In Reply to: As students at UCLA they're going to have to take classes posted by barrya on December 26, 2025 at 13:10:58
a year and make him spend his time going to classes (unless he actually wants to attend classes and finish his degree work)? He is basically an employee of UCLA (do all employees of UCLA have to attend classes?) and could be spending his time perfecting his skills and techniques like other "pros" do. This isn't amateur sports anymore controlled by NCAA rules. Isn't that the reason UCLA recruited him from the portal? I'd guess that many of those players are there solely to play basketball (or some other sport), and not necessarily there to get a degree. Pretty much all most likely have dreams of playing in the NBA.
It's possible that these high profile, very expensive portal transfers probably will make much more from playing basketball at some professional level than any job than they could get with a college degree. If colleges are going to pay players to represent their school and basically have what are essentially professional teams, why not treat the the small number of players like pros and give them the option to either go to class or simply spend their time there perfecting their skills like the pros they already are.
No doubt that would be a very radical change for colleges to make (not necessarily my opinion on what should happen--just some thoughts on one way this could evolve). I seriously doubt that schools will change to that type of policy for their teams, at least in the near future. But does anyone envision a scenario like the one above happening in the future?? Seems to me it could be heading in that direction although at my advanced age, I doubt I'll be around to see it.
Barry (or anyone else) what's your take on where this is likely heading??