Why Richmond's stay in Champaign was so short
The news about college athletics just keeps getting more controversial.The latest is that freshman basketball player Jereme Richmond announced Tuesday that he is leaving Illinois for the NBA.We'll get to what's wrong with that in a moment.First, Richmond's decision came a day after Connecticut won the NCAA basketball tournament while being investigated for rules violations.Connecticut joins Auburn, which won football's national championship with a Heisman Trophy winner whose father allegedly tried to sell him to the highest bidder.Ohio State football, the Big Ten's standard of excellence, suspended head coach Jim Tressel for a variety of misjudgements involving players who broke NCAA rules.My goodness, it seems a day doesn't go by without some school or coach or athlete breaking some rule or law or commandment.Every time this happens, all schools and the entire system come under suspicion. OK, so Butler basketball is clean ... but do we know that for sure?Illinois, to its credit, hasn't been accused of anything scandalous concerning Richmond. But let's review how this gifted basketball player wound up in Champaign.The Illini were having difficulty recruiting. Head coach Bruce Weber and athletic department administrators looked for a way to improve.They could go heavily into pursuing foreign players; try to develop second-tier players who would stay all four years; perhaps cheating was an option.Instead Illinois decided to pursue players as young as freshmen in high school or even grade schoolers.Richmond, who expressed an inclination toward Illinois at a young age, verbally committed to the Illini years before he could sign a binding letter of intent.Meanwhile, Illinois reciprocated. Neither wavered despite several bumps during Richmond's prep career at Waukegan.How in the world can a school project what a freshman in high school will be like as a freshman in college?I'm talking about as a player but more significantly as a person.A school can't. Illini coaches couldn't know that Richmond would miss practices for #8220;personal reasons#8221; and two NCAA Tournament games for breaking team rules.I won't pretend to know why Richmond had such a troubled freshman year of college. Maybe his family has problems or he's fighting inner demons or Illinois mismanaged him or whatever.Regardless, Richmond's behavior was erratic ... right up to announcing he won't return to the school and is entering the NBA draft despite looking nowhere near ready athletically, emotionally or mentally for pro ball.The culprit here is the strategy of initiating the recruiting process when a kid is too young to make important life decisions and most families are too naive to help him.But schools are trying to win, win, win ... generate revenue for the athletic department ... win, win, win ... provide exposure for the university ... win, win, win ...In the process they use young men for the wrong reasons, young men use schools in the wrong way and day after day headlines scream that big-time sports are a mess.Good luck to Jereme Richmond, to the University of Illinois and to all of us who are addicted to such an embarrassing exercise as college athletics.mimrem@dailyherald.com