To Forgo or Forge Ahead - Her Loyal Sons

With the sad ending of the college football season, the ever looming thoughts of who will be declaring for the draft early and who will be on the collegiate field next season begin to take over. No matter how high the player is projected to go in the draft it is always hard to watch a good player leave early.

As a student, who lives and works alongside many of these athletes that are faced with the decision to forgo a senior year and declare for the draft or hope that their senior year lives up to the hype and that they are able to declare after their 4th or 5th year, I understand why many give up getting that degree. There has been a whole bunch of criticism surrounding these players for leaving early, without a Notre Dame degree, though as a student, who has the daunting task of entering the workforce in the near future, I totally get it.

The decision to go to the NFL, on the surface, may not seem similar to that of entering the “real life workforce”. But take a minute to ponder a situation: imagine you are a junior finance major, have a 4.0 and Goldman Sachs or J.P. Morgan or any of the other big 5 call you one day and offer you a summer internship with the chance to sign with them for a job after senior year. Your internship goes swimmingly and you have contributed a great deal to the company, but let’s just say that at the end of the summer the boss comes to you and says you can make $1 million if you come hold out on your senior year and work for us next year. You would take that offer in a heartbeat. Well, that’s exactly what these guys are thinking when deciding to forgo their senior year and leave early. Don’t get me wrong, a Notre Dame education is one of a kind and something to be cherished and give you skills that will carry you into high positions in life but, for the players another year of classes during their true senior year isn’t going to make much of a difference in their NFL career path. Whereas for that accounting internship, the tools needed to get the job were given during the summer and a senior year filled with university requirements will most likely not help much either.

The NFL is their career, like the classic economics question, “would you rather have a dollar now or tomorrow”, they are going to take the money now. It is just simply a better economic decision. By choosing that dollar tomorrow, they risk injury or going lower in the draft and making less money. I personally would not take that risk, school is great but your career sets the tone for the rest of your life and if you can do that without getting a degree, so be it. Having three years at Notre Dame in their repertoire gives these guys more insight and knowledge than some people earn in 5 years at other schools [no offense, but I’m almost positive that most of my professors are more intelligent than Albert Einstein].

The fact is, whether or not the players decide to take up the opportunity or not, Notre Dame allows them to come back and finish their degree, which is pretty neat. So go ahead and have your dream career then come back and get that degree so you can no have a nice mundane career like the rest of us or don’t, as long as you follow your dreams.

And if you have not read the messages from a few of our amazing guys who have decided to declare for the draft, I strongly suggest you take a few more minutes. Get some tissues because the water works were going, these guys truly get it.

Chris Brown

Jaylon Smith

Will Fuller