The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page E17

The Sun Sunday, March 31, 2002: Page Ilk Pro Basketball Pro Football For Cuban, owning Mavs labor of love Unlike other sports, NFL isn't turning into kid stuff Cuban, from Page 1e High school players not ready to make leap; league likes it that way stand that he has a lot of help back in Dallas. Great back office people, as he calls them. "As you get to know the people and everything, when they know you are committed to the business and you are involved, it makes a difference," he says. All of which raises a question, especially in a league where some teams are struggling financially: Is Cuban making money? "Financially, it hasn't been worth it," he says. "I can make far better investments.

If I stayed in the tech business, I could go in there and make money with my eyes closed. But I do this because I love it." Yet, he says, "It's not hard to make money in basketball. But it's hard to win championships and make money." But Cuban is not content just to grow Mavericks basketball. He has plenty of ideas for the NBA at large, some of which commissioner David Stern has listened to, some of which he hasn't. But that doesn't stop Cuban from talking about the possibilities.

"I'd be a lot more aggressive in the marketing of the game," he says. "If you look at our marketing, where do we market? We market to the people in the pews. The people who are already in the church of the NBA. But there's a whole world out there that we don't." Cuban is happy to talk up his Mavericks and selling the NBA. "Every day is selling and promotional marketing time.

Because if we're not doing it, someone else is taking it from me," Cuban says. go to a basketball game just to see basketball. There are too many choices in life, he says. "We have to be the answer to this question: 'Honey, what do you want to do he says. In Dallas, the answer is more and more to go to the games.

The Mavericks are setting attendance records at their home arena despite sharing a stage with the Dallas Cowboys. When you can sell basketball in football country, that says something. Does Cuban see himself as different from the fraternity of NBA owners? He pauses for a minute, and answers. "A lot of owners aren't involved," he says. "Jerry Buss the Los Angeles Lakers' owner goes to a lot of games, home and away.

The more involved you are, the more successful most franchises are. "Some of the owners, it's not being fair to them, but some of them look at their team like the Corvette in the garage. As long as it starts when you bring it out, a '66 Corvette, everybody's happy." But Cuban wants you to under on a potential Mavericks fan or shielding his players from an intrusive cameraman in the middle of a timeout. "When you live a business, you become a part of it," Cuban says. "You understand the personalities.

When you work for someone who cares who is there, who is available, you care more. This is no different than any other business." Cuban made his fortune with Broadcast.com, a provider of multimedia to the Internet, and later sold it to Yahoo. Armed with bushels of money, Cuban pursued his passion for basketball, bought the Mavericks and immediately began to make changes. "First thing I did was the sales force," he says. "I went in and got rid of some guys.

I said, 'We don't sell wins and losses any more. We still have to pack and sell out the arena even if we go 0-82. It's our job to make it In Cuban's mind and who's going to doubt a guy who has made himself a success? people don't lineman Andre Carter as players in the past 40 years who could have made the jump. Casares was a second-round choice of the Chicago Bears in 1954. Seau, Moss and Carter were first-round NFL picks.

"There aren't many that had the maturity, the temperament and the physical dimensions to do it," said Bill Buchalter, a veteran high school writer fovThe Orlando Sentinel. "But Rick Casares was a man among boys while in high school." Most players have to grow into the NFL. Defensive end Andre Wads-worth was a 6-1, 215-pound high school senior, too small to be recruited. So he walked on at Florida State, where he left five years later as a 6-4, 285-pound, first-round pick of the Arizona Cardinals. Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith, who is 540 yards from becoming the NFL's all-time leading rusher, still is the leading rusher in Florida high school history.

He gained 8,804 yards, and, as with many NFL players, was all-state and all-America as a high school senior. But all-everything credentials carry no weight in the NFL, where players are bigger, faster, stronger and more skilled. "They don't have any idea of the speed and athleticism and the intensity and how violent this game is. There is a learning curve," said Cleveland Browns coach Butch Davis, the head coach at the University of Miami from 1995 to 2000. "At Miami, we recruited guys who were players of the year in the entire country the Jessie Armsteads and the D.J.

