Young B-Ball Star Takes European Money - Good for Him!

In light of Jeremy Tyler's decision to skip his senior year of high school in order to play basketball in Europe, I thought I would provide some perspective.

You see, I've taught at 5 major universities over the past 16 years, nearly all of whom have big time athletics programs. I have long been confused regarding why the NCAA is allowed to restrict the labor rights of college athletes and keep many Black families away from the multi-billion dollar revenue stream that they themselves enjoy. What is even more interesting is how they seem just so downright offended when young players decide to head out into the world to earn some of this money for their own families.

I am proud of Tyler, especially since he appears to want to get his education, in addition to earning a living from his talent. He will likely get a better education by being home schooled in Europe than he would get from the farce of an education he is likely to receive from a university that is using him for his basketball talent. I've seen this system up close for many years, and it is my greatest dream that Black men will wake up and realize who is actually getting the money from all of this.

Some people don't understand how the system works, so I thought I would explain it all in a poem. I call it "The Big Brown Baller." Read on ...

"The Big Brown Baller"

I turned the TV on ESPN

I saw the Big Brown Baller again

The one who can jump straight out of the gym

Who scores 50 points and hangs on the rim

The latest great athlete of the NCAA

The next billion dollar asset they won't have to pay

The guy that's encouraged to skip out on class

To run the 40 yard dash for university cash

The Big Brown Baller was on lots of billboards

Coke and Toyota and WalMart and Ford

I hear the "cha-ching" as the college gets paid

Just call him piano, cause the boy is getting played

I'm a finance professor, so I'll ask like a geek

How can you put "students" on TV every week,

as they graduate slow, your cash flow will grow

And you never give his family a cut of the dough?

The player can't show me any stuff that he's got

But the coach told me that he just bought a new yacht

Some jewels for his cat, diamonds for his wife's ear

All owed to the fresh negroes he recruited last year

The Big Brown Baller wasn't doing so hot

His mom got evicted, his brother got shot

The NCAA came and put on the clamps

When he tried to buy groceries with his mama's food stamps

Some say that the athletes should never get paid

Free school for 10 million? Is that a fair trade?

If I were an athlete, I would most likely say

"F-you, pay me" in a Goodfellas Way

One thing that I notice for the athletes in brown

I don't see many players in a cap or a gown

Schools make sure players show up for games on TV

But they don't make them show up to get a degree

Some say that the athletes are the reason for this

If you fall for that bull, then there's something you missed

Do you remember when you took Tyrone out of my class

So he could go across country and throw the big pass?

If education was key in your time with Tyrone

You would have said "Miss the game and go study at home"

But with "voluntary" practices, you already know

He better make practice or his scholarship goes

Excuse all my French, but that's the language I use

The phrase "student athlete" has been long abused

Their broke families give billions but take all the blame

When their children come home in a shadow of shame

The NCAA wears suits, but deep underneath

They're really just pimps with gold in their teeth

Making rules to fool fools talking nothing but jive

To keep their professional sports league alive

He hit the last shot, and after the game

The Brown Baller emerges, and it's more of the same

The coaches and corporates and little old men

Stand around him and chant "Boy you did it again!"

They rob money in buckets and pay them in drops

There's a jacking in progress, so please call the cops

Each time a school makes free millions from play

They are in gross violation of the American way.

Don't believe me, just try it, let the players sit out

Is a boycott in order? I don't have any doubt

Without the brown ballers, you already know

No endorsements, no fans, no tv, no dough

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University