Can We Really Blame OJ Mayo?

For the past seven years, the hottest tickets on the USC campus have been to the football games every fall semester. Over the past year, the next hottest tickets on campus at USC have been the USC basketball games because of high school phenomenon, OJ Mayo. Although the USC basketball team accomplished many great things over the basketball season, many local fans would probably agree that this team of rising superstars did not reach its fullest potential this year because of a first round exit in the NCAA tournament to Kansas State University. After this disappointing lost in the first round to Kansas State University, many USC basketball fans probably thought that the disappointment in the USC basketball program would cease because of the great young talent that many fans and coaches were probably expecting to return next year. Unfortunately, the disappointment would not cease from the USC basketball program because two of the top underclassman on the USC basketball team declared themselves for the NBA Draft in June and following these NBA Draft declarations from two super players at USC came the scandal with BDA and OJ Mayo. After hearing and reading about this intriguing story with OJ Mayo and BDA on several sport stations all across LA, it was not something that surprised me much with college athletics because I witnessed similar experiences as a college undergraduate student just five years ago.

Before I really began to pursue my speaking and television career in college, during the first couple of years, I was an aspiring basketball player that wanted to make it to the NBA one day. Due to this great aspiration, I found myself heavily involved with our college basketball team and friends with some of the best players on our campus at the time. In just two years, I saw close friends of mine of the team receive huge amounts of money for the easiest jobs in the world, receive brand new cars, receive money for shopping sprees at local malls, receive free plane tickets for family and friends, and I saw friends on the team receive favors from higher officials that blew my mind at times.

Although many people involved and not involved with collegiate sports probably disagree with these favors, I would like to say that I do not agree with breaking rules, but I do believe that athletic programs should be able to help their players out financially more than rules currently suggest. The reason I feel this way is because student athletes who desire to achieve success in their sport have to invest so much time into school and sports that there is not really much time to obtain a part time job to help deal with the financial issues that arise for every student in college. For instance, as my close friend on the basketball team once told me, at 6 in the morning, there is basketball practice, from the early morning to early afternoon there is class, from the early evening to late night, there is more practice and study sessions for the student athletes. Mix in with these required activities are individual study time, individual practice, and limited hours to spend time with friends during the day. Now I do understand that there are many people that may believe a college education, room, and board is enough, but in the world we live in today, you need much more financial assistance as a college student than in years past to really live comfortable in college, especially in Southern California.

Leading up to the NBA Draft in June, there will be many people who will continue to discuss or comment on this OJ Mayo scandal that has been talked about and written about in several media outlets across the country. Personally, I believe that collegiate sports needs to learn from these situations and make the proper adjustments necessary so that this problem does not occur again. In order to make the proper adjustments to this present circumstance, I believe that enforcing the rules on OJ Mayo and the USC basketball program would be productive if the accounts are correct, but increasing the financial assistance for student athletes across the country may be productive as well because it would help student athletes walk away from the financial temptations that present themselves daily to several high profile athletes across the country.