Draft-eligible players

Forty-eight college football players have requested and been granted permission to enter the 2006 NFL draft prior to finishing their NCAA eligibility and/or their bachelor's degree.

When this topic comes up every winter, people usually focus on the money aspect (players leave to make money), or the "farm system" notion of college football. It rarely focuses on some of the other important measures involved.

1) Human brains are fully developed at around 25 years; prior to that, the brain simply isn't finished becoming. The human body, likewise, isn't fully developed until the early 20s, with metabolic and structural changes continuing to occur.

These kids — and they are still kids — are deciding to enter a physically and mentally demanding profession well before their decision-making capabilities are fully engaged, and even before their physical capabilities are reached.

2) If players are making a jump to professional football for monetary reasons, then rather than focus on individual decisions — in this case, by 48 young men — perhaps a more effective focus would be changing the system, so that these boys — some of whom are barely able to legally drink — don't have to make a decision between dragging themselves out of poverty, or pursuing further development in a more supportive environment.

If our society offered better redistribution of resources, then "buying a house for my mama," might not be such a high priority for some players.

3) The notion that some players are leaving because they simply don't want to be in school.

Rather than compare this to the "farm-system" argument, I would direct this question differently: why? Why wouldn't a student want to be in school? How are universities failing their student-athletes, and how is the education system as a whole failing students such that they don't find education a worthwhile pursuit?

If students leave because they have unaddressed learning difficulties, then schools should put more emphasis on educational support. If students leave because they have insufficient skills to cope with higher education, then schools need to provide supplementary teaching to augment those skills. If students leave because they are bored in their classes, then perhaps schools should reexamine their fields of study and offer topics which more closely approximate what students find intriguing.

Further to all of this, it will be vastly interesting to see how the newest NCAA attempts to encourage scholarship amongst student-athletes develop, especially the prospect of scholarship reduction for lack of progress toward degrees.