Athletes choose draft over school

By Chris Umpierre

Daily Bruin Staff

When this year’s NBA draft begins on June 28, there will
be thirty-five underclassmen in the draft pool.

The number is part of a growing trend of underclassmen
student-athletes in an array of sports leaving school early to
pursue their professional dreams.

Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who didn’t lose
a player early to the pros, didn’t think about the issue that
much during his days in Westwood but acknowledges that the current
era demands coaches plan around the possibility of players leaving
school early.

“All coaches have to study the players they recruit and
determine whether or not they are coming to get an education or to
play ball,” Wooden said. “I’m extremely proud
that all my players graduated. But things are totally different
now.”

The numbers support Wooden’s assessment. Consider the fact
that five Bruin basketball players have made themselves early-entry
candidates in the past three years alone.

On May 1 of this year, Bruin sophomore forwards JaRon Rush and
Jerome Moiso announced they would forego their final two years of
NCAA eligibility and enter the NBA draft. Two weeks later UCLA
freshman forward Jason Kapono announced he would explore the option
of going pro after one season as a Bruin.

If all three leave, head coach Steve Lavin could start next
season with three new starters. Also daunting was the departure of
point guard Baron Davis after his sophomore season. Davis, who
would have been a senior next season, was the third player taken in
the “˜99 draft.

“I feel for him,” UCLA football head coach Bob
Toledo said of Lavin. “You try to build a program and
it’s hard to have a solid foundation when people are cracking
that foundation all the time. You recruit a guy like Kapono for
example and you’re trying to build your team around a guy
like that and all of a sudden now he’s going to
leave.”

But Lavin, who says he understands why players leave school
early, has taken the departures in stride.

“What’s great about UCLA is its unbeatable academic
athletic package so we can take a hit and recover more quickly than
some other schools can,” he said. “Because when one
door closes another one opens and there’s some young player
out there who sees the opportunity to come here.”

Lavin sees his role in the decision-making process like that of
a parent, supporting unconditionally the choices his players
make.

“I took Jerome out for dinner the other night and we
celebrated,” he said. “I want to be part of his
excitement. I’m not salty, I’m not mad at him, I
don’t resent him.”

“If he would have come back I would have been great to
coach him another year,” Lavin added. “But our
relationship is more important than whether he’s leaving
after his second year or he’s staying four years.”

If there is any coach in the UCLA athletic department who
understands what Lavin is going through, it’s Bruin baseball
coach Gary Adams, who has lost 69 underclassmen to the draft in his
26 years as the UCLA head coach.

The number could grow significantly after this season as Adams
expects as many as eleven of his juniors to be selected in the June
5 amateur draft. Of those eleven, he feels eight to nine will
decide to leave UCLA early.

“You just get used to it,” Adams said. “You
have no control over it. It’s like the weather and the
umpires.

“I’m not going to tell my guys not to sign,”
he added. “Shoot, they get offered a half a million dollars
or a million dollars and I’m going to go up to them and say,
“˜Don’t take it. Come back and play another
year’?”

Baseball, however, is a little different from basketball in that
if players choose to attend college, they cannot leave school early
until after their third year.

Most elite college baseball players then choose to leave after
their junior season, players say, because that’s the time
they have the most bargaining power in terms of receiving money in
the draft.

“When I came here I had the plan that I would stay three
years and then enter the draft,” said Bruin leftfielder Bill
Scott, who is projected to be an early-second-round pick.
“After your junior season is where you have the most
leverage.”

The UCLA football team has also lost several players over the
years to the NFL.

The most recent example of a UCLA football player leaving school
early is offensive guard Kris Farris in 1998. In that year’s
NFL draft, Farris, who had won the Outland Trophy as the
nation’s best lineman, was selected in the third round by the
Pittsburgh Steelers.

Toledo felt Farris could have improved not only his stock but
the football squad’s had he chose to return for his senior
year.

“If he would have stayed that year we might have won more
football games, he might have won the Outland again, could have
played in the Shrine game and the Senior Bowl and had a great
experience as a senior,” Toledo said.

Similar to baseball, the NFL has a rule with colleges that
players cannot enter the NFL draft until they are three years out
of high school.

Toledo feels that rule has helped to keep numerous freshmen and
sophomore football players from leaving school early.

“If that rule wasn’t in place you might see some
leaving because they all think they’re better than they
are,” he said. “They all think they’re better
than Michael Jordan and their parents think they’re better
than that.”

Toledo could face that situation again next year as several
juniors, including wide receiver Freddie Mitchell and tailback
DeShaun Foster, could forego their senior years to enter the NFL
draft.

“There’s always that possibility,” Toledo
said. “If they have a great year they may go and I
can’t stop them.”

But Toledo feels the decision is for the player to make. He only
provides information on both sides.

“It’s like telling your child who to marry,”
he said. “You don’t tell them who to marry but you can
give them some input and that’s what I try to do.”

But football, baseball and basketball aren’t the only
sports affected by the lure of professional sports. From soccer to
tennis, several other UCLA programs have seen players leave school
early in this year alone.

Junior soccer players Carlos Bocanegra and Nick Rimando left
UCLA to play in the MLS. Bocanegra was selected No. 4 overall in
the 2000 draft and is currently playing for the Chicago Fire.
Rimando was selected in the third round and is currently with the
Miami Fusion.

And as long as the MLS continues to grow, UCLA men’s
soccer head coach Todd Saldaña could see more of his players
choose to leave school early in the future.

“The (recruiting) class we have coming in, probably five
of them have already been approached about going to the MLS,”
Saldaña said. “That will be a decision they will have to
make every year. It will be interesting because we truly will be
managing that the next four years as long as the MLS continues to
flourish.”

The UCLA men’s tennis team has seen its fair share of
players leave school early as well. Most recently freshman Zack
Fleischman left school to compete professionally.

“Our sport might be as prominent with kids leaving early
or not going to school at all as any sport that I know of,”
said UCLA men’s tennis head coach Billy Martin, who has lost
three top players early in the last five years. “It is a bit
of a fit for us recruiting-wise and when we do get recruits they
tend to leave early.”

In the next ten years, depending on the growth of the WNBA, one
could conceivably see collegiate women’s basketball impacted
by underclassmen leaving school early.

“It’s only a matter of time before it happens in the
women’s game,” UCLA assistant head coach Pam Walker
said.

Last season, high schooler Nina Smith, nicknamed “Baby
Shaq,” contemplated a jump to the WNBA before deciding to
enroll at Wisconsin.

Of all of Wooden’s players the only player he almost lost
early was Bruin basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton, though he
ended up turning down the ABA’s offer to leave after his
junior year. Wooden said that decision didn’t come down to
money, but the importance Walton put on his education.

“He was offered an unbelievable amount,” Wooden
said. “But he more or less laughed at them. No one could buy
his education.”