Friday, April 24, 2009

Hey, High-Schoolers-- go chase millions. Unless it is via basketball.

Hard not to see this kind of fist-shaking coming on the heels of high school hoops star Jeremy Tyler opting to take his senior year of high school overseas to play pro ball in Europe. Eric Crawford of the Courier-Journal is all over the problem.

The last time a kid said he was going to skip his senior year of high school and go pro, the year was 1999, his name was Brandon Bender, and everybody laughed.

[So I guess for the purposes of this "big picture/problem with society" piece that we are just going to ignore golf/tennis/baseball/auto-racing/music/acting/etc.? OK, cool.]

I can't knock the 6-foot-11 U of L prospect and his family for deciding to negotiate a six-figure professional basketball deal in Europe, probably Spain, in favor of his senior year of high school.

[Why do I feel like he is about to knock him anyways?]

Something tells me that Tyler isn't availing himself of much in the way of "off-the-court stuff" in high school, either. Might as well finish his graduation requirements online, as he plans to do. Let's hope one of those lessons teaches him to find Spain on a map.

[Bingo. Classy.]

On the flip-side, a rare kudos to SI.com for Andy Staple's piece on the same issue. Hint: Staples takes a slightly different view than Crawford.

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