(This appears in the January 21, 2008 edition of the Business Mirror)
After watching an exciting collegiate women’s volleyball match two Sundays ago, I patiently made my way past the throng of fans that was three deep asking for a picture or autograph with some of the respective stars of the two teams. When I finally did get my chance to interview several of them I asked them questions about the just concluded game and the ubiquitous what-will-you-do-after-college query.
Of the four I spoke with, one said she’d follow her mother abroad while the other three said they’d either play in the V-League or join the military where they get paid while hoping to land a spot on the national team. When I pressed further, they said they weren’t sure of their options, maybe get a job here or there but of what kind they weren’t sure. Maybe even get married. Whew!
I came away disturbed because I like these girls and they’re good people with an even brighter future ahead of them. But given the dearth of professional leagues that will enable an athlete to pay the bills and help support a family, then it doesn’t really look like a viable option does it?
An athlete who has time and again brought honor to the country through his triumphs recently appeared on a television reality show because he needed the money. He went on to say that he was never compensated for his hard work, time, and effort, hence his attempt to win the show’s cash prize.
A couple of years ago while shooting a commercial for an international volleyball tournament that was being held here prior to our hosting the SEA Games, I learned that some of our national players had moved on from their school teams to the military. Apparently, these girls not only jump for a block, spike and serve, but they too jump out of helicopters with an assault rifle by their side. At the end of the day, the truth was they were simply trying to hold on to one thing they did best -- play.
And that begs the question -- are schools doing student-athletes a disservice by concentrating a little bit too much on athletics and not on their studies when most sports cannot even be considered a profession? Short of basketball and the individual sports like boxing, billiards, and bowling (the “B” sports), taking up other sports is a labor of love.
Three years ago, the entire line up of a collegiate football team was sent back to their province because they failed to compete for the league title. Ditto for another university basketball team that was disbanded complete with a public announcement because they failed to defend their crown. Are they nothing more than mercenaries used for an institution’s glory that is also meant to entice more enrollees? Every one loves a winning program, right? Sure some of the aforementioned athletes were welcomed to finish their courses or whatever they were supposedly enrolled in the first place, but that was sending the wrong signals. It’s literally win or go back home to wherever you were first plucked out of.
Even in the realm of basketball short of being a superstar or as tall as a tree (you can’t teach height as they like to say) there are no guarantees of making it to (much less staying in) the pro league. Even if they did, what is the mortality rate of a player with the continuous influx of Fil-foreigners and young blood from schools all over the archipelago? One PBL veteran whose age still is within the monthly calendar has been sticking it out all these years. Why? “Heto lang alam ko at dito ako magaling,” he says. Apparently he isn’t good enough to move to the higher level. A teammate of his who is currently taking his MBA told me that if he can’t latch on to a PBA team by the time he reaches the age of 25, he’ll try to work for his club’s parent company then start his own business. One PBA veteran I interviewed said that even if he’s made money from the game he loves, he has to rely on his wife to handle the businesses they’ve put up. His one regret is that he wishes he studied in college. So what did he do while in college?
That reminded me of a dialogue from the movie The Cutting Edge between DB Sweeney (as former hockey player Doug Dorsey) and Moira Kelly (as disgraced ice skater Kate Moseley).
Kate: If you're so bored, why don't you read?
Doug: You mean like a book?
Kate: That is the generally accepted format, yes.
Kate: What was the last book you read? You were in college?
Doug: The last thing I read in college was a letter canceling my scholarship when I couldn't play anymore.
Kate: Okay, high school.
Doug: I was a hockey player. The only thing I had to read was a scoreboard.
Kate: And they graduated you?
Doug: They revered me. I was a God.
Kate: What a tragic commentary on our times.
It seems that our schools were better off when the American clergy were involved in the formation of our youth. The Arms Race that ended with the collapse of the Soviet bloc instead has reared itself in collegiate sports. And the athletes themselves are modern-day soldiers of fortune both literally and figuratively.
In the NBA, rookies are made to attend mandatory classes on media and people relations, investing their money, and adapting to life in the pro league. Why not locally, we educate our athletes while they’re in school and really prepare them for the outside world? There’s this former pro player who now works in the security department of a mall in the metro. Of course it is still an honorable profession and I am proud of him because he does go about his work diligently. But maybe had he been given proper guidance and an education he’d be doing something else.
There are former athletes who find jobs as coaches and trainers, open their own businesses, or even put up their own gyms. But for every one who does well, there are untold numbers who don’t. While doing a photo exhibit on our country’s legendary athletes several years ago (that was sponsored by San Miguel Corporation), I was sternly lectured by one former athlete turned media reporter about my failure to include the “poor athletes.” She even disclosed a mouthful about corruption in sports and the local sports associations (that is altogether another story). The “victim” in every case was none other than… you guessed right, the athlete.
The New York Times’ Pete Thamel recently wrote about St. John’s forward Rob Thomas who after sustaining an injury that could curtail his pro hoops dreams made a decision that will change his life forever. He asked his professor to help him with his education. His happy ending, says the 6’6” Brooklynite, “Is when I graduate.”
But there are the exceptions to the rule. The PBA recently feted one of its own who obtained his masters degree while playing in the pros. The first in its league history. May he serve as an example to all.
It sure is a cliché, but from the moment they’re brought into organized sports and school-based teams they’re fed a diet of “there’s-no-‘I’-in-team” speeches. Yet once they put in their time and tour of duty, they realize that if they’re not lucky, they were the capital “I” in the school’s “investment.”
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