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If you’re from St. Louis, you might know who E. Desmond “Des” Lee is. The wire-shelving magnate turned into the city’s most prominent philanthropist, donating more than $70 million dollars to civic organizations and universities in the St. Louis area before he died in 2010 at the age of 92.
But his good works and wire-hangers aren’t his only legacy, his grandson David Lee is a starting power-forward in the NBA for the Golden State Warriors. And before he turned pro, Lee was a highly-touted high school prospect who accepted a scholarship at the University of Florida, where he played from 2001 to 2005. None of this was considered out of the ordinary, even though, presumably, Lee could have affored to pay his own way, especially when Florida was short a scholarship spot his freshmen year.
Fast-forward more than ten years. This time, it’s the son of an incredibly wealthy man getting a full-ride athletic scholarship. But instead of a wire-shelver-cum-philanthropist, the plutocratic patriarch is none other than hip hop mogul Sean Combs, otherwise known (for now) as Diddy.
Combs’s son Justin, a defensive back for New Rochelle Iona Prep, will be playing football at UCLA, one of the flagships of a California public university system suffering from savage budget cuts and tuition hikes. Needless to say, Combs’s coming to play football on the school’s dime has ignited a minor controversy.
Even if UCLA’s recruitment of Combs’s is totally cynical and they’re more interested in his father’s donations than his son’s ability to do a corner blitz, it is still hard to see what the fuss is about.
After all, UCLA gives out 285 athletic scholarships a year. And even if the other 284 student athletes need the assistance more than Combs does, we still have a university going out of its way to subsidize and support something that is best an addition to its core academic and civic mission. And if sports turn a profit for UCLA, than every football and men’s basketball scholarship is just as cynical as Combs’s - the school does better when the big money teams are winning.
And then there seems to be the inescapable cultural dimension to this firestorm. Lee’s grandfather donated $700,000 to the Saint Louis Symphony music education program; Diddy gave his son a $360,000 Maybach for his 16th birthday (it’s a car). Oh yeah, Lee is white and Combs is not.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a young, extravagant black man getting a full ride is what is getting the public to finally question the wisdom of athletic scholarships.
What would be useful is a real discussion of the considerable resources - including scholarships — public universities devote to intercollegiate athletics, especially at a time when the California’s public universities are under terrible strain and students are being asked to pay more and more to attend institutions that are supposed to be defined by their inclusiveness. Instead, we have a useless round of collective indignation of a rich black kid becoming the posterboy for a system that he is not a very good representative of.
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jon on June 02, 2012 10:36 AM:
I wonder how many of the same people demanding that his dad pay for his college are the same people who don't want adult children to be on their parents' health insurance.
ComradeAnon on June 02, 2012 10:49 AM:
Can we agree that it would be a nice gesture if his Dad did pay for it?
Ken D. on June 02, 2012 11:02 AM:
I believe that the rules were changed in the 1950's to eliminate the need element in athletic scholarships. It would seem to me that the entire point of that is to authorize awards like both of these. It appears to me that very few people in the college athletic community or its fandom have any problem with this. Big time college sports is a wierd business, but the Combs family is playing by the rules
Patrick Star on June 02, 2012 11:22 AM:
According to my son, who is a lot more dialed-in on this stuff than I am, Combs is a one or two star recruit (out of a possible five) who was also offered full scholarships from Illinois, Pitt, and a few other D1 programs. They're all chasing Daddy's money; the kid will probably never see the field.
Who the hell buys his kid a freaking Maybach on his 16th birthday?! Why doesn't he use that money to start a scholarship fund, or to bankroll grass-roots Progressives who will defend the Middle Class and the poor from corporate greed? Must be a Romney man.
superdestroyer on June 02, 2012 11:31 AM:
The university is not giving the scholarshp. The athletic department, that is a separate not-for-profit corporation, is agreeing to pay Justin's college express in accordance with NCAA rules. Giving Justin a scholarship gives the coaches more control and authority than the coaches are allowed to have over a walk-on student. The same goes Mr. Lee at Florida.
I wish bloggers would study more about how big time college athletics works before posting on the topic.
Hedda Peraz on June 02, 2012 11:42 AM:
I looked up "Nouveau Riche" on Wikipedia. There was a photo of Diddy Combs.
CRhetts on June 02, 2012 11:46 AM:
The economics of this is really pretty simple. UCLA men's basketball and football teams brought in over 34 million in revenue last year, against 27 million in operating expenses. The profit is then used to subsidize sports which lose money. All UCLA women's teams for example, operated at a loss of 8.5 million.
