College sports has been turned into semi-pro athletics with a free agent system.
And things are getting so bad that some of the legends in college basketball are starting to call out the glaring issues they are seeing.
Duke Legend, Christian Laettner, just blasted the NCAA’s rules that are ruining college when he unleashed these comments.
This isn’t your grandpa’s NCAA anymore
Being a college athlete used to be all about getting a college education and advancing your career into professional sports if that is the route you decided to take.
The old system of making college sports about education and opportunity wasn’t without its flaws as numerous college programs were busted for giving collegiate athletes money to play.
But at least people could take pride in what their school’s athletic departments were doing.
They were taking kids and advancing them both academically and in their sports performance to make them a better person, professional, and athlete by the time they were done with college sports.
But those days are long gone as now all college athletes are worried about where their next endorsement paycheck is coming in the mail.
Ever since the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that college athletes owned their Name/Image/Likeness (NIL), college endorsement deals have become a big business.
With so much money being thrown around to college athletes, there is no wondering why these 18-year-olds are making drastic life changes and switching from program to program.
All they are worried about is the money and they will chase it wherever it goes.
And people are getting so tired at both the final outcome in the game and the athletes that are a result from infesting college sports with billions of dollars in endorsements.
You are lucky now to have a college athlete stay two years with a program, let alone all four years of eligibility.
And things are getting so bad for the game that now legends of the sport are starting to call out madness.
Many people consider the 1990s to be the golden years of college basketball.
And you can’t put together a list of the greatest college basketball players of the 1990s without having Duke legendary center Christian Laettner on it.
Christian Laettner destroys NILs
Christian Laettner was one of the key players in Duke’s 1991 and 1992 seasons that brought home the national championship in those years.
And 32 years after his legendary basketball career, Christian Laettner, who used to proudly wear the number 32 jersey, opened up about the horrors of NIL deals and what these deals are doing to the game.
This past week, the legend in college basketball told ESPN’s Mike Greenberg that, “They’ve got to take out the NIL. They’ve got to wipe that out. They’ve got to change the transfer portal. I know everyone’s saying the horse is out of the barn, and you can’t take stuff back, but how can you establish any type of culture at a school when you’re getting new kids every year?”
He continued by adding, “That would mean every year was like my freshman year at Duke; and you’re so much better than your third, your fourth year when you’re under one system, one program, one coach, one specifically defined culture. […] I don’t know how the coaches do it in today’s game, and that’s why some of the better ones are starting to quit.”
"They gotta take out the NIL, they got to wipe that out. They gotta change the transfer portal." @laettnerbball joined #Greeny with @Espngreeny on the 32nd anniversary of "The Shot" pic.twitter.com/NJUb2Yt8fl
— ESPN Radio (@ESPNRadio) March 28, 2024
Everyone knows that NIL deals are awful for college sports but good luck reigning back all the money now that players expect their pay day.
