| 08 January 2010
I wanted this column to be great today; you know, the type of column that you read and were taken aback from. One that made you laugh, think, and cry all at the same time. Jim Valvano said that if you laugh, you think, and you cry, all in the same day then you had a hell of a day. I wanted to give you that day. I knew I'd be getting some extra readers today (probably most of you reading this) since I was going to be on ESPN's Sportsnation, so I wanted to bring you a column like you've never seen before; or at least one that isn't typical of most of the sports blogs you read. I knew I didn't want to write about the National Championship. Was I going to be like everyone else and discuss how said it was for Colt McCoy to not be able to play, debate who would've won if Colt would've play, or even worse, dissect the Gatorade bath that Nick Saban received? No way. I'm above that typical stuff. I want thought provoking pieces or at least a column that is going to piss a few people off. After thirty minutes of contemplation I decided I was thinking to hard and just to write what I wanted to write. Unfortunately what I wanted to write was something I've already written before. It was one of my first articles so I thought I might as well recover my idea and make it even better this time. Even I can go green once in awhile.
So my original column discussed how the UFL should draft high school players so they could finally get paid, but the more and more I thought about it, I realized that this one idea could change the game of football for the better. Let's think about college sports for a minute. Currently the biggest sports are basketball and football. Why are they so popular? 1) The competition is great 2) There's lots of money being generated that keeps them prospering throughout many sorts of media and 3) There's no other league that competes with them. College baseball and college hockey both have minor league systems that rival the college equivalent, while allowing the player to make some money while they play. College football needs the same type of system and the UFL is the perfect place for high school kids to go. We've already seen high school basketball players like Brandon Jennings cross waters to play professionally before they get to the big leagues leagues and this could easily be an increasing trend, especially with the success we've seen him have. If the UFL was smart they'd listen to what I have to say here.
First let's look at it from the fans' perspective. How great would it be to have a draft where some of the elite high school football players could get drafted to a team. Some of the local kids we attended high school with or at least watched grow up into a solid football player would get the chance to play professionally right out of high school. Yes, there's currently only four teams and the competition isn't great, but the increase in talent and the excitement of seeing some of these high school players get a shot against washed up NFL players would be very enticing to watch. There's many of us out there that love to follow recruiting and this would take it to another level as the player would have the choice to attend college or to go make some immediate money. We love football. If the product is good we will watch it and currently the product isn't too good. The UFL needs to do something like this to add a new layer to their product.
From the players perspective, they get a chance to make money immediately after high school. They don't have to worry about classes and studies and they get to focus on what they're in college for anyway, to play football. Instead of spending their time in class they would spend all day watching tape, training and getting stronger, learning the game from a professional level. The goal of most people who go to college is to get a job and to make money with something they enjoy doing. Some kids are meant for college and will capitalize greatly from academics and the athletic situation that colleges provide, but there are some kids that aren't cut out for it. Usually these kids go to junior colleges and hope that a scholarship is still around once they graduate JC. This would allow them to immediately compete professionally, focus on the game of football, and to make money, just like many other athletes do in baseball and hockey who don't go to college, but instead go to a minor league system.
Lastly, we have the UFL perspective. This is basically a no-brainer for them because their product sucks right now. Why not create a draft with players we actually care to see where they go get drafted instead of finding out that J.P. Losman got drafted to the Las Vegas Locomotives. I think a team name change is in order as well. They would give these players an opportunity to make money, while also getting them prepared to enter the NFL draft. This is the big point right here. The UFL would need to make sure that they focus on getting these players to the NFL. They need to know that they will never be the NFL and that by creating a league that helps players get there, while also having some players who are ex-NFL players they finally have created a product that people would actually enjoy seeing. There's lots of arguments against this as well. People believe that players out of high school don't have the bodies to compete against ex-NFLers. I don't think that's the case anymore. People think that it could take away from the NCAA. It may, but as we know, the NCAA isn't much of a fan to change so who really cares what they think. NCAA football will still be great to watch even if some of the best players jump ship to the UFL. There would be the same competitiveness and unfortunately we'd still have the BCS.
I'm sure there's going to be a lot of naysayers out there that think this would be horrible or not feasible in anyway. I think it's possible. I think it's the kind of idea that would improve the UFL, improve the lives of some high school players, improve the NFL product as these players would be much more ready for what they were getting into when they got to the NFL, and it would improve the game of football for all of us at home.
