One and done?

What follows is the script for this week's "Sports@Large" essay which aired on WYPR (88.1 FM) in Baltimore. If you live in the Baltimore/Washington area, you can hear the show each Monday at 5:30 p.m. and on Tuesday during the Maryland Morning program which starts at 9 a.m. If you live outside the area, you can get the streaming audio at www.wypr.org

Is the right thing done for the wrong reasons still the right thing? For this week's answer, you'll need to speak to Steve Cohen.

Cohen, now in his second term representing the Ninth Congressional District of Tennessee in Washington, stood before his colleagues last Thursday and delivered a shot across the bow of the NBA.

Cohen called on the league to drop its 19-year-old age requirement for incoming players.

"It's something that you don't see in any other sport, baseball, golf, tennis, hockey, any other sport, and you don't see it in entertainment and you don't see it when young men and women choose to join the military and fight for their country."

 

Cohen wasted no time drafting a letter to Commissioner David Stern and to Billy Hunter, the head of the NBA's players union.

He urged them to take the age plank out of the next negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement.

In turn, Stern, who yields the floor of rhetorical flourish to no one, fired back, noting snarkily that the Constitutionally-mandated age requirement to be a Congressman is 25.

For Stern, the issue is not making the college game better, but making his players more mature.

Cohen is right, and his position is buttressed within the very league championship series that is underway.

Neither Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic nor Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, the two best players in the series, spent a day in college.

Bryant was last year's Most Valuable Player, and his MVP successor, LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, likewise, skipped college for the NBA.

The pro basketball landscape is indeed dotted with players who decided they wanted to ply their trade without going to college.

Stern undoubtedly thought he was helping the colleges when he pushed through the age requirement four years ago.

Instead, he created a class of one and done players who use colleges as a speed bump on the way to fame and fortune, assuming they wait the year for the money and the notoriety.

Take O.J. Mayo, for instance. There are accusations that the former Southern California guard took straight cash homey, namely $30,000 of it, from his college coach Tim Floyd to come to Los Angeles.

And then there's Derrick Rose. Before he was the NBA's Rookie of the Year, this year, he supposedly had a high school grade falsified and had someone else take his SAT just to get eligible to play in college.

Now, here's where things get interesting. Mayo was a rookie this season for the Memphis Grizzlies, while Rose led the Memphis Tigers men's college basketball team to last year's national title game.

And did we mention that the FedEx Forum, where Rose did play and where Mayo plays now just happens to be in the congressional district of…Steve Cohen?

There's little question the NBA's age restriction needs to be taken to a landfill. It's just too bad that opportunists like Steve Cohen have to be the drivers.