I'm never happy about seeing young athletes (especially basketball players) go straight from high school to the pros or leave one to three years of college eligibility on the table to go pro early. Of course, I can understand one of the main reasons why they do this. They know that if they were to suffer a career-ending injury while in college, they would forfeit the millions of prospective dollars that they would have made as a professional athlete. That is too much of a risk to take, and I don't blame them one bit for not wanting to take that chance.

I believe the NCAA could fix this problem by making one small change to its sports eligibility rules. Currently, an athlete becomes ineligible as soon as he signs a pro contract in a sport in which he plays in college, regardless of whether he has actually been paid yet. This rule should be changed to allow a college athlete to go ahead and sign a pro contract but retain his college eligibility until he actually starts getting paid.

That way, a pro team could draft an athlete and offer him a contract that would consist only of an insurance policy until such time as his college playing days are over. In exchange, he would promise to play for that given team at the conclusion of his college eligibility, at which time he would begin receiving pay. In the meantime, he would be covered by that team for any injury he might incur while still in college. If an injury ultimately prevented him from playing in the pros, he would be paid millions of dollars by the insurer in compensation.

Perhaps this would motivate more star athletes to stay in college for their full four years of eligibility before turning pro. I believe it would at least be worth a try. Now if only someone could convince the powers-that-be of college athletics.