If some comments he made on Wednesday about the Ball family are any indication, NCAA president Mark Emmert may not have the best understanding of where his bread is buttered.
While speaking at the 2017 SportsBusiness Journal Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, Emmert was asked about LaVar Ball’s decision to pull his middle son LiAngelo out of UCLA this week. Ball said he made that choice because LiAngelo’s suspension from his shoplifting incident in China was dragging out too long, and the main reason his son was at UCLA was to play basketball. According to Emmert, that is not a good enough reason to attend college.
NCAA President Mark Emmert on Lavar Ball:
"Is this a part of someone being part of you university as a student-athlete or is it about using college athletics to prepare yourself to be a pro? If it's the latter, you shouldn't be there in the first place." #sbjiaf
— Jason Belzer (@JasonBelzer) December 6, 2017
To clarify pro as “professional athlete” as in the Balls were using UCLA for the singular purpose of developing themselves as NBA players.
— Jason Belzer (@JasonBelzer) December 6, 2017
Emmert has spoken out on numerous occasions over the years against the NBA’s age limit, which requires players to either be 19 years old when they declare for the NBA Draft or have played at least one season of college ball. The NCAA president wants the NBA to eliminate that rule so students stop “using” colleges to play one year of basketball, so his issue with the Ball family likely has more to do with that.
Still, the idea of college is to prepare students to be successful at a profession. If that means having to attend one year of college so you can be qualified to begin your professional career, so be it. You could argue that LiAngelo Ball not wanting to attend college for anything other than basketball is no different from another student who has his heart set on a certain career.
Of course, there has been some indication that LiAngelo could have trouble finding a job playing basketball. Still, Emmert’s comments came off as hypocritical.
