Damaging Goods: The NFL Age Floor and Frank Gore

In response to Greg’s post below about the age debate, I found neither the drafting of Maurice Clarett nor that of Mike Williams most telling. Rather, I was most struck by the drafting of Frank Gore, who was selected in the third round by the San Francisco 49ers.

As many of you know, Gore was one of the most heralded high school players in the country in 2000. He attended the University of Miami and had one of the best freshman seasons of any running back in college history. At the time, had he been eligible to enter the NFL Draft, he likely would have been a first round selection, perhaps even a high first round pick. But, as we all know, NFL rules didn't offer him that option. So he returned to Miami for his sophomore season. But tragedy struck before that season began: he tore the ACL in his left knee. After taking one year to recover, he suffered a similarly-devastating injury in his other knee.

Leading up to this draft, I can't tell you how many stories I read about those knee injuries have robbed Gore of his trademark speed, and turned one of the most dynamic running back prospects into merely a good or very good one. Even the 49ers acknowledge that he is a serious health risk, while other observers question how long Gore's reconstructed knees will hold up.

Gore had another year of eligibility remaining, but because his mother needs costly medical treatment for a kidney problem and because their family lacks the means to pay for it, Gore felt that he had no choice but to enter this year’s draft.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought, "What might have been?" Forget the potential money that Gore lost over the last two seasons (which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million, including what he would have received as a signing bonus as a first round pick). And forget the money that he loses by being a third round pick instead of a first round pick. And you can even forget all the money that he might lose going forward, particularly since injuries have 1) made him a worse player; and 2) decreased the expected length of his career.

Instead, just ask yourself this: What purpose did the age floor serve Frank Gore? What good did it do him or his family? Had he been eligible for the NFL Draft after his freshman season, I don’t know if Frank Gore would have declared. The only person who knows that is Frank Gore. But that’s not really the point. The point is that an age floor has real costs on people and their families, who are often very poor, just like their ancestors were. And after centuries of poverty, when a family finally sees one of its own possess the rare skill to get them out of poverty, it finds out that, unlike if he were a baseball player, hockey player, basketball player, soccer player, tennis player, golfer, musician, artist, actor or just about anything else in life, he can’t earn that money because his rare skill happens to be in football.

Sure, I understand college football is much better off with Frank Gore and others like him. But is it so much better off to justify how much worse off he is?

Gore’s saga is reminiscent to that of high school basketball phenom Randy Livingston. In the early 1990s, Livingston was deemed the "next Magic Johnson", and had he made himself eligible for the 1993 NBA Draft, was a sure lottery pick. But he took the safe route: he chose to attend college instead. However, before his first college practice, Livingston blew out the ACL in his right knee and was never the same thereafter.

Of course, Randy Livingston made a choice, whereas Frank Gore had no choice. And in that sense, it seems much worse.

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