Incidentally, this basketball development system is both cost-free to the NBA and a massive revenue source for the NCAA, considering that almost 96 percent of the NCAA’s national office budget comes from television and corporate sponsorship revenues generated from the hugely popular NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, also known as “March Madness.”10 How the absurdity of a rule like this impacts elite sports development and what little integrity may remain in American educationally based sports, while at the same time preventing an athlete like Parker from being able to maximize his earning potential, is discussed more fully in later chapters. In my opinion, rules like this are a major example of why our current systems need to be changed, to evolve, and to provide more choices for both the elite athlete and our citizenry.
Schröder, on the other hand, developed his skills through the German club sports system, not in his local school system, on a path similar to what is offered elsewhere in Europe and in other countries. Identified as a potential elite athlete shortly after taking up basketball at a young age, he moved from the mass-participation sports clubs in the area around his hometown of Braunschweig, Germany, to the elite developmental basketball teams that serve as feeders for the top divisions of Bundesliga basketball. As an elite athlete he was able to focus on basketball at a time when his skills were at their peak. He still attended school while working his way up through the feeder clubs, and advanced schooling was often provided on-site at his clubs (a very common arrangement in Europe for higher-level clubs). Thus, education was still an important part of his total development package. For Schröder, the main difference from the US model was that he was not constrained by arbitrary academic standards that could have limited his ability to compete, or that could have led him into a substandard educational experience just to maintain his eligibility. In European systems, success (or failure) in academics is really up to the individual. There is no motivation on the part of either players or teams to violate academic standards because academic eligibility is not a requirement—nor is it needed, as the bulk of the sports development system lies completely outside formal educational borders.
Schröder eventually played his way to the top club basketball team in Braunschweig, the Bundesliga first division Phantoms, before being drafted in the first round of the 2013 NBA draft, the same as Parker. While Schröder did not attend college in the United States or university in Europe, he was still able to reach the highest level of professional basketball competition in the NBA. If Schröder wants to attend college at some point in his life, he can certainly do it after his playing career is over. In the meantime, the separation of club sports from the German secondary school and university systems was not an inhibitor to his education.
These two players present similar outcomes for two elite players from two different systems, with this one specific difference: one sports development system is embedded in the education system, with specific academic requirements needed to compete, and the other is separate and distinct from the educational model. Both systems have their benefits along with their negative points. In many ways, it is difficult to say which model is better for producing elite athletes or for presenting athletic, exercise, and entertainment opportunities to the masses. There could be a healthy debate, if one were forced to make an absolute choice between one or the other, but that is not the focus of this book. Instead, I intend to explore several alternative sports delivery models for both elite athletes and citizens in the United States, both inside and outside the current educationally based model.
LACK OF OPTIONS
Currently, American sports development is essentially governed by an educational system that is highly restrictive for the athlete but beneficial to many others. Many athletes, most notably in football and men’s basketball, are virtually forced into this model to maximize their development and potential advancement to the big-money world of professional sports. While there are some alternative paths in other sports, such as baseball and hockey, educationally based sports are still the primary “feeder” system for participation at higher levels. This has helped create a situation where a few organizations and people—highly paid coaches, conference offices, television networks, corporate partners—control the narrative for many athletes in the United States, keeping them essentially powerless and limited as to the best choices for their own academic and athletic future. If, instead, more sports development options were available, it would expose higher education to the market forces of choice and competition. This could initiate a revolution driven by the needs of the athlete, who would be able to decide what option is better for him or her, just as the needs of consumers drive the progress of every other industry in a free-market economy. It would also allow colleges to pull back from the insanity of the ongoing facilities and personnel “arms race” we have under the current intercollegiate athletic system, at the expense of educational primacy.
Parker and Schröder are just two of the thousands of examples that demonstrate that both systems can produce elite athletes. The difference lies in the degree of direct connection to education, and how we define, at various levels, academic eligibility to compete in sports. In theory, the American system, with its combination of participating in sports while getting an education, sounds like a perfect match. Unfortunately, the academic component has been abused and often outright ignored at all levels of our education-based sports system virtually since its inception (Falla 1981; Ridpath 2002). In short, the goals of scholastic sports often do not mesh with the goals of academia, most notably when substandard academic performance might keep superstar athletes off the court and field. When those two worlds collide, it is often sports priorities that win out—but it does not have to be that way. There is room for both sets of priorities in a new world of American sports development. The current stress our education system is under from an ever-growing and increasingly expensive athletic-industrial complex cannot and does not need to go on. There are better ways to define sports development in America while preserving educational primacy.
VANISHING SPORTS AND PARTICIPATION OPPORTUNITIES
Both elite athletes and nonelite sports participants need more choices, because opportunities for both are deteriorating under the current model. For example, opportunities for mass participation in sports have been dwindling at many levels of our education system. Wrestling, men’s gymnastics, and swimming have been hit especially hard as revenue and energy are focused on the more commercially popular sports, which seem to be more valued from the youth level all the way to university campuses. A survey conducted by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association in 2014 found that 26 million children ages 6 to 17 played team sports, a 4 percent drop from 2009. Recognizing the somewhat disturbing trend of sports specialization by many athletes who are focused more and more on one sport year round, the total number of different sports played within the same age group had plunged by nearly 10 percent (Rosenwald 2015).
It is time for a dramatic change in how we do sports in America. Although some European clubs are pointing to issues such as financial problems that could threaten their survival,