”, short-cuts are always found, consequences are weakened, and young athletes are often manipulated by people trying to take advantage of them.

The system is flawed. We can’t stop society from exploiting 12-year old basketball talent. But the NCAA can be stricter with the enforcement of their rules. And it starts now, if this story proves true, and the NCAA does something serious about it, USC and other colleges will second think and be more careful about situations like this one. If USC gets off easy, then stories like this won’t be scandals they’ll become accepted and ignored newspaper headlines.