Staying in School?

[Zeb]

The headline for the post about Stephon Marbury's recent antics follows a familiar DBR meme that college is some kind of charm school and players who didn't get a strong enough dosage are doomed to make fools of themselves. (Another example that comes to mind--they once commented that Kobe's trouble in Colorado might have been avoided if he had gone to college.)

Education is of course tremendously important and attending a university is something that has the power to transform and enrich an individual. But college basketball fans acting like staying in school is some kind of panacea strikes me as self serving. We've seen a whole bunch of athletes who spent four years in college do stupid things both during their college careers and afterwards, and we've seen athletes who never attended college become great professionals and solid members of their communities.

If you want to call Stephon Marbury a loon, I won't argue with you. But there's more going on there than how many years he stayed at Georgia Tech.

[juise]

I see your point. I wonder if not staying in school and other troubles are symptoms of the same problems (as opposed to having a causal relationship). By this I mean that athletes who would prefer not to spend much time in school - because have issues with authority or whose parents didn't value education or whatever the reason may be - could also have problems further down the road (Eddie Griffin).

Of course, I won't fault anyone for accepting a high-paying job that doesn't require them to have much of an education.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I see your point. I wonder if not staying in school and other troubles are symptoms of the same problems (as opposed to having a causal relationship). By this I mean that athletes who would prefer not to spend much time in school - because have issues with authority or whose parents didn't value education or whatever the reason may be - could also have problems further down the road (Eddie Griffin).

Of course, I won't fault anyone for accepting a high-paying job that doesn't require them to have much of an education.

For the most part, dropping out of school, or not going to school, stems from immaturity and being lazy - not wanting to put in the time and effort to learn stuff. I don't mean just from college, but going all the way back to grade school when learning how to read, how to conjugate a verb, how to do math, learn history, other languages, virtually anything taught in school, took considerable time and effort. It is/was more fun to play a game and devote the time, effort and energy into that rather than study. I don't fault an elite athlete for taking the life changing big bucks instead of continuing his (or her) education, I'd probably make the same decision, because when it comes to being lazy, I'm all over that puppy.

[Classof06]

The headline for the post about Stephon Marbury's recent antics follows a familiar DBR meme that college is some kind of charm school and players who didn't get a strong enough dosage are doomed to make fools of themselves. (Another example that comes to mind--they once commented that Kobe's trouble in Colorado might have been avoided if he had gone to college.)

Education is of course tremendously important and attending a university is something that has the power to transform and enrich an individual. But college basketball fans acting like staying in school is some kind of panacea strikes me as self serving. We've seen a whole bunch of athletes who spent four years in college do stupid things both during their college careers and afterwards, and we've seen athletes who never attended college become great professionals and solid members of their communities.

If you want to call Stephon Marbury a loon, I won't argue with you. But there's more going on there than how many years he stayed at Georgia Tech.


I agree. I know kids right now that graduated from college that are as unprepared for the real world as they were when they were 18. Colleges, Duke included, don't exactly provide an inordinate amount of responsibilities; it's probably why those 4 years should be some of the best of your life. At least for me, it was going to class, getting decent grades and trying not to get arrested on the weekend, all the while growing as a person (which I surely did). But college won't prepare anyone for a mistake-free life upon graduation. That's just silly. Humans make mistakes whether a diploma sits on their wall or not.

I think the Kobe argument is especially misguided; Kobe didn't make that mistake because he didn't go to college, but I'm confident the fact that he was a millionaire at the age of 18 and got married very shortly thereafter probably didn't help. In fact, Kobe's parents were so upset with his early marriage that Bryant didn't speak to his father for almost 3 years following his wedding. Not that anyone saw the Colorado allegations coming, but I'm sure Jellybean Bryant saw that his young millionaire celebrity son getting married at age 19 or 20 probably wasn't the best idea. I think he knew his son wasn't ready and rape or not, the fact that he was doing whatever he was doing with that young woman in Colorado pretty much confirmed it.

[Zeb]

Whether or not an elite basketball player stays in school is much more about their position in the draft than their laziness. I don't think Elton Brand or Luol Deng or Mike Dunleavy left early because they were lazy.

But laziness isn't really what I'm talking about here. I just think its ridiculous to think that another year of college would keep Starbury from making a fool of himself on TV. Jay Williams is a great guy, a smart guy, a guy who graduated early, and yet he ruined his career doing something stupid. I don't remember DBR blaming a lack of enough years in college on that.

[dukeENG2003]

I thought it was kind of a comment made in jest, perhaps we need to lighten up just a tad. . .

and that video WAS funny

[Zeb]

The video is hilarious.

"12 dimes, 2-3 assists"

[SilkyJ]

The video is hilarious.

"12 dimes, 2-3 assists"
Glad you brought that up b/c I was worried i was missing something. I watched that part over and over again and was very confused. Now I just know that he just needed his better ho, I mean half, by his side to help him remember that dimes are assists.

[juise]

There a few different dimes (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dime) to which Starbury could referring.

[Clipsfan]

I think the Kobe argument is especially misguided; Kobe didn't make that mistake because he didn't go to college, but I'm confident the fact that he was a millionaire at the age of 18 and got married very shortly thereafter probably didn't help. In fact, Kobe's parents were so upset with his early marriage that Bryant didn't speak to his father for almost 3 years following his wedding. Not that anyone saw the Colorado allegations coming, but I'm sure Jellybean Bryant saw that his young millionaire celebrity son getting married at age 19 or 20 probably wasn't the best idea. I think he knew his son wasn't ready and rape or not, the fact that he was doing whatever he was doing with that young woman in Colorado pretty much confirmed it.

The local word on Kobe's early marriage was always that Kobe wasn't really interested in getting married at that age either but that he fell victim to the hard deadline of 18 years old and statuatory rape. He wasn't much older than his wife, but she was under 18 and he was 18 when they first had sex. Her dad had proof of it and told Kobe that they would press charges if he didn't marry her. Kobe was already a millionaire at this point, so was a great catch from a monetary perspective.