Somehow college football season is officially over and just like that the BCS era has come to an end. Now football fans can turn their full, undivided attention to the NFL playoffs, which has been one of the best in recent memory. One of the things we all love about watching the NFL is the opportunity to see the absolute, undisputed best football players in the world competing on the world's biggest stage.
But as exciting as this year's season and playoffs have been, I can no longer say with any confidence that the players out on the field are truly the best football players in the world. This is not to say that the best athletes are being attracted to other sports. An argument to this effect would be purely speculative and is not one I am qualified to make. Rather, the entire American football system (from high school to the pros) is broken. Let me explain.
Every major sports league in the United States, except for the NFL, allows athletes to be drafted through non-collegiate channels. In both Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League players can be drafted directly out of high school. The National Basketball Association (NBA) drafts players from abroad as well as NCAA athletes. This enables athletes who either cannot qualify academically to play in the NCAA or are uninterested in playing NCAA basketball to play overseas for a year and then enter the NBA draft.
The NFL has nothing like this. The amount of players in the NFL who did not attend college is statistically insignificant. And when I say "attending college" here it is not with the same asterisk that belongs with one-and-done basketball players. Before an athlete can declare for the NFL draft he must have spent at least three seasons in a college program.
It is hard for a lot of people to see this as a problem. If anything, it is seen as a positive thing. The American football system creates opportunities for thousands of young men who would not have otherwise pursued higher education to study for free at top-level universities. This is great, but it is only great for those who actually want to pursue higher education. Higher education is something that should be available to everyone who wants to pursue it, but not everyone is necessarily cut out for it.
This is not to say these young men are not smart enough. They are often plenty smart. There are just hundreds of other paths which interest them more, whether it be a trade school or maybe entrepreneurship.
Just think about your own experience at Emory. Having to take a GER that you hate sucks. For me, this is science with lab. I put off this requirement until second semester of senior year and now that I am enrolled in BIOL 120, I am in my own personal hell. There is nothing that can get me motivated to pay attention in that class. Every student here has experienced or will experience this in some way, shape or form. Now, imagine that every single class you are enrolled in feels like this.
Take Davante Bourque. Bourque was rated by Rivals.com as one of the top 200 high school football players in 2011. He committed to the University of Tennessee hoping to play early and eventually make the NFL, but before the season had even started he left the team. College was not for him.
Ohio State footballer Cardale Jones brought some clarity to the issue in a now infamous tweet which read, "Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain't come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS."
Jones was almost unanimously criticized for the tweet. Many saw him as ungrateful for not wanting to take advantage of his scholarship to educate himself, but Jones' tweet sheds light on a real issue. There needs to be a legitimate channel made available for athletes like Jones and Bourque to at least try out for the NFL, without having higher education rammed down their throats.
How can the NFL fix this problem? I am not going to pretend to have an exact answer for this. Maybe a modified, minor league system would work, or an NFL-sponsored amateur league in the United States.
What's clear is that this is a discussion that needs to be had. The NFL needs to invest into answering these questions and fixing this problem. Professional quality athletes should not be out of football because they cannot cut it in the classrooms of higher education.
– By Nathaniel Ludewig
