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Forget the interview -
How about when they talk to each other without realizing anyone else is around ???

This is a colloquial language that has evolved over generations and has been totally functional, which is really the only criteria it has to meet. It is not going to be functional in a Fortune 500 company boardroom(unless you're showing up to sign a sport-shoe contract on the dotted line) or on Wall St. , (although one could argue you don't have to talk like you went to Oxford to steal money) or giving an adress to the American Academy of Pediatric Oncology. If the guy talking like this has no interest in these fields, then there is no problem. Form follows function.

Having everybody speak perfect English all the time would end up being boring and would be scary-like out of a futuristic movie where everything becomes ordered and sterile.

Skeet -

Are you serious?
You only need to speak properly if you're in the board room or on Wall Street?

You need to be able to communicate properly no matter what you're doing.

These guys can't even order a ham & cheese sandwich talking the way they do.
Forget about getting a decent job and providing for themselves and their family.

Anon, "Properly" is a subjective, relative term that really has no meaning from a survival point of view. As is self evident, it doesn't appear in the subject's enviornment, he had any difficulty obtaining food with this style of speech. If one had trouble surviving using a language, the language would fade from use and become extinct.

"Properly" - as in speaking well enough to get a decent job and provide for yourself and your family.

Or not.
"Surviving" is exactly what some of these people are doing.
Reliant on the taxpayer to "survive".
Many do not "survive" at all.
They turn to crime to "survive", wind up dead or rotting in prison while the "families" they left behind continue to attempt to "survive".

Anon, I know a guy who lives in a cabin in the Sandhiils who talks like the subject above. He doesn't have a mortgage, eats what he kills in deer, quail, wild turkey and fish. Talking like Bill Buckley would be on no use to this guy. It would give him nothing. I would trust him with my life.

Now lets see, I bet Bernie Madoff and Bill Thain are very well spoken. Enough said.

The issue here is that this young man is devaluing and discrediting the education given by his institution. He's not a guy living off the land in the Sandhills; he's a public figure representing his institution of higher learning in an effort to promote the university. Whether he likes it or not, he’s the most prominent figurehead of that university at that point in time. You don’t see the president of the university or and of the deans or professors doing any interviews on Sportscenter do you? Therefore, the only big time exposure most of our colleges and universities get is from their athletes.

That argument aside, it’s the coaches’ fault for allowing this kid to do interviews. Do they not have a Sports Information Director to work with their athletes? A coach’s responsibility doesn’t stop on the court, nor does a players education only come in the classroom.

I agree with the last post. How hard is it to memorize 5 cliches in standard English? How hard is it to learn the conjugation of "to be"? Most programs do offer this kind of preparation for athletes, and for good reason.

As for Skeet's point, I would argue that, objectively speaking, this is an impoverished form of speech in the precise sense that is less capable than "standard English"--and I'd agree that that's a problematic label--of representing and symbolically manipulating complex forms of reality (which is what language does). Put simply, less can be said in this language.

Coach Fault, I may be generalizing but I think it's quite likely that this young man did not matriculate to this university to get an academic education or this may have been a secondary concern. More likely he went there to try and throw a rubber ball through a metal hoop somewhere for money, which in our society can yield one millions of dollars in the right circumstances. Allen and yourself thinking otherwise is your wish and projection and has no personal relevance to the man in question. He sees he can get paid for throwing it through the hoop. We are the ones that have set this parameter, thereby one could argue we are the idiots here. Obviously I wish everyone was educated and spoke well, but then again I wish I could shoot in the seventies and would have liked to have starred in Saving Private Ryan.

Therein lies the problem. The prospects of playing basketball professionally are largely a myth.
Only a very tiny percentage of college athletes go on to pro careers.
The vast majority have to find regular jobs like t the rest of us.
Is it too much to expect for any college student to to be able to speak two consecutive, coherent sentences?

It's not that it's too much to ask, it's that it's irrelevant, Allen. This young man is striving to be one of the ones to make the millions. Speaking well is not that relevant to him. Our society is holding that (the millions)out as a carrot to this guy. His university is profiting from this guys sweat. (see your other thread) Better if he majored in English Lit and teach someplace for forty G? Our society doesn't seem to think so.

Skeet -

What is the problem with speaking coherently AND going after the millions?
Why is it either/or in your mind?

You're making this whole thing too complicated - and as usual, have trouble backing down from your position (although i usually agree with many of your stances).

The simple point of Allen's post is that this guy, and anybody in college, should be able to string a coherent sentence together.
This guy, and unfortunately many African Americans in collegiate (and professional) athletics cannot speak coherently.

Anon, I'm probably much more of a easy touch in backing down from postions as anybody on here. My position here is I wish everybody could speak well and be well educated. You have this wish too, but it's of no relevance to the subject individual and it is academic institutions and otherwise educated people that have created this. Allen wants everyone to be like this also, but in the next few weeks, if the game's on the line in OT, and Allen had to choose, Zeus-like, in split second and had a cosmic button to push-the one choice the shot dropping-the other choice-the blue-clad athlete getting a good education, which one would he pick?

You're saying, why does it have to be mutually exclusive. It doesn't. But this can only be decided on an individual basis and may not be relevant to other people like it is to you.

Speaking well.
Appreciate all the sage comments made regarding the interesting quote.
Remember Ebonics? I can tell you that young man is not even self aware enough to realize that he speaks the way he does. Spoken English is learned from who surrounds us. I have heard African Americans in "regular jobs" not athletes or celebrities who make the very same mistakes.
My mom said years ago when black people went to university and it was discovered they came from the south, they were automatically enrolled in remedial speech classes.
It is regional, it is cultural, and there are segments of the African American "community" who will disparage African Americans for using the King's English. "You talk like a white person" has been said to me ad nauseum after my very black family relocated from the north to NC.
I'm not offering a solution to the issue (the person who said college coaches should have a media liaison seems to be on the right track)
I'm just commenting on the fact that nobody talked about looking a little deeper to find the source of the issue.

Aw, geez. More claptrap about "student-athletes."

Savage has it exactly right. The college basketball Allen loves so much is nothing more than big-bucks, quasi-professional athletics. Coaches don't get hired and fired from seven-figure contracts because they place players on the Honor Roll. University presidents don't get pressure from the high rollers in the Booster Club if GPAs aren't high enough.

As long as fans pump billions of dollars into college sports, this is exactly what you'll get. Let's not be hypocriticial about it.

Just Saying is right on. We have met the enemy...and he is us.

As I've pointed out, just teach them a few grammatically correct cliches. "We knew State would come to play, so we focused on our defense and rebounding." "Smith did a great job of getting me the ball." We're not asking for William F. Buckley.

So Brian, you're suggesting pseudo-educational fakery? For whose benefit? The colleges? The TV Network. Somebodies sense of values?

We create a world where you can get millions for throwing a rubber ball through a hoop. The subject above is trying to deliver that. If he delivers that his team's fans will be happy. He'll be happy. Speaking well would just be gravy.