Fair Play: Get a job

WOULD a normal student, after finishing a four-year course, transfer to another school to study for just one year?

Would you?

It sounds crazy. But apparently, the Cesafi thinks otherwise.

The league has revised its rules, allowing graduates to frolic for a year in another school studying—or rather getting enrolled in—another course.

The Cesafi said it couldn’t stop “athletes from seeking something that benefits them.” That’s why it amended its rules.

Since athletes are eligible for five years in the Cesafi, and they rarely fail in their subjects, a four-year course for them is a hitch.

What to do with that final year then has resulted to brainless masters as one athletic director told me. I think he called them, “pa master-master.”

That AD said players who wanted to maximize their eligibility just enroll in a masters degree of their choice and never bother to show up.

They are scholars and aside from being enrolled in a minimum number of units, Cesafi’s other academic requirement is that an athlete has to pass at least 60 percent of his subjects in the previous year.

So in that final year, athletes can jerk off, while suiting up for the school of their choice in the basketball court.

With the revised Cesafi rules, athletes can now goof off, at another school’s expense.

It’s all for their benefit, of course.

Well, this may come as a shock to the Cesafi. There’s also something that could benefit players after they graduate. It’s what the rest of the normal students—at least those students who actually went to class.

It’s called a job.

Or does their stay in college only equip players to play ball?

UNNATURAL CAUSES. Just 11 days into July, three former sports stars are dead. Not one by natural cause.

On July 1, former three-time boxing champion Alexis Arguello, whose success in the ring translated into success in the political arena, shot himself.

The 57-year-old Arguello had an impressive record of 82 wins, 8 losses with 65 KOs.

On July 4, Steve McNair, a 36-year-old retired NFL quarterback was found with multiple gunshots next to his lover.

Police say it was a case of murder suicide.

On July 11, Arturo Gatti, another former world champion, was found dead in a tourist resort in Brazil. He was just 37.

A brief research on Gatti’s life on Wikipedia yielded weird facts.

Gatti, who retired with a 40-9, 31KOs record, was charged with assaulting his girlfriend Amanda Rodrigues just last March and was ordered to stay at least 200 meters from her.

Reports from Brazil say Rodrigues, now his wife, is under suspicion for his murder.

Athletes who have retired lose their spot in the limelight. They only get it when they get in trouble with the law or, in the case of the three, when they die.

GRAND SLAM POST SCRIPT. Here’s something interesting. Ever since I started following tennis, back when Maria Sharapova was still more Russian than American, I’ve always heard of Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver every time they discuss Pete Sampras’s attempt at the Grand Slam record.

After Roger Federer broke Sampras’s record, I saw a list of the other great players’s achievements, and learned that Borg, who is tied with Laver for most Grand Slams at 11, retired from tennis at 26.

Had he not retired at such young age, Federer might still be chasing Borg’s record, despite winning his 15th in Wimbledon.

According to his Wikipedia entry, Borg retired because he lost “the drive to win.”

That reminded me of another great, MJ, who retired because he lost the will to win.

Only difference is, MJ unretired—twice!

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