Three KU starters, Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich and, as of Tuesday, Xavier Henry, are off to the NBA, leaving coach Bill Self with a king-sized recruiting challenge.
The nation’s best university basketball and football teams have been farm squads for professional sports for as long as any fan alive today can remember. So long as college sports bring in millions of dollars from television advertising, weighs so heavily in alumni contribution decisions and draws students away from other colleges and universities which have lesser sports programs, the scene is unlikely to change.
The KU basketball squad was rated number one most of the year — it was therefore automatic that the top Jayhawk players would be hot items on the pro market.
Collins, Aldrich and Henry will hire agents and go on to become instant millionaires. If they do as well as expected, they will move into the top one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation’s earners and stay there long enough to assure themselves and their families comfortable incomes for life.
Collins will earn his degree; Aldrich and Henry will have plenty of time to do that once their playing days are over. All three made perfectly rational, perfectly ethical decisions. As soon as they were assured of an NBA contract, they could leave without looking back — and were probably wise to do so before an injury left them without a suitor.
The careers of professional athletes are famously short.
Those who stay on top longer than five years are the exception, not the rule. Many university stars fizzle out within three years and return to the ordinary world, making ordinary incomes. So when opportunity knocks, prospects should race to answer.
KU fans will miss Aldrich and Henry in the season and seasons to come, but they should say farewell without a hint of rancor, wish them all the best and hope that Coach Self can find replacements that will keep the pro scouts coming to KU every March.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
