The NCAA has made a decision to require agents to have a bachelor’s degree in order to represent collegiate basketball players trying to determine if they are ready to enter the NBA draft or return to college.
As a teacher, I can’t help but use this as a lesson to emphasize the importance of having a formal education in order to help manuever through racist institutions. Not necessarily to gain knowledge, but definitely to gain or maintain access.
With this decision you have an example of a Black man who has started his own business and has become the most powerful agent in basketball, but his business is tied to two large inherently racist institutions.
This is a case where a degree isn’t needed to run an already highly successful business, but a degree is needed to protect Paul from institutionalized racism.
The lack of proper credentials has always been used to justify our exclusion from certain industries. I dont agree with the NCAA’s decision at all, because it’s clearly racist and directed at Rich Paul. However, this is a great example of why a college degree can be important depending on the field one chooses to go into.
Black men have to think bigger! This doesn’t happen if Black athletes and Black business owners, some fit within both categories, figure a way to start Black owned leagues and corporations!
It might even be a good idea to start prep schools where athletes are being trained athletically to pursue professional sports careers and intellectually to think as businessman/entrepreneurs and agents of change in their communities.
It’s time to create a new narrative! One that excludes racist, greedy institutions and men who have no interest in the young Black men they exploit or the communities that they pluck them from.
Thoughts Processed 