Premature Departures Have Smith Concerned

It develops, in the course of everyday commerce, that Larry Smith, football commander of USC, yields two of his prize entertainers to the NFL while they still owe time to Larry.

The two are Junior Seau, a linebacker, and Mark Carrier, a defensive back.

Each had a year of eligibility remaining at USC, where, all in the same season, the coach is expected to take his team to the Rose Bowl and also beat Notre Dame and UCLA.

He is expected to beat everyone else, too, and it is naturally understood that Smith will turn out a force attracting multitudes to the home stadium.

Mr. Smith sits down to think about the problem.

“It no longer is reasonable to feel you can keep players who still have eligibility out of pro if they are assured of going on the first round of the draft, as Seau and Carrier were,” Smith says. “The stakes for the players are high.

“But I object to agents talking players into leaving school prematurely, only to find them going on the fifth or sixth round of the draft, if they are drafted at all.”

In such circumstances, the player declaring himself for the draft instantly loses (a) his college eligibility and (b) his scholarship giving him a shot at a diploma.

“Of the 38 players with remaining eligibility who declared themselves for the pro draft this year,” says Smith, “only 18 were drafted at all. You are talking about something now that makes me mad. Schools have recruited these players, trained them and given them an education at considerable expense, and they lose them for no reason.”

A conspiracy would seem to be afoot to depress Larry. Rumors escape that his quarterback, Todd Marinovich, is giving thought to going over the wall, leveling an eye on the pros, too.

Marinovich just completed his freshman year. The pros could be building an armored division consisting of kids in their strollers.

“What would be a logical answer to the current problem?” Smith is asked.

“We must confront it with realistic changes in the rules,” he answers. “Scholarships, to begin with, must be upgraded whereby we are able to do more for the athlete than we do now. More of his living costs must be defrayed and he must get other benefits like, for instance, a plane ticket to visit his parents.”

Under the present rules, a school can’t even allow a player to use its telephone to call home. And if a player were to use Smith’s phone to dial a 900 number to vote on whether we belong in Saudi Arabia, the NCAA would throw Larry in its jail.

“A second step we would take that would be realistic,” continues Smith, “is to lighten the player’s academic load during football season. In order to stay in school, he is compelled to carry a specified number of units. With all the time he spends on football, this isn’t always practical.

“So he ducks classes and falls behind and, offered the opportunity to bail out by jumping to the pros, he goes. If he carried fewer units during football season, then resumed a full load afterward, I think he could handle his program better.”

Since a large percentage of players don’t earn a degree, anyway, why disrupt a man’s peace with classes when he is trying to concentrate on football?

“A third possibility that might be helpful,” Smith says, “is a contract of sorts whereby a player you recruit is bound legally to the school for four years. This would protect our investment.”

Smith acknowledges that recommendations such as the foregoing cause eyebrows to arch among gods of academia, always lecturing piously on purposes of the university, but folks with a modicum of street sense see which way Planet Jock is orbiting today.

Scheduled to open Aug. 31 against Syracuse in what is billed as the Kickoff Classic, USC will undertake its first of 12 games this season.

If it lands in a bowl, the season will stretch to 13 games, embracing training from August to December. Next on tap, presumably, could be four exhibitions.

A tough-minded coach, bred for combat, Smith doesn’t object to long campaigns but, given a choice, would choose to fight them with Junior Seau and Mark Carrier.

At the last reading, USC continued to lead the nation’s universities in providing performers for the NFL.

As an offset, though, the school is quick to inform you it also has produced an inordinate number of doctors.

But we can’t forget the words of that academic colossus, Tom Lasorda, who reminded us one day it is easier to become a doctor than a .300 hitter.

Encouraging sons to go to medical school, mothers were accused by Lasorda of setting expectations too low.