National signing day is a fraud

Aah yes, national signing day. Future college athletes get sized up, measured and predicted to be the next big thing for their school. What is it, you ask?

National Signing Day is always on the first Wednesday in February. It is the first day a high school senior can sign a binding National Letter of Intent for college sports.

The issues are plenty. Let’s examine them, shall we?

1. College athletes aren’t professionals. But national signing day is treated as a star-studded event where “student-athletes” are feted over for a day. Why? The unspoken story is that national signing day is the journey that gets them one step closer to the NFL or NBA. As if there wasn’t enough hypocrisy in the salaries of college coaches at the highest levels, the television contracts and so on, this joke starts with the name of it. They’re not signing a contract for money, folks. If we really wanted to celebrate something, let’s celebrate kids talking about how great an education they’re going to receive. Of course, that’s not the priority. They’re rather talk about these kids like they’re pro prospects entering the hallowed cathedrals of their sport.
2. How many of these students are going to graduate? It’s the big question that no one wants to ask, because see also “they’re going to the league,” but since we never see college tennis, fencing, swimming or other minor sports on ESPN deciding what cap to put on, I don’t really target them. I’m talking about the abysmal graduation rates of most major universities have in regards to their revenue sport student-athletes. (e.g. men’s basketball, football and sometimes, men’s hockey)Exalting these high school graduates that often times have a difficult time even qualifying to attend some of these schools, before they’ve stepped foot on campus causes a lot of the problems we see. These aren’t just students, they’re not just athletes. They’re someone else’s meal ticket. For teens that aren’t allowed to drink, might barely drive and have little way to make a living for themselves, that’s a heck of a lot of pressure to know that your mom, dad, coach, cousins, teammates and thousands of “fans” you’ve met in your life are all relying on you not to suck.
3. These kids haven’t done anything yet. Ok, so they worked hard to get to college. To get recognized and sized up by a bunch of independent people. All of these issues are interrelated and all comes back to one thing — money. Everyone knows that the people who shined in high school, don’t necessarily translate well to college. Maybe that’s why this is good for them, they get a chance to secure their skills into an education at a place they might not otherwise get to go.Is this really a healthy exercise for anybody in the grand scheme of things? I mean, when everyone has congregated in the community to wish you well on your future pro career that’s still light years away, where do you go from that if you fail? How shattered would your confidence be forever? I don’t know. But it’s akin to those dudes at the party passing out their cards, telling you how their startup is going to make them billionaires soon. There are just too many variables involved in all of this and you just don’t know how it’s gonna turn out.

Look, it’s great they’re all going on to get an education. I’m sure college will be just dandy for most of them, will afford them all sorts of connections they’d otherwise not have, friends they’ll maintain for life and skills that you couldn’t buy at Wal-Mart.

But let’s not kid ourselves into believing this all about the greater good, friends. It’s about cold, hard cash. And the ones producing it, aren’t really reaping what they sow. I can’t see how this thing goes on for another ten years in the status quo.

Or will it?

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