H*****r
发帖数: 764 | 1 Remember when high-school athletes chose their colleges because they were
impressed with the business school, or maybe the math or communication
programs?
Or maybe the athletes wanted to stay close to home; or the parents felt
comfortable with the coach's ethics and knew their son or daughter would be
in good hands.
Maybe the athletes chose a school because they believed the offense the team
ran was best suited to their talents and would help them in their pursuit
of a pro career. Or they came to school because the program was rebuilding
and offered them a chance to start right away.
Many athletes have chosen their universities because of certain intangibles:
small class sizes, intimate campus settings, great weather, cool stadiums,
regular television appearances.
But footwear? Sneakers? The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to wear a custom-
made pair of Air Jordans?
In the slimy narrative that is becoming the latest scandal in college
athletics — the questionable recruiting tactics Oregon used to lure running
backs LaMichael James and Lache Seastrunk from Texas to Eugene — the most
ridiculous aspect is the apparent involvement of sneaker giant Nike.
Texas "scout" Willie Lyles, who was paid $25,000 by Oregon for his alleged
skills in talent assessment, included in his report to Oregon head coach
Chip Kelly the inside insight that Seastrunk loved Air Jordans.
In a tweet sent July 5, Lyles clarified his quote in a column written by The
Oregonian's John Canzano. "The shoes were on display and I never said they
were given to Lache (Seastrunk)."
However, you can almost imagine the conversation between Kelly and Nike co-
founder and chairman and Oregon Ducks fanatic Phil Knight.
"Hey, Phil, I've got another running back down in Texas, who wants to come
up here to play ball. We're this close to getting him. There's just this one
hitch."
"So why are you telling me?" Knight asks Kelly.
"The kid loves Jordans."
"You want me to arrange a meeting with M.J. and the kid?" Knight asks. "
Consider it done."
"No, no, you don't understand. It's more complicated than that. Lache loves
Air Jordans. He wants a pair. We get him the shoes. We get him."
"Just so I have this right," Knight says, "you want us to drop everything
and make a special shoe for some teenager who just happens to run a 4-
something 40?"
"Um, well, in a word, Phil, aah, yes."
"When do you need them?" Knight asks.
It almost sounds like a vintage Spike Lee Nike commercial, doesn't it?
"Must be the shoes."
According to Lyles, who talked with The Oregonian's Canzano this week, Nike
— the Beaverton-based sports-apparel company that cares about Oregon
athletics with the same kind of passion that the Gates Foundation cares
about world hunger — specially made a pair of Jordan shoes for Seastrunk.
Lyles said it was one of only two pairs of this particular shoe ever made.
I wonder what Chuck Taylor would think. Maybe Bill Walton would have chosen
USC over UCLA if he'd been promised a specially made pair of canvas Converse
high-tops.
If there had been such a thing as Air Russells in the 1960s, maybe the
entire history of college sports would have been rewritten.
Sometimes it's all about the bling, and the bling for at least one talented
Texas teen was one super-expensive pair of gym shoes.
There is something seriously wrong with the system when a major company gets
this involved with a major university in the recruitment of a college
athlete. Maybe this isn't against the rules, but it is against all common
sense. It's downright silly.
This is the extent to which an institution of higher learning is willing to
go to woo a teenage recruit? This is how far Oregon believed it could
stretch its credibility to flatter one football player?
This is how asinine the system can become. It's not the worst part of the
Lyles-Kelly-Nike-Ducks story that was broken wide open last week by Yahoo!
Sports.
It's just the most absurd. It makes Nike look ridiculous. It embarrasses the
University of Oregon, and it should embarrass the kid.
Lache Seastrunk is a Duck, a redshirt freshman running back. It must be the
shoes. |
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