News - As plain as black and white

Track star Marion Jones, in a current television commercial on behalf of sports-equipment behemoth Nike, is asking why young basketball players are criticized for skipping college to go to the NBA when nobody says a word about teenagers going directly from high school to the NHL, or signing baseball contracts, or playing professional tennis. She’s reciting a script, of course. She knows the reason. The pro hockey, baseball and tennis players are mostly white. The basketball players are all — surprise! — black.

And the script is wrong about one thing: Some teenagers are criticized for joining the pro tennis circuit. Those players would be — surprise! — girls. There are now restrictions on the number of tournaments a female tennis player can enter if she is under the age of 15. The powers that be, horrified that Jennifer Capriati descended into shoplifting a few years after shooting Oil of Olay commercials, want only to “protect” these youngsters.

Would they feel that same concern for teenage boys? Of course not. Those kids would be national sports heroes, to say nothing of morphing into advertising icons overnight. But the point is moot because no teenage male has yet to be good enough to crack the ranks of the top tennis players.

Until that happens, certain parties will believe it is a national crisis for anyone who could be stopped on the Garden State Parkway by New Jersey state troopers for no apparent reason to be making millions of dollars in professional sports. (Never underestimate the threat young black males and females of all ages pose to the white male whose only requirement for employment heretofore was his race and gender.)

Talent, as we’ve seen time and time again, isn’t enough to make a successful professional in any sport. Talent opens the door, but without maturity and responsibility, that door slams shut in a big hurry. Those qualities have nothing to do with age. They have nothing to do with gender. They have to do with individual character.

Will some NBA players sign for millions of dollars and waste every penny over the four years of their rookie contracts? You bet. And plenty of 28-, 30- and 60-year-olds will do stupid things with their money over the next four years, too.

Will some tennis players be hot for a year — or a tournament — and immediately fall out of the top 100 rankings? Sure. And so will a good number of veterans.

If the NBA is in decline because rookies don’t know the fundamentals of the game, then teach them. That’s what coaching is. And acknowledge that the problem isn’t college. It’s color.