Williams and they go from high school to college, and they are like, "In the past they played against one guy a week who was that good. Now, all of a sudden, they're playing against Florida State and Florida, which have 40 guys who can play just like they do. Then, you move up the food chain. You can be a superstar, and all of sudden here everybody is a superstar." But while size matters, skill is equally important. Quarterbacks averaged 6-2 and 197 pounds on the Star-Telegram's list of the top 100 national recruits, and the starting quarterbacks in the Pro Bowl were 6-2, 216.

But Houston Madison quarterback Vincent Young, a 6-5, 195-pounder who signed with the University of Texas, can't stand up to Oakland Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon, who is 6-3, 210. In 1971, as the result of a lawsuit by Spencer Haywood of the University of Detroit, the NBA began allowing players to skip college by declaring financial hardship. The policy was relaxed in 1976 to enable any player to turn professional. In baseball and hockey, players may sign professional contracts after high school graduation. Teen-agers turn pro in golf and tennis also.

The current NFL policy, allowing players enrolled in school for at least three years to enter the draft, has never been challenged, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said. Maybe for a million good reasons. The NBA makes it far more enticing for players to skip college. Tracy McGrady, who was 18 when he was the ninth pick in the 1997 draft, signed a guaranteed three-year, $4.7 million contract with the Toronto Raptors and a $12 million endorsement deal with adidas. Before last season, the All-Star signed a guaranteed seven-year, $96 million extension with the Orlando Magic.

Iowa cornerback Tom Knight, the NFL's ninth pick in 1997, signed a five-year, $8.22 million contract, with the $3.7 million signing bonus guaranteed. Knight, who played out his contract after last season, is an unrestricted free agent. McGrady said a teen-ager could make it in the NFL. "I know football is different physically, but there are guys coming out of high school who could make the jump if they were allowed," McGrady said. "It wouldn't surprise me to see it happen if that rule is dropped.

It's tough in any sport, the physical and mental toughness it takes, but it could be done." But because the NFL is violent, it might never be done. "I just don't think that a high school kid can go out there and get hit by Ray Lewis," Steelers coach Bill Cowher said. "There's too much contact in our game to allow an 18-year-old kid who's still growing to compete. From a health standpoint, I think it would be really foolish for a young man to subject himself to that abuse. It really is a safety issue." GOT IT? FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM ORLANDO, Fla.

Deion Sanders was a 6-foot-1, 175-pound freshman at Florida State. He could run with Olympic sprinters. He started four games in 1989, including the Gator Bowl, and had 62 tackles and one interception, which he returned 100 yards for a touchdown. He also returned 30 punts. But even "Prime Time" admits he could not have skipped college for professional football.

"It's not even an option in football," said Sanders, who played 12 seasons in the NFL and nine in Major League Baseball. "Your body hasn't had sufficient time to mature, so you are not strong enough. In football, it would be like a grown man hitting a child." The NFL is the only league that forbids high school players from going straight to the pros. It wasn't until 1990 that the NFL rewrote its long-standing rule that college players had to exhaust their eligibility before declaring for the draft. This year, 38 underclassmen were granted special eligibility for the seven-round NFL draft April 20-21, and three juniors North Carolina defensive end Julius Peppers, Oklahoma safety Roy Williams and Tennessee defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth are expected to be top picks.

The NFL has encouraged players to stay in school for one simple reason: Teen-agers aren't ready to be hit by the Chicago Bears' Brian Urlacher or to be blocked by the Dallas Cowboys' Larry Allen. "It's the reality of the game," NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said. "Our game is a game that takes a lot of maturity both physically and mentally to play. It takes a lot of experience to play at the tremendous speed the game is played in the NFL. A lot of our success in keeping underclassmen in school is the nature of the game.

I think our policy is good for the players and good for the game." In 1983, Herschel Walker became the first football undergraduate since Red Grange in 1925 to leave school early for the pros when he gave up his final year of eligibility at the University of Georgia and signed a three-year, $5 million deal to play in the United States Football League. Walker's first season at Georgia, when he rushed for an NCAA freshman-record 1,616 yards, leads some to believe he could have successfully skipped college altogether. "I didn't see Herschel Walker coming out of high school, but a lot of people said that he was a big, strong back," Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy said. "He and Earl Campbell probably are guys that came into the college level and really dominated as freshmen. But I think overall it would be hard." Recruiting analysts selected Walker, running back Rick Ca-sares, linebacker Junior Seau, receiver Randy Moss and defensive SELL IT.

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