I’m not ignorant of athletics because I disdain it. I respect and admire athletes, and most importantly, I fear them. I certainly don’t think that sports are beneath me; they’re just something I don’t know much about.
I do, however, have one pudgy finger on the pulse of this campus. I’m as sensitive to a current discussion at Michigan State as my mother is to the smell of smoke on my clothes. And people are talking about T.J. Duckett.
Duckett is a junior here, and he plays for our football team as a running back. I don’t know what a running back is or what he does, but I do know that Duckett is preternatuarally SHKD talented. He’s established his place in MSU history, rushing distances in his time here that I don’t have the stamina to drive. He is also the only person I know who has earned the nickname “Diesel” for something other than flatulence.
Duckett’s decision last week to forego his last year at MSU to enter the NFL Draft has met with no small furor from the campus as a whole. “I feel you owe more to the fans who cheered you on every Saturday,” wrote one State News reader.
Naturally, I have an opinion, in both short and long-winded versions.
The short argument is as follows: It’s none of my damn business. Enter the NFL, Mr. Duckett. Enter the Peace Corps. Enter the dragon, if you like. Best of luck.
The long argument takes as its premise that as a celebrity and a representative of our school, we have every right to criticize Duckett’s decision.
All of us have paid tuition to attend a school with a great football team, one that strengthens our school spirit and enriches our time here. Some of the best memories some of us will ever have are of fall weekends inside Spartan Stadium. But does Duckett really owe us another year? For three years, he’s exhausted himself in order to make himself a better player and the Spartans a better team. In every game - every practice - he and every other player risk their body and future for two purposes. The first is to further our school’s name in the sport. The second is to prepare himself to enter professional football.
Does Duckett owe us anything? Absolutely not. He didn’t sign a contract, and he didn’t get paid: He sweated only for our enjoyment and his future. That the latter takes precedence over our entertainment shouldn’t surprise anyone. Duckett gave us three good years. And while we gave him fame and love, he can’t eat either of them, and he certainly shouldn’t continue to risk never being able to play professionally over some deranged sense of obligation.
Since Duckett doesn’t owe us a decision to stay, the question is this: What does Duckett stand to gain or lose by entering the draft?
I understand analysts expect him to be chosen in the first or second round. If that happens, he will likely be paid an enormous amount of money. If he excels and charms the public, Duckett will find fame and popularity doing what he loves. Nothing more can be asked from a career. He will, by becoming a professional a year early, lower the risk of his career being ended before it begins to actually pay him.
What he loses is worth mentioning. As a college player, Duckett is allowed the freedom of scholastic athletics: The freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. The year that he has foregone may have given him a little more maturity, a little more experience, and a little more skill to bring to the draft.
I don’t understand the weight that each of these factors had in Duckett’s decision, but he does. What I do understand is the argument that some have made: That a year of education and the resulting degree is worth Duckett sticking around.
That’s baloney born of the elitist and dumb belief that the achievement of the mind is more valuable than that of the body. Plenty of people would like to believe that the body is but a shell, that people are beings of pure thought and energy, and that the only skills worth having are abstract. I would like it if that were true - I’d get hit on more. But the fact is that all the reason in the world isn’t going to change the fact that I am, in this lifetime, as much matter as I am thought. Humanity is as much muscle and bone as it is math. The physiology of a 4.42 second sprint is as elegant and holy as a sonnet. The truth is playing football well is as universally admirable a goal as a degree. Arguing that Duckett should pursue a degree for his own sake while sacrificing the NFL is akin to arguing that I should stay in medical school a year after becoming a doctor just so I can write this column.
So congratulations, T.J. We wish you only the best as you finally get paid to do the job you do best. Even if I have no idea what it actually involves.
Rishi Kundi is a third-year medical student. Reach him at kundiris@msu.edu .
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
