THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406050163
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH: Medium
We should, so to speak, go to school on these two stories.
{REST} Baseball has the right idea. If a kid is a gifted player but has no aptitude for higher education, he can cultivate his talent in the minor leagues, as a pro. In order to play ball, he doesn't have to play at being a student.
Minor league baseball is simple. It's clean. It is what it is.
Take the same gifted teenager and turn him into a basketball player and the charade begins. Football dances to the same tune, which we euphemistically call amateur sports. Check out the current scandal at Florida State for an example of what can happen when the music stops.
College is a must for a budding basketball talent like Iverson because that's what the system demands. It's a system that perpetuates cynicism and creates compromises. By now, we're all so comfortable with the way it works that we hardly notice. Or care.
Some university was going to take on Iverson. It might as well be Georgetown.
For Iverson, no college is anything more than an imperfect fit. Georgetown makes sense if only because John Thompson has this reputation for tough love. And because the images of the school and coach are almost beyond reproach.
Had Iverson attended another university, the college and the coach might very well have been accused of trying to win at any cost. But you won't hear that if and when Iverson qualifies for Georgetown.
The Hoyas are what's best for Iverson because Allen believes they are. So do his mother and lawyer. Needless to say, Thompson and Georgetown do, as well.
No other opinions are important.
Most would have to agree that Iverson and Georgetown have made very canny choices. Then there are those who can't get past the fact that a felon and truant may soon enroll in one of America's most elite academic institutions.
The awkward reality of this situation is made easier to accept because of some of Thompson's statements, in which he concedes that he's not Mother Teresa.
``I would be hypocritical,'' he said, ``if I didn't acknowledge the fact that this is someone who is an exceptional basketball player, and I'm a basketball coach.''
People who don't live vicariously through the athletic exploits of teenagers might wonder why Iverson deserves a scholarship to one of the country's finest institutions. Couldn't Georgetown give the scholarship to a poor boy or girl who is not a convicted felon? What message is the school - and the system - sending?
Still, Thompson didn't create this crazy system. And he wouldn't be the first to profit from it.
When a reporter asked Thompson to characterize Iverson's fitness for college hoops, the coach said, ``I think it would be foolish to talk to him about fast breaks as opposed to what he has to do in life.''
Thompson says all the correct things. He can't help but be a father figure for Iverson. Sports has turned around many a life. Iverson could be the next great success story.
In the meantime, Thompson can offer this troubled phenom shelter from the media, which fawn excessively over tender athletes, then wonder why they fall so far out of touch with reality.
Iverson hasn't earned the screaming headlines his story received last week. But he might yet. The system uses athletes, but it is also there to be used. by CNB