To me, its definately a positive that the big time men's programs at major colleges support athletic participation by scholar athletes, and especially females, in sports which would otherwise be cut or curtailed on account of revenue shortfalls.
That said, the current state of high revenue (football & basketball) programs at most colleges is a disaster. What we have today is nothing more than a meat market which exploits thousands of kids to earn revenues and enlarge prestige for colleges, while only a bare handful of those kids will ever go on to careers in professional sports - which usually the only real pay-off for any of those kids.
I doubt if one in a hundred coaches in major college men's sports gives a flip if the kids who bring in the money to support their bloated salaries are getting a worthwhile education - aside that is, from the object of staying academically eligible.
Incidentally, you can find a comprehensive data base on college sports' revenue and expenses at:
http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/index.aspx
Ken D. on June 02, 2012 11:49 AM:
superdestroyer: I disagree in part. The athletic department of a public university is a government agency, and public money is public money, whether directly from taxes or not. The NCAA has also been held to be a public agency, because most of its members are. I pretty much agree with you otherwise.
hornblower on June 02, 2012 12:06 PM:
I have seen him play and know his coaches well. They say he is a great kid who is a fine athlete. Around here the question is not the scholarship but notion that he can play at that level. That this has become a national story is silly. Time to move on.
Nancy Cadet on June 02, 2012 12:47 PM:
This story keeps the topic of college scholarships , college costs, and the malevolent influence of money and "legacy" on college admissions alive. State university systems are hurting, and once high quality programs and institutions are crumbling. At the same time, the uber rich get richer, and flaunt their wasted money and their over sized influence (as, clearly college presidents are overpaid, and administrative/PR staffs bloated).
Diddy is a neighbor of mine (and I am in no way wealthy ) in East Hampton, and he's really into the super rich people's social scene, so the news that he had bought his kid a very expensive car is no surprise.would the money have been better spent on after school programs, free health and nutrition clinics, underwriting fees to summer camp or vocational training for dozens if not hundreds of kids from the "old neighborhood"? Sure, but that's not the thinking of today's masters of the universe....
c u n d gulag on June 02, 2012 4:53 PM:
Diddy's kid earned his scholarship.
He's a terrific athlete, and had great grades.
The problem here if that his Combs' Diddy daddy is a rap star, worth north of 1/2 a billion dollars.
If one of the feckin' Romney pasty-white-boy sons earned a college football scholarship, NO ONE would have said a thing.
Diddy's a rap star - meaning, he's a N*GGER!
emjayay on June 02, 2012 5:12 PM:
I'm not much of an expert on this stuff to say the least, but the sports commenter (name?) guy on NPR is always talking about what a joke major team college athletics is. The atheletes are not really students. They are professional athletes who are often tutored and pushed through college, if they get through at all. They may not have the aptitude for college, and when do they study anyway? It's a ridiculous situation which has nothing to do with higher education. It continues because rich old alumni get off on it - it's a chance for them to relive their sis-boom-bah bonehead fratboy college days - and a lot of people buy tickets to games. The Sean Combs Puff Daddy P Diddy boy isn't a student. He's an employee.
g on June 02, 2012 5:17 PM:
Sean Combs supports charitable causes so there's no reason to think he wouldn't eventually support UCLA.
It's very unusual for a university to have large donors who have no connection to the university - i.e., they're not alumni or otherwise personally connected. A university cultivates donors over the long run - it's been shown that it is often 10 years between the first contact with a potential donor and their first major gift.
It would be very unusual for someone to make a major gift this early in the relationship, but I'm sure if Justin enjoys his time at UCLA, his father will make a gift.
That said, unlike many universities UCLA actually DOES have major donors who were not alumni or, say, cancer survivors who were treated there. This is partly because the university's development organization is pretty good at making connections in the entertainment industry. Glorya Kaufman, Herb Alpert and Eli Broad are all major donors to the university who had no family or personal connection there, and gave in the tens of millions.
tcinaz on June 02, 2012 5:59 PM:
As superdestroyer points out, this is not about Justin Combs, or Sean specifically. It is about NCAA rules. For the sake of adherence to those rules, BCS schools never allow walk-ons to remain walk-ons for long once they establish their ability and eligibility. Imagine if UCLA, or one of the SEC powerhouses began getting around scholarship limits by recruiting wealthy students, or students who received support from other sources outside of the university. Sure it's not a great system, but if you are going to criticize it, at least understand why the rules are what they are.
