Cutting Class Isn’t Just For Guys

By now you’ve heard the story of basketball prep stars Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler. Jennings went to Rome for last season before entering this year’s NBA draft and Tyler will also go overseas to play for Maccabi Haifa in Israel. Even baseball players are getting in on the act, as Dan Steinberg wrote on Monday regarding phenom Bryce Harper.↵↵Now we’ve got a women’s basketball player -- Epiphanny Prince of Rutgers -- bolting from school to spend a year abroad before entering the 2010 WNBA draft. (The AP notes she isn’t the first female to do this, but one of a select few.)↵

↵↵It brings up an interesting point in the overall argument of when players are allowed to go out and start making a money at what they do best. Check out the WNBA’s rules on when you can join the league:↵

↵↵⇥The WNBA has a much stricter code of eligibility for players than the NBA. To play in the WNBA, a player must turn 22 during the year they are drafted, graduate from college or see their class matriculate during the three-month period following the draft. Or the player must be out of high school for four years.↵↵↵For those of you that kick your feet and scream “ILLEGAL!!!11!” when you hear about the age minimum in the NBA or the NFL’s own three-year rule, isn’t this the worst of them all? If you wanted to be incredibly paternal, you could argue there aren’t as many pro hoops opportunities for women as there are for men -- and they certainly aren’t going to pay as well for the most part. So maybe they’re doing the women a favor by force-feeding an education. But that’s not really a reason to restrict one’s right to go and earn a living without having to go halfway across the world. ↵

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