Football’s Turn to Cry : College sports: Coaches bemoan opening of NFL draft to underclassmen, but their peers have vast knowledge, little sympathy.

As America’s college football coaches pout and posture over the NFL’s recent decision to free undergraduates for the 1990 draft, Ron Fraser, slightly amused by the fuss, offers some simple advice:

“You’ve got to learn to live with it. I feel for (the coaches), but we’ve been doing this for years.”

Fraser, selected as the NCAA baseball coach of the 1980s, has led the University of Miami to a pair of national championships and eight College World Series appearances during his 28-year stay at Miami. And since 1965, when the amateur baseball free agent draft began, Fraser estimates that he has lost about three undergraduates each season to the pros.

Last year was an exception. Fraser lost five undergraduates to the June selection process--four players accepted contract offers and another, freshman pitcher Alex Fernandez, a first-team All-American, transferred to a Miami junior college in order to bypass NCAA rules and make himself eligible for the draft this season.

So while Fraser understands the problems being faced by football coaches, he insists that a program can survive the losses.

“We’ve been putting money in this for years,” he said. “It comes time when they’re really going to come through and then . . . “

And then they’re gone, in many cases, depriving a team of the most productive season a player can offer. But guess what? In some instances, those players have Fraser’s blessing.

“It hurts to do it , but if it’s enough, we’ll say, ‘That’s good money. Put some money in the bank and come back and get an education,’ ” Fraser said. “A lot of times you’ve got to recommend they do it. You don’t want to get to the point where they say the program is standing in their way. We say it’s the kid’s decision. We sort of live with that fact.”

At the University of North Carolina, where Dean Smith runs the winningest basketball program in NCAA history, it isn’t uncommon to see the Tar Heel roster depleted by player defections to the NBA. Michael Jordan left early. So did James Worthy and J.R. Reid. And all on Smith’s advice.

Smith said he sees nothing wrong with a player making use of his ability and right to earn a living, even if it comes at the expense of a program.

“(John) McEnroe left Stanford for tennis and nobody said anything,” Smith said. “Ron Darling left Yale for baseball. Raymond Floyd left North Carolina for golf. But there’s more of an uproar if a college football or basketball player leaves because there’s more of an interest.”

Said George Raveling, USC’s basketball coach: “Two years from now, I might be facing (a hardship situation) with (Harold) Miner, I don’t know. The only thing I can do is tell them what I think is the best thing to do in my heart. My own perspective is if it’s in the best interests of the athlete to leave early, regardless of the program, you’ve got to do what’s best for them. College athletics is going to go on without them.”

What Raveling predicts for college football is similar to what happened when the NCAA found itself legally helpless to prevent an undergraduate from making himself eligible for the NBA draft: greater outside influences from agents; more pressure from overzealous parents enamored of dollar signs; more pressure on an athlete to perform as an individual rather than as a team member; a loss of continuity in some programs.

“It will also create a small graveyard of players who were ill-advised to leave,” Raveling said. “Not only will they lose out on an opportunity to play professionally, but they lose their spare tire in life--that education, because most of them are not going to go back (to school).”

This is a fear shared by such football coaches as Bill McCartney of Colorado, whose team, which finished 11-1 last season, included several undergraduates good enough to possibly be persuaded to enter the draft.

“But in each case, they all can see it’s going to benefit them to finish out their careers (at Colorado).”

And how did McCartney guarantee that his players wouldn’t be swayed?

“I’ve killed three agents who are trying to get at them,” he said.

He smiled when he said it. Sort of.

McCartney said he knew it was only a matter of time until the NFL allowed players other than seniors to declare themselves eligible for the draft. He got confirmation last year, when Oklahoma State running back Barry Sanders, a true junior, was accepted in the draft with no questions asked. The NFL justified Sanders’ entry by noting that since Oklahoma State would be on NCAA probation the next year, Sanders should be allowed to forgo his senior season.

This year, as more and more juniors--Alabama’s Keith McCants, USC’s Junior Seau, Florida’s Emmitt Smith and Georgia’s Rodney Hampton, for instance--declared themselves available for the draft, the NFL didn’t even put up a fight. Instead, it acknowledged that litigation aimed to prevent such entries probably would be useless.

“The reason we made the decision is that we don’t want to spend the rest of our lives in court,” said Reed Johnson, director of player personnel for the Denver Broncos. “It’s never easy. The point I’ve made to everyone is that we held off the longest. We tried to do what was right and not take players until they had a chance to get a degree.”

Of course, the Broncos forfeit their first-round pick this year because they selected Alabama running back Bobby Humphrey in the 1989 supplemental draft. Humphrey chose to forgo his senior season at Alabama.

As for the contradiction, Johnson said that Sanders and Humphrey, two players who left college early and enjoyed immediate success in the NFL, are the exceptions.

“I’ve always said that players should stay in school,” Johnson said. “I will always say that. Eventually, somebody is not going to get drafted in the first two rounds. Then there’s no cinch you’re going to make the team.”

McCartney considers a senior season important because it gives a player the chance to graduate on time, to leave with the class he entered school with and to enjoy the perks of a fourth year of eligibility.

“They’re giving up all that for chasing a few dollars,” he said. “In fact, if they came back and played that season, it might make them more marketable than they are right now.”

And there’s the rub. Few college football and basketball players know their true professional worth.

“Most agents are going to tell you what you want to hear,” Raveling said. “And a pro team isn’t going to tell you everything because it would destroy its position in the draft.”

Raveling, McCartney and Smith favor a plan that would allow a football or basketball player to test the market and evaluate the economic demand for his services without jeopardizing his eligibility and scholarship.

Dick Schultz, the NCAA’s executive director, recently outlined a similar proposal. And for the last three years, Smith, a member of the NCAA’s pro sports liaison committee, has fought for such legislation.

“A player should have the opportunity to leave college for a job and be able to know what he’s going to make and where he’s going to work,” Smith said.

Smith cites the case of Worthy, who was unable to determine his precise earning power because of NCAA and NBA rules.

“I can make calls around the league, but it’s only conjecture how much money he can make,” Smith said. “It obviously wasn’t fair to the student-athlete.”

There are potential problems with the proposal, however. The Broncos’ Johnson wants to know what would happen should Denver use a third-round draft choice on a junior who later decides to return to school. Would the draft pick be lost? Would it be added to the next year’s total?

“It sounds like a good idea, but there’s ramifications,” he said.

Doug Dickey, athletic director at the University of Tennessee, insists that a monthly stipend of a yet undetermined amount might lessen a student-athlete’s desire to leave school early.

And Tennessee’s Johnny Majors, recently elected president of the American Football Coaches Assn., said that perhaps the NFL should create a program that would finance a player’s return to college should he not succeed in the pros or should he decide to complete requirement for his degree during the off-season.

Smith did that very thing with the NBA contracts of Worthy, Jordan and Reid.

Despite the initial outrage by some high-profile college coaches concerning the NFL’s decision, Majors said he expects his peers will adjust to the rule change. He also predicts that the NFL will keep its interest in undergraduates to a minimum.

“I don’t think they’ll dip into the college ranks in large numbers,” he said.

As for possible punitive measures against pro scouts who have enjoyed access to players for times, measurements, game films, etc., Majors said the relationship probably will remain unchanged. Why should the pro teams be penalized for a legal inevitability? Majors said.

After 54 years of standing defiant against common sense, to say nothing of the law of the land, the NFL draft is forever changed.

“A Pandora’s box,” said McCartney of the new order.

Smith, Raveling and Fraser, veterans of such things, have a different view. They call it a fact of life.