Quaker in a Basement on June 02, 2012 6:10 PM:
Combs' scholarship? Outrage! Lee's scholarship? Crickets.
Reminds me of the story of a white woman seated behind a black man on a city bus. She noticed a giant cockroach perched on the man's shoulder. Not sure whether to tell him or not, she reflexively brushed it off, but the man didn't notice. She decides to tell the man what happened.
"Sir," she says. "I just wanted you to know that I just brushed a giant roach off your shoulder."
"Well put it back!" the man replied. As he turned away, he muttered, "Don't want a black man to have nothin'!"
TCinLA on June 02, 2012 7:12 PM:
The big difference between Sean Combs and Donald Trump is that Trump never participated in a drive-by murder while traveling to an awards show. Other than that, Combs IS the black Trump.
Citizen Alan on June 02, 2012 8:18 PM:
The big difference between Sean Combs and Donald Trump is that Trump never participated in a drive-by murder while traveling to an awards show. Other than that, Combs IS the black Trump.
I must have totally missed that part of Trump's biography where he was raised by a single mother in a housing project in Harlem and worked his way up to being worth half a billion. I had been under the impression that the Donald had inherited part of a $400 million estate from his real estate developer father. Also, Combs has, AFAIK, never filed for bankruptcy. He has the same number of children as Trump, but by fewer mothers.
And yes, I do think the only reason this is a story is because of outrage over black people who don't have the decency to be poor like they're supposed to.
Nancycadet on June 02, 2012 9:05 PM:
What a strange discussion this has been! For social consciousness, let's compare Diddy to Chuck D, Reverend Run or Russell Simmons-- his generation of hip hop artists-entrepreneurs. Those 3 have given /led so much in trying to make this a more equitable society .
. As for college sports, I have to say that in my first job /first semester teaching at a well known Midwestern university , I was called by someone in the athletics department and told that I had to give a passing grade to a certain student in my class-- he was on the football team.
Needless to say, as a working class New Yorker whose schools had no teams (just clubs like Martial Arts or Chess) , this was astonishing. I reported the extortion to my department chair, and gave the student the grade he earned. Needless to say, I did not last long at this top-level Midwestern state university .
BrookLyn on June 03, 2012 3:08 AM:
Justin Combs has a 3.75 GPA and is what is known as a blue chip recruit. Furthermore he hasn't accepted the scholarship yet so let's wait and see before we condemn both father and son shall we?
Sam Jackson on June 03, 2012 4:20 AM:
Read the article about David Lee.
The problem Florida had was actually a scholarship they couldn't give away to the athlete. Kwame Brown's leaving meant that one of their scholarships would go unused.
David Lee didn't stop the school from offering a scholarship.
This was a badly written post....seems like you have a view point and you are going to fit the facts to it. Not what I have come to expect from WashingtonMonthly.
Take the ruckus about Comb's scholarship....haven't heard a word of it. I live in Northern California and consume the local media quite regularly ...and what's more check the huffingtonpost almost every day...this was not front page even there.
This has got be a very very minor ruckus...in the sense there was an AP story that looks some reporter tried very hard to make a marginally larger story from a one or two sentence story about Comb's scholarship.
Steve P on June 03, 2012 9:50 AM:
Your problem is that you let terms like "university", "education" and "athletics" blind you to the fact that this in fact a story about the entertainment industry. A major university athletic department has almost nothing to do with higher education. It's a feeder program for professional athletics.
Funny how you never see this kind of stir about college baseball teams. Baseball will sign a kid out of high school. If we let pro football and basketball do the same thing--well, a lot of sad boy-men would have to find something else to do on their Saturday afternoons.
DJ on June 03, 2012 11:11 AM:
If we let pro football and basketball do the same thing--well, a lot of sad boy-men would have to find something else to do on their Saturday afternoons.
Yes, like watching college football and basketball. They'd still go on, just like college baseball goes on even though some players sign pro contracts out of high school.
superdestroyer on June 03, 2012 1:54 PM:
UCLA is a 1300 SAT school with a 22% admission rate and a 90% six year graduation rate. Unless justin had a very good SAT score, his 3.5 GPA is probably not good enough to be admitted to UCLA unless he is an athlete. http://collegeresults.org/search1b.aspx?institutionid=110662
I doubt that the Athletic Department can get a walk-on admitted in order to play football.
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