Don't blame college players who turn pro

Out in Phoenix before the Fiesta Bowl earlier this month, Oklahoma receiver Malcolm Kelly was asked how West Virginia would respond to the loss of its coach, Rich Rodriguez, who had bolted for Michigan.

No big deal, Kelly said. Players know what the score is.

Here's what Kelly meant. College football is a business. A big business. The coaches drive home that point every day, never more so than when they jump their team for another job.

It's a point not lost on the players.

So when Kelly, Curtis Lofton and Reggie Smith declare for the NFL draft, we shouldn't ask why so many Sooners are turning pro. We should ask, why so few?

Most players do not embrace the romanticism of college football clung to by fans and media. Most college players at schools like Oklahoma enjoy their team, their coaches, their total experience. But the campus life is not nirvana.

The NFL is where they want to be. And it's not all about money.

A lot of it's about money. Players see the opulent world in which the football program operates, the lifestyles their coaches lead, and they want a piece of the pie, too.

But some of the longing for the NFL is about freedom.

Last week, I chatted with Gary Reasons, the old New York Giants linebacker who now coaches the Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz in Arena Football, about his old NFL days. He told me a story about his rookie season, when the Giants played in Dallas.

Reasons was from the Fort Worth suburb of Crowley, and the night before the game, he had dinner with his family. His brother said, "Gary, I love you. But I'll be cheering for the Cowboys."

Reasons told that story to illustrate fan loyalty. But there's an even more compelling nugget in that tale.

On the road with a Bill Parcells-coached team, probably 16 hours before kicking off against the Tom Landry Cowboys, Reasons dined with his family.

College football players aren't trusted with such liberties. On the road, heck, for home games, too, they are sequestered. Eat together. Meet together. Go to a movie together. They are treated like children, and some for good reason.

But 21-year-old football players who can leap tall buildings in a single bound want to be treated like men. They want to be paid like men, no doubt, but they tire of the baby-sitting culture of college football. They are monitored in the classroom, monitored in summer workouts, monitored on simple road trips.

That gets old when there's another option, and the NFL provides it.

College players put up a good front. They generally say the right things, generally toe the line for their school.

But you know it's got to gall them that coaches can walk out on a contract and start coaching somewhere else the next day, while players who transfer must sit out a season. Got to gall them that very little of the money generated by college football winds up in the pockets of the guys wearing shoulder pads.

Oklahoma actually has been less affected than most major powers by early draft entrants. Before Kelly, Smith and Lofton, only five players had left school early under coach Bob Stooops. Jimmy Wilkerson, Brodney Pool, Adrian Peterson, Tommie Harris and Roy Williams. The latter three are NFL stars.

More will follow. Many three-year college players obviously are ready for the NFL, and those that aren't will rarely get ready with another year on campus.

Players have little status in college football. Their only power is leaving for the NFL.

So it should no surprise when they use it.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)