NORTH CAROLINA-(BASN)-Please listen up….and listen up good.It’s time for us to step out of their shadows and walk into the light and develop an underground railroad of authentic athletes, who will make a conscious decision not to go to Duke, Carolina, or Kentucky?
Let’s recruit the best.
Play the best.
Educate the best.
And be the best.
In other words, let’s convince our children to go to Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Can you imagine if John Wall attended North Carolina Central, Michael Jordan attended North Carolina A&T, Patrick Ewing attended Howard, or Allen Iverson attended Hampton University?
Could you imagine the economic impact? The cultural impact? The educational impact? ....on how our children would view the world.
Please don’t misunderstand, I believe college athletes should be paid but if they aren’t, let’s boycott those bastards.
In other words, let’s control our own destiny.
Let’s be the recruiters, the professors, the coaches, the agents, the lawyers, the accountants, the consultants, the stylists, the designers from elementary to AAU, from AAU to college, from college to the NBA…Let’s eliminate the middlemen…..
My point is this, if we are going to make millions of dollars playing the game of basketball, let’s keep the money in our community.
Let’s fund our own freedom.
Let’s beautify our own buildings.
Let’s sign our own scholarships.
See, it always amazes me, how we cheapen ourselves.
How “other people” always seem to have our best interest at hand.
And convince us, how everybody else is not to be trusted.
We are the oil…the Black Gold…that these college recruiters need to fuel their money making machines.
Because, they don’t operate without us……..
But we haven’t protected and fought for our natural resources (our children), we shamefully have allowed “other people” to steal our children and misuse them, brainwash them and mishandle them…
Therefore, let’s start a new revolution.
We can start by creating Ballin’ 4 a HBCU campaign on Face book, Twitter, YouTube and encourage five of the top 100 basketball players in the country to join forces and decide to attend a Historical Black College and University.
Let’s shake up the world like Muhammad Ali did when he knocked out Sonny Liston by declaring our letters of intent live on ESPN to attend a HBCU on National Signing Day.
Let’s create another Fab 5 like Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson did at Michigan.
But let’s do it on one of our prestigious Black colleges and march through March Madness and win a NCAA National Championship.
I know it sounds crazy.
But who thought a Black man named Barack Hussein Obama would win the presidency of the United States in 2008.
With that said, who is man enough to take on this challenge?
The time is now.
Why? Because the game of college basketball is getting weaker and weaker, as the most talented athletes are deciding to take their talents to the NBA for million dollar contracts instead of being exploited for four years in college.
Besides, now ESPN broadcasts everything……
And let’s not forget, Butler almost beat Duke two years ago in the NCAA Tournament.
Plus, Norfolk State defeated Missouri last year in the Tournament.
As a result, hopefully, somewhere, there is a group of 8th graders reading this, saying, we are the ones, who will change the game.
We are waiting for your arrival.
Let the revolution begin.
Eric D.Graham, a graduate of Winston-Salem State University, where he received a B.A. in Mass Communication with a concentration in Radio and Television, with a minor in History, with an emphasis in African-American Studies, is currently the Managing Editor of Black Athlete Sports Network, where his articles appear daily along with his controversial cartoon character Bobbee Bee “The Hater.” Graham can be reached at lbiass34@yahoo.com or go to www.bobbeethehater.blogspot.com
