Conventional wisdom says “learn to dribble, pass and shoot and the lucrative world of professional basketball will beat a path to your door.” Rapper Notorious B.I.G. institutionalized this notion on his debut album Ready to Die: “because the streets is a short stop/ either you're slingin crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot.”
With only 12% of the American population, African American athletes comprise 75% of the roster in the National Basketball Association. Even Bill Cosby famously observed that “black parents believe basketball shoes are a better investment for their children than is education.”
The problem is, it’s not true.
Fewer than 1 percent of the half-million young men who play high school ball will win scholarships.
And fewer than 1 percent of those who manage to play in college at all will go on to careers in professional basketball.
From the New York Times, “and of this final, golden few, most, through injury, insufficient skill or defects in personality, will last no longer than four years -- has-beens at the age of 26.”
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