Are High School Athletes Ready for Pros?

Imagine being eighteen years old again. You are a broke high school teen who struggles to make it day to day on the joke of a paycheck that you get from your minimum wage job down the street. You wonder if your rusted and sputtering car is going to make the five-mile trip to school and back every day. In order to impress the cute girl that sits next to you in you English class, you have to borrow money from your penny-pinching parents. Now imagine that you have the talent to play basketball like Michael Jordan. College basketball is out of the question. You are a broke high school senior that needs money, and the National Basketball Association is telling you that you can make millions playing for them. This is the situation that a growing number of high school student athletes are finding themselves handling. This is what is ruining college and professional sports in America. Kids coming out of high school need to go to college and get an education before jumping to the professional ranks.

Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett are examples of these young men that encountered the same situation their senior year of high school. They were given millions of d

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His Major League Baseball career was over. It is great that these kids are successful in athletics, but they need to have a backup plan to fall back on if things don’t go as planned. Steve Thompson explains this best when he said:

Kids coming out of high school do not know what they are getting in to when they decide to take a huge risk to go straight to the professional ranks.

Though professional sports are a great way to make a living, they provide a false reality for high school athletes. However on July 30, 1980, Richard collapsed on the field from a major stroke. He was told he would do great in the NBA. Perhaps if NBA and MLB would implement drafting rules and restrictions for underclassmen and high school seniors every athlete would have an education to fall back on. His 1980 season started with similar stunning stats. He was the number two pitcher for the Houston Astros behind Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan. Entering the NBA draft is not a guarantee. 3 million dollars a year from the Los Angeles Lakers, not to mention the millions that he is making from endorsements from Mattel, McDonalds, Sprite, and Adidas (Thompson 1). Of the other 16 ‘stars,’ four no longer play basketball, four average less than 10 minutes a game, and one is serving jail time for robbery (4). (3)

The NCAA and professional teams need to bridge together to prevent the destruction of the lives of many future star athletes. Is skipping college and going pro really beneficial?

The growing trend of high school players going pro applies to all sports, not just basketball. He now has no college eligibility and no college education.

Common topics in this essay:
Michigan University, Cleveland Cavaliers, Steve Thompson, Kobe Bryant, Toney Key, Pros Imagine, National League, Ellis Richardson, League Baseball, NBA MLB, college education, kobe bryant, school players, professional ranks, school athletes, nba draft, toney key, millions playing, lebron james, serving jail robbery, kevin garnett, won nba titles, kids coming school,

Approximate Word count = 1476
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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