We didn't really believe him. We thought he was just another college stud taking us for a ride, telling us how he loved life at the dear old University so much that he wasn't sure he could tear himself away early, even for the buckets of money that awaited him in the pros. USC quarterback Matt Leinart told us he was torn between returning for his senior season and heading for the NFL, where teams were ready to line up for a chance to make him a multimillionaire. But we've been down this road before and we know that when an athlete says he hasn't decided, he has decided, and the decision is to go for the bucks. The only question Leinart was really debating, we figured, was: Escalade or Range Rover?
That's why it was a stunner last week when Leinart left the cash on the table, saying that he's chosen to continue as the Trojans quarterback for another season. The reason he's delaying his NFL career for a year isn't because he found out he wasn't going to go high enough in the draft, or because he didn't want to play for the team that was likely to pick him or because he wanted to win another Heisman Trophy. He's staying because he feels that one more year as a college kid is more valuable to him than a gated mansion with a five-car garage.
"Being with my friends and teammates ... is ultimately more satisfying and will make me happier than any amount of money could make someone happy," he said when he announced his decision last Friday. That doesn't make Leinart superior to all those kids who want jump right from third-period algebra to the NBA. It doesn't make him smarter than athletes like Maurice Clarett, who's willing to go to the Supreme Court to fight the NFL's rules against early entry. It just makes Leinart a guy we can believe when he says it's not about the money, which is about the rarest commodity there is in sports these days.
Leinart is a reminder to all those athletes out there who are thinking that they have to get their name on a pro contract before they've finished college -- or sometimes before they've even started it -- that making piles of money isn't the only route to happiness. For most players like Leinart, the big fear is the risk of a serious injury that would damage their prospects for huge pro contracts. But it's not as big a gamble if being insanely wealthy isn't a player's top priority, and for Leinart, it clearly isn't.
The problem with so many players leaving early for the NBA or NFL isn't so much that they're not ready for the lifestyle, or that they dilute the quality of the professional game. It's that it creates the notion that the No. 1 goal for a high school or college athlete should be the big score, the contract that sets him up for life. If he can achieve that without spending four years chasing a degree, the thinking goes, why should he waste time on a college campus?
The answer is that the purpose of college isn't just to prepare a student to make a living. It's not just a means to an end, but an end in itself. The relationships, the independence, the chance to mature are all part of the college experience that tend to get forgotten when an athlete gets dollar signs in his eyes. Leinart probably turned his back, at least for now, on a signing bonus of more than $10 million for the $950 a month stipend that he gets as a scholarship athlete, but he seems to understand what very few athletes in his position do -- that it's OK if he doesn't get rich tomorrow. Or maybe he realizes that he already is.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor .
That's why it was a stunner last week when Leinart left the cash on the table, saying that he's chosen to continue as the Trojans quarterback for another season. The reason he's delaying his NFL career for a year isn't because he found out he wasn't going to go high enough in the draft, or because he didn't want to play for the team that was likely to pick him or because he wanted to win another Heisman Trophy. He's staying because he feels that one more year as a college kid is more valuable to him than a gated mansion with a five-car garage.
"Being with my friends and teammates ... is ultimately more satisfying and will make me happier than any amount of money could make someone happy," he said when he announced his decision last Friday. That doesn't make Leinart superior to all those kids who want jump right from third-period algebra to the NBA. It doesn't make him smarter than athletes like Maurice Clarett, who's willing to go to the Supreme Court to fight the NFL's rules against early entry. It just makes Leinart a guy we can believe when he says it's not about the money, which is about the rarest commodity there is in sports these days.
Leinart is a reminder to all those athletes out there who are thinking that they have to get their name on a pro contract before they've finished college -- or sometimes before they've even started it -- that making piles of money isn't the only route to happiness. For most players like Leinart, the big fear is the risk of a serious injury that would damage their prospects for huge pro contracts. But it's not as big a gamble if being insanely wealthy isn't a player's top priority, and for Leinart, it clearly isn't.
The problem with so many players leaving early for the NBA or NFL isn't so much that they're not ready for the lifestyle, or that they dilute the quality of the professional game. It's that it creates the notion that the No. 1 goal for a high school or college athlete should be the big score, the contract that sets him up for life. If he can achieve that without spending four years chasing a degree, the thinking goes, why should he waste time on a college campus?
The answer is that the purpose of college isn't just to prepare a student to make a living. It's not just a means to an end, but an end in itself. The relationships, the independence, the chance to mature are all part of the college experience that tend to get forgotten when an athlete gets dollar signs in his eyes. Leinart probably turned his back, at least for now, on a signing bonus of more than $10 million for the $950 a month stipend that he gets as a scholarship athlete, but he seems to understand what very few athletes in his position do -- that it's OK if he doesn't get rich tomorrow. Or maybe he realizes that he already is.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor .