One-and-Done Rule Unfairly Exploits Players

According to Frank Deford, the University of Kentucky men's basketball team this 2014-15 season had nine ready-to-go NBA prospects on its roster...meaning that, for all practical purposes, we've had a team in "college" basketball that should have been in a class by itself.  The NCAA rule that a player must spend at least one year in college before turning pro not only creates these artificial one-and-done teams like the Wildcats have had during the past few years, but it is grossly unfair to players whose money-earning craft in life lies not in academics, but rather in sports talent and achievement.  How much money has the University of Kentucky, greater Lexington, and the overall "UK Nation" made from these young men, who have spent their "year" working for nothing but a promise...but still subject at any moment during that span to potentially career-destroying injuries?  John Calipari, the Kentucky coach who went all out for the best players as soon as he saw the implications of the new rule, himself has stated that he opposes it, and other coaches like Mike Krzezewski of Duke have begrudgingly recruited, albeit to a lesser extent, these one-year-pro prospects right out of high school who have no intention of sticking around...

Let's face it...amateurism in sports is an antiquated joke, and the butt of it is the young athlete who aspires to fame and wealth through his or her efforts, but has to play this charade of being an "amateur" for a designated period...while the media, gambling industry, sports paraphernalia industry, and the local economy feeds and rakes in the money for themselves.  The professional leagues should follow the example of what baseball has done with their minor league system or how soccer in other countries has an infrastructure of multiple layers of leagues, allowing the aspiring athlete to develop within the sport...and get paid from the start.  As a matter of fact, you can see in many countries, most visibly Mexico, that several top-level professional soccer clubs themselves are affiliated with local colleges...

The bottom line is that, if others are making money from your efforts, following their own economic bottom line, then you should be paid as well.  And a "scholarship" means nothing if everyone knows you will leave college in only a year...