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A year later, little has changed

Dick "Hoops" Weiss Special to FOXSports.com, Updated 2 days ago  STORY TOOLS:                         print send blog LIKE THIS STORY?

Nothing has really changed, as far as Sonny Vaccaro is concerned.

The NCAA may be pushing this vision of the student athlete, but what they got was eight rent-a-stars, who only stayed a year before moving on again.

Center Greg Oden, point guard Mike Conley Jr. and guard Daequan Cook of Ohio State, forward Kevin Durant of Texas, guard Javaris Crittenton and forward Thaddeus Young of Georgia Tech, forward Brandon Wright of North Carolina and center Spencer Hawes of Washington — bolted as quickly as possible for the NBA.

Oden, Durant and Wright should all go in the top 4 and all but Cook, who came off the bench for the Buckeyes, should be selected before the 14th pick in the first round of next week's draft. He should go between 18 and 22.

They had all accomplished their purpose, to upgrade the NCAA's brand name and increase TV ratings. Durant was the consensus National Player of the Year. Oden, Conley and Cook all played against Florida in the national championship game.

But they are still three years away from a degree.

The majority of the elite students who participate in NCAA revenue sports use their playing season to audition for pro contracts. The professional leagues like the NBA and NFL have done more to establish definite guidelines for participation. However, the NCAA continues to exist in an eligibility quagmire where prospective student athletes have been allowed to reinvent themselves through diploma mill prep schools, and associate degrees awarded through independent study and standard testing irregulations.

It's time to end the charade.

Either open the flood gates completely, make all freshmen ineligible or go the major league baseball route, whereby blue chip prospects are given the option of declaring out of high school or committing to remain in school for three years before they can be drafted should they opt for college.

Anything is better than this hypocrisy, according to Vaccaro, one of the most famous movers and shakers in the history of the sport. Vaccaro, who built a national reputation for attracting and building lasting, influential relationships with the best players to his elite summer shoe camps and tournaments, has always been considered somewhat of a maverick because of his constant lobbying to give elite prep players more rights and freedom of choice and his ongoing battle to reform the NCAA.

"I was hoping these kids would leave after one year because it proved a point — that colleges will take a kid for one year, one day, one month, one game,'' Vaccaro said. "If you can be eligible to play in the Final Four, there is not a coach in America who wouldn't take you and there's not a school in America who wouldn't let you in.

"This is where the problem lies. The problem lies in the schism between the amateurs and professionals. If (NBA commissioner) David Stern wants to delay a player's entrance and he can get the Players' Association to agree with it, I can't find any fault with him. This is a business.

"What I don't accept is the continuation of the NCAA hiding behind the morality — this forum they have — of promoting the idea of enhancing the student athlete. This has nothing to do with the student athlete. If they were sincere about a student athlete, they would oppose the freshman eligibility rule and would make every student entering capable of being eligible and doing college work by their second year in college.

"Then they would have a student athlete playing amateur games. They won't do that because of scholarship limits, TV commitments and the likelihood that the eight players involved would probably go to Europe and not go to college at all. Go over and play and just sit out for a year.

"(Kansas State forward) Bill Walker would have been better served doing that than enrolling in college and playing (during the) second semester and getting injured.''

Vaccaro knows statements like this will not make him very popular in Indianapolis but he has never been one to shy away from strong opinions.

"These kids are as important to me as the class of 2004, when eight high school kids were selected because it showed kids were going to bolt at the first opportunity and the NCAA, through all of their summits, hasn't accomplished anything to benefit the student athlete. People who say that one year of college enhances your life are blowing smoke up their butt.

"The same NCAA that supposedly takes a higher moral ground on education is now allowing conferences like the Big Ten and the SEC to form their own TV networks to telecast the events of these so called amateurs and they continuously use them to make money. They pretend (to be) institutions of higher education but it's all about greed.''

Vaccaro is taking a break from the grass roots scene this summer. But he is lining up a speaking tour of college campuses for next fall and already has dates at Harvard marketing and Yale law. He is prepared for the tough questions and has a pragmatic answer for those who suggest Florida's ultimate triumph in the NCAA tournament for a second consecutive year was a testament to what happens when an elite program holds on to its core nucleus of upperclassmen.

"I applaud Florida,'' Vaccaro said. "None of (the) Florida kids were ready out of high school. We were all shocked Joey Noah went to a major school. They were never in the equation. What they did, they matured, got better and Billy (Donovan) did a great job with them. That course of action would have happened with — or without— age limits.

"Subconsciously, I was rooting for Ohio State in that game not just because I knew the kids or was an Ohio State fan, but because I wanted to prove a point.''