Kentucky Basketball: Kanter Blowback

Jason King, yahoosports, has the story of Terrence Jones recruitment and his deep affection for Calipari and UK (in that order, illustrative, no?).

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(1) Has anyone considered the possibility that the NCAA may have encouraged Calipari/Kentucky to work with them to help them improve the path to eligibility for foreign athletes.

I could easily imagine a conversation going down like this:

Calipari: "Hey Mark (NCAA guy), I’ve got this foreign prospect, Enes Kanter, kid from Turkey, that’s interested in playing for Kentucky. Great kid, 18 years old, reasonable student, great family life, father’s a doctor. But like all European kids, he played for a ‘club’ team. Never signed a contract or anything but got uniforms, food and lodging, travel, etc. Father kept great records about the reimbursable expenses he got paid. Some of the guys have stopped recruiting him because it could be too big a hassle to get him eligible. What do you think?

NCAA: “Hey, John, good to hear from you! Yeah, we’ve heard of him. Sounds like a good kid. We’ve gotten some inquiries from other coaches. Tough to weed through the amateur-status issues on a situation that far away, foreign language and all, parochial attitude about foreign sports agencies, bad record keeping, likely won’t get any help from the ‘Club’. Tough, tough, tough. Hmmmm, but you say the dad kept good records?”

Calipari: “Yeah, tons of them. Receipts, everything. You should see it!”

NCAA: "I tell you, it sounds like this Kanter might be a terrific pilot case for testing our new regs on foreign eligibility, have you looked at them? What? No?…Anyway, it would help to work the bugs out of our procedures and give us a better idea of what to expect, what to look for and everything.

“I can’t promise you anything you know, but if you decide to go ahead and offer him, well, we’ll do everything we can to pick through the junk, I’ll get my top people on it, and get you a decision you can rely on before the season. You’re still going to Canada, right? Well, he probably won’t be cleared to play by then, best to hold him out, but he could practice, we’ll give him a waiver, that’s something. Sandy and us could work together on this. Sounds like a good chance. You never know, but, yeah, sounds like a good chance. Have Sandy, call me…”

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(2) We Americans probably shouldn’t be so hard on Nedim Karakas (General Manager of Fenerbahce Ulker) for his comments regarding Enes’ student aptitude. The perspectives between the United States and most of the rest of the world on post secondary education are totally different. In the United States, virtually anybody who graduates High School is seen as a potential college student (over 75% of High School graduates think themselves “ready” to go to college). Maybe not Harvard, Princeton or Yale, but … somewhere. Over 30% of American High School graduates actually go on to an American college. (The National Center for Educational Statistics)

In Europe and most of the rest of the world, only 3-5% of secondary school graduates go on to University. Vast difference. When Karakas reasonably assesses Enes’ potential for matriculating at University, he probably considers the fact that only a comparative handfull of students were accepted to Turkish University from his kids’ secondary school and Enes beyond a doubt wouldn’t have been included in that group. In that academic environment, it’s likely only Brandon Knight from this recruiting class would have qualified to go to college in most of Europe - and maybe not, it’s that hard to get in. So, when Karakas says Kanter isn’t academically talented, he isn’t being insulting or especially brutally frank, he’s just stating a commonly understood European reality.

What really gets under my skin regarding the NCAA is their adherence to the dogma that amateurism prevails. Let’s be honest, are any of these athletes really amateurs? I don’t know about you all, but I attended a state university and incurred about $100,00 in debt over 5 years. The reality is we ARE paying these athletes, and depending on the school, it can be well over $100,000 for 4 years of playing a sport. These athletes get a free education, they get books paid for them, they get training tables (free meals), they get top tier medical and rehabilitation services paid for when they’re injured, they get to travel to exotic places (Maui Invitational, etc.) to play games! How is that not reimbursement? How is that not pay? 90% of students attending NCAA member institutions aren’t granted these privileges. The NCAA needs to get off their high horse and acknowledge that we’ve been paying these athletes for years!

And let’s not even get me started on how much revenue the NCAA makes off of these athletes. NCAA athletics is about money, whether they are willing to admit it or not. Amateurism is relative, just like most things in this world.