Cut high schooler dropping out to play in Europe some slack

There's a cyclical nature to sports that extends beyond the annual repetition of events, games and tournaments.

Every so often, the watch-dogs of American sports are practically required to get their knickers in a twist because a young athlete decides to eschew the traditional, approved path leading from amateur to professional.

Most parents can't make their own children do what they want, but many of us are quite eager to tell someone else's child how to live.

Most recent case in point: Jeremy Tyler.

The 17-year-old, 6-foot-11, 258-pound high school junior from San Diego announced that he would be skipping 12th grade - and rescinding his commitment to attend Louisville - to play professional basketball in Europe for two years before he is eligible to sign with an NBA team.

Naturally, Tyler's decision is creating debate, even a few firestorms.

Brandon Jennings, a point guard from Los Angeles, finished high school last year before dribbling off to Italy. He's said to be making $1 million and is expected to be among the first players taken in this year's draft.

Tyler did Jennings one better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it. He'll be the first basketball prospect to drop out of high school to pursue a pro career beyond America's shores. High school diploma? He'll get that online.

Tyler has given the hand-wringers a lot to work with.

After all, he represents a threat to the established order, if not the NBA's 19-year-old rule. For exceptional athletes, perhaps exceptions should be made, but as a budding basketball star, Tyler falls under the kind of scrutiny a baseball or tennis player rarely encounters.

Because its foundation is hopelessly polluted with self-interest, the American basketball establishment is incapable of understanding the double-standard it applies to young talent.

Colleges want the best players for themselves, for as long as they can hold onto them. In that way, schools and their fans are as greedy as the teenager who is looking to cash in quickly.

A formal education should not be lightly discarded, but when a baseball player goes from high school to the bush leagues, it doesn't raise an eyebrow. And does anybody ask whether the lives of Venus and Serena Williams are diminished because they didn't spend a year or two in a dormitory?

We've been over this too many times before, but now that Tyler has raised the bar on impetuousness, he has people wondering how many more top teen talents will leave high school for Europe, and how this might impact the big-time colleges.

European athletes as young as 16 routinely leave school to embark on chosen professions. Maybe it works on that side of the pond, but America values higher education - at least in theory - and a more methodical maturation process, even for its best athletes.

Still, we're also a country that celebrates the unique individual in any line of work, prodigies whose talents transcend the conventional apparatus. Tyler might just fit the definition.

Hand-wringers argue that anyone so young will have trouble adjusting to life in Italy or Spain. What about the language barrier? Isn't homesickness a concern? Wouldn't a year on a college campus round him out as a person?

Good points, but none of our business.

More than a million students drop out of American high schools each year. Better we worry about them and debate the impact of that.

Compared with other drop-outs, you've got to like Tyler's chances.

Bob Molinaro, (757) 446-2373, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com