[F]or one who had no allegiance to any of the [68] teams and couldn’t care any less which team wins the national championship, I did a pretty good job of picking winners in my office pool: of the four teams I picked, three (namely, Kentucky, Louisville, and Kansas) made it through to the Sweet 16…
Alas, I picked Florida State to win it all. So it is more than a little ironic that it was the only one of my four picks to fail to make it even to the Sweet 16. I hereby choose Kentucky to win it all.
(“Sweet 16,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 23, 2012)
I thought I did pretty well to have three of my teams make it to the Sweet 16. So when all three teams made it to the Final Four, I thought I was on a lucky streak that made expectations about winning that growing mega-millions jackpot seem reasonable; well, not really….
But since I made Kentucky my substitute team to win it all, I was encouraged when it survived Saturday’s intra-state rivalry against Louisville to make it to last night’s championship game against Kansas.
The game was never close. Kentucky dominated, leading by 18 at one point before winning by a misleading score of 67-59. In fact, one got the impression the Wildcats were seasoned NBA players in disguise.
It’s just too bad the post-game talk was more about the way Coach John Calipari recruited the players on this national championship team than about the way they played. But I see nothing wrong with Calipari recruiting standout players who he knows are committed to no more than one year in college before heading to the NBA – the so-called “one-and-done” trend. In fact, reports are that none of the starters on this team will be returning to Kentucky next year.
There’s nothing amateur about college [Basketball]. It’s a billion-dollar business for Christ’s sake! More to the point, the people who generate its revenue are not the university presidents, athletics directors, or coaches who, incidentally, make millions of dollars in salary and endorsement deals. Instead, they are the poor black athletes whose raw talents colleges exploit…
I have always felt that it is tantamount to modern-day slavery for universities to recruit poor and, all too often, uneducated black athletes just to play [Basketball] and not compensate them for their services, especially considering they rarely get an education. But this indentured servitude is made much worse by branding these poor players as cheaters for accepting a little cash on the side. Mind you, those offering the cash are often boosters just trying to make life easier for the players to enable them to perform better … out on the [court]…
The hypocrisy inherent in this is beyond shameful.
Colleges should compensate student-athletes in direct proportion to the way [NBA] teams compensate their players. They could then reallocate the scholarship money they spend recruiting jocks to fund financial aid for black students who aspire to be more than professional athletes.
(“Reggie Bush Forfeits Heisman Trophy,” The iPINIONS Journal, September 16, 2010)
Congratulations Kentucky!
NOTE: It speaks volumes about the state of mind that prevails on college campuses these days that students seem unable to distinguish between celebrating and rioting. Hell, in addition to the rampant acts of arson that have become de rigueur, last night’s celebration at Kentucky even included gunfire. One man was wounded; dozens of marauding idiots were arrested….
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