Wisconsin's Nigel Hayes Had Some Wry Thoughts About "Amateur" Athletics
By Ty Duffy
College basketball does not have a standard ball. It changes based on the host team. Maryland’s Under Armour ball is not very popular. Wisconsin Badgers forward Nigel Hayes is not a fan of the ball, and threw in some wry comments about multi-billion-dollar “amateur” athletics.
"“It’s definitely different,” Hayes said. “Personally, we don’t like it too much. I don’t like the Under Armour ball whatsoever. But that’s the way this amateur sports league is set up. We’re supposed to be having fun, but all the money is in these basketballs that colleges play with. But it’s an amateur sport, we’re just here for fun. It’s not really that serious. So I guess any ball should be OK. “Maybe we should have a universal ball like the NBA. You don’t go to the Clippers’ stadium and play with a Nike and then go to Golden State and play with a Rawlings. But in this amateur sport of college, where money isn’t the goal — it’s the student education and experience that you get — we play with a million different basketballs.”"
In semi-related news, Wisconsin’s multi-million-dollar amateur sponsorship deal with Under Armour begins July 1.