Signing your life away

Elena Delle Donne's decision to leave Connecticut provides yet another example of how the college recruiting process is heavily weighted against the kids and almost entirely favors the schools.
Delle Donne, a 6-foot-5 forward from Wilmington, Del., was the nation's top girls basketball recruit this past year, and signed a national letter of intent to attend Connecticut for the coming fall. At Storrs, Delle Donne was expected to join Maya Moore and Renee Montgomery and be the final piece to the Huskies' national championship puzzle hopes.
The problem was that Delle Donne, who took a break from basketball while she was at Ursuline Academy, apparently changed her mind about wanting to attend/play at Connecticut. It's shouldn't have been a big deal. Teenagers change their minds all the time, and Delle Donne has every right to attend the school where she'll be the most comfortable.
End of story, right? Well, not so much. You see, because Delle Donne signed a letter of intent, Connecticut still has a hold on her future, or at least her basketball playing future. By NCAA rule, she must sit out a year if she decides to play basketball at another Division I school. It's not the greatest rule in the world, particularly when you consider that coaches can flit from campus to campus without restriction, but it's not the worst.
No, the worst rule is the one that could cost Delle Donne a year of eligibility. You see, Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma has not released her from her scholarship, and unless he does, she'll have to forfeit one of her four years of eligibility. That is, if she wants to transfer to play basketball at a school that honors the letter of intent, which pretty much covers all of Division I and II, where scholarships are offered.
This isn't to portray Auriemma as a bad guy, per se. He's just following the rules, and, more than likely, he wants to make sure that Delle Donne doesn't abscond to a school that he will play in the next four years, where she could come back to hurt him. It's just that the rules, as they're set up, don't give kids the freedom they need at the time of their lives when they need it most, the years when they make decisions that will impact their futures, like where they'll go to school.

Back after a (long) break

Sorry for the gap in posts. Life got in the way. Specifically, my wife and I had visitors, and between the cleaning for the visit and the actual visit itself, not to mention working on another project, well, I got a little way laid. I'll try not to let it happen again.
There's been far too many Olympic goings-on to cover in one omnibus posting, except to say that, as a Baltimore resident, if I hear one more word about a certain swimmer, I will take hostages. (Actually, that certain swimmer and the excruciating hype is the subject of my most recent radio essay, the script of which will be posted tomorrow morning.)
One of the things that I have been paying attention to from Beijing is the United States women's basketball team's play. While the men have labeled themselves "the redeem" team, the women haven't had to carry such a moniker because they've had nothing to redeem themselves for.
The American women are carrying a gaudy 30 game Olympic win streak, dating back to the bronze medal game in Barcelona in 1992. They haven't lost since, from pool play in Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and now in China, as well as the various medal rounds. It's a streak that would certainly draw attention if not for:
(A) Michael Phelps
(B) The men's basketball team
(C) The pixie gymnasts
(D) The bikinied beach volleyballers
(E) Flat out sexism
But I digress. A player who might likely find herself on the 2016 squad, Elena Delle Donne, the nation's most highly sought after freshman recruit, made a momentous decision that, were she a man, would have been all over ESPN and the papers over the weekend. Instead, Delle Donne's choice not to enroll at Connecticut, the consensus preseason No.1 team, has hardly been noticed.
Delle Donne, a 6-5 wing player with remarkable perimeter skill, has apparently had a love-hate relationship with basketball for some time, taking time off from the sport during her high school days, then withdrawing from Connecticut this summer.
Four years under relentless scrutiny and unreal expectations at Storrs might very well have harmed the kid. Instead, she has decided to enroll at Delaware, the closest Division I school to her Wilmington home. You have to hope she finds some peace and regains her love of the sport, even if she doesn't play for a national title.
BTW, quiet as it's kept, Lisa Leslie has been keeping an Olympic diary, the latest entry of which is here.