Loyalty, honor, and other words that have nothing to do with specific subjects often times get thrown around them these days. We do so because, well, I am not too sure. Maybe it has something to do with our own ideas of how things should be. Or, really, it could simply be that it is far easier to judge other people in some situations where we will never be ourselves.
That seems to be a recurring theme this offseason. I enter a column that bashes people for judging other people from a distance. More importantly: I do so since few of us have tangible experience of our own to even do such a thing. Not to mention, you know, the fact that we tend to use values and priorities, as well as ideas of both, which have very little to do with the things we try to attach them to.
The latest situation being some people’s annual journey to trash players who transfer from one school to another.
Let’s acknowledge a few things first. The system is broken; a better way to can be put in place; far too many players seem to transfer every year; that number seems to be growing each offseason; so-on and so-forth.
None of the issues, which transfer rules have, should be attached to individuals who transfer, though. The system might be broke, and even some of the players might be taking advantage of it, but to lump general definitions of them “lacking loyalty” because they left whatever university is just silly.
For starters: We do not know them. Again, a recurring theme while we discuss people dissecting others’ motives. Their dreams, desires, and other reasons for originally going to their first school may have changed. It is rather strange we expect a high school graduate to have the same ideas floating around their cranium the very next year or two.
That is not to mention that they know, that we know, they everyone knows, they are just a commodity in the big business that is college basketball. Some, not all, of the players could have come to that realization and decided to put themselves in the best situation possible to take advantage of that. Their pro aspirations can literally hinge on showing their 18 ppg at Mid-Major U were not an aberration. That they can do it at a higher level in a bigger conference. So they can show at the highest levels currently available to them, that they can play overseas.
Does that make them less loyal? Or does that mean they are in a position where they have more options than a player who rides the pine at Mid-Major U because he just isn’t that good at basketball? It is certainly worth noting that the latter player isn’t more loyal. He just isn’t good enough.
That’s a reality no one wants to acknowledge in a capitalist society we pretend we like in everything but sports — which is a large factor in a discussion to be had why we need not care about splitting money sports’ revenue with the kid on the checkers team. Alas, that’s another column for another time.
There are other realities. Ones that people seem to except easier. Players transferring via a hardship waiver because of an ailing family member, is an example of a player leaving one school for another that is usually met with little backlash. But why?
Obviously no one wants to tell another person how they should deal with a family issue. That’s likely the main reason. Everyone can related to that. Much in the same way you wouldn’t want your boss to say work takes priority over a theoretical ailing grandma, you wouldn’t want schools or the NCAA to do the same to a teenager.
Why do we treat that different than players who just want to transfer? You are allowed to leave your job for another at your own discretion. Other, “regular” students can transfer from one university to another with no recourse. The latter doesn’t even have to give an explanation as to why. Yet we crave reasons for a supposed transfer epidemic that must be the faults of both the system and the players.
There is a simple truth: We are selfish. You are reading this because you really like college basketball. Kids transferring at the rate they do scares you. In your mind, and in many a media member, this is ruining the integrity of a sport that benefits from the free-labor these transfer players provide. There’s nothing wrong with that, per say, as long as you are acknowledging that is the primary reason for your anger regarding the issue.
We think that the entertainment value college basketball provides us will be hurt because of all the transfers. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But let’s stop attaching generalizations to these players. Your ideas of what college basketball shouldn’t apply to them. Not only because they are their own people and not an extension of you, but because you don’t honestly mean what you say when you do it. Unless you do. Then you have a slew of other issues that I can’t help you with.
Circling back: Yes, there are far too many loopholes, and likely even more players who are transferring for reasons that can’t be tangibly justified. Still, really, does it really matter in the grand scheme of things or are you just mad to be mad? Because, honestly, I have no idea why some people continue to get worked up by the decisions of others, for themselves, on things that alter not a single person’s life but their own.
