In those days, colleges still had junior varsity teams, and freshmen were not allowed to play on varsity. Future greats like Len Elmore, Adrian Dantley, and Bill Walton all had to spend a year on JV. No one was even allowed to enter the NBA draft without completing their NCAA term of eligibility.

Maryland had some good teams in those days, finishing high in the NCAA tournament a couple of years, one year with a final ranking of #11. What they lacked was a dominating center. Then Moses Malone signed a letter of intent to attend the University of Maryland. This happened about the same time that varsity play was opened to freshmen. We all eagerly awaited a new era, in which Malone would anchor Maryland's first national championship team.

Then Moses Malone went straight from high school to the NBA. I knew then that I was witnessing the demise of Maryland's basketball program. What I didn't know was that I was witnessing the demise of the NBA. It would take a quarter century, but it was inevitable.

As my favorite players moved from college to the pros, my interest followed with them. The NBA reached a remarkable pinnacle when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were still playing, and Michael Jordan was winning his first championships. Team play was valued; the assist was a treasured statistic; defense was fashionable. And the level of play was superb.

Fast forward to the year 2000. What we have now is just plain ugly. Players like Allen Iverson show flashes of brilliance, but mostly show an utter lack of fundamentals from too little time spent with a good college coach. Kobe Bryant is the exception that proves the rule. Much more typical is a high schooler like Jermaine O'Neal who is, and always will be, a marginal pro player because he didn't go to college. That's the real tragedy. He would have been a better player, and probably a wealthier one, if he had had the discipline and patience to go to college and apprentice under a good college coach, rather than jumping straight to the NBA.

The NBA is where you go to work. College is where you go to learn.

What does all this have to do with Jeff?

For some time I've noticed an interesting parallel between open source professionals and professional athletes. Open source is fundamentally a reputation game. This has a good side: it's much more of a meritocracy than any other community I've been a part of. But it also has a dark side: if you make your reputation early, there's a strong temptation to "cash in" on that reputation early, often before finishing school. With good base salaries and potentially lucrative stock option packages, the temptation is not unlike that presented to a talented young athlete.

The result, unfortunately, has been as precarious for the open source community as it has been for the NBA. We now have a crop of aggressive start-up companies staffed by young twenty-somethings being asked to act with the maturity and responsibility that they won't really have until they are thirty-something.

What's so very difficult in such an environment is to think for the long term, and to look at yourself with real honesty and self-knowledge. If Allen Iverson could do this he'd know he should go back to Georgetown. If many of the programmers working in Silicon Valley could do this, they'd know they should finish their degree. Most lack the grace and composure to look at life this way, however, and most continue to struggle.

No one at Linux.com can have the slightest doubt about Jeff's talent, and Jeff's potential. While his performance has been at times erratic, his performance has also been frequently brilliant.

What has been so very difficult this spring has been to watch Jeff wrestle with the notion of committment. Where should he make his long term committment, and what should his future be? His own uncertainty has been palpable.

So let me be clear: I'm very proud of the decision that Jeff has made.

The time he has spent with Linux.com is something he'll always treasure, and we will treasure the time he has spent with us. But there really is no substitute for getting a solid technical education as a foundation to build on. Whatever Jeff does in life, he will do better because he will have his degree. More importantly, Jeff has made that difficult choice on his own, and worked out for himself what his priorities should be. That shows a growing maturity that many with equal talent will never realize.

I have no doubt that we are witnessing a superstar in the making. Jeff will do great things in life, and will be a force to be reckoned with in the high tech world. I look forward to his continued involvement as a Linux.com volunteer, and I hope we'll have a chance to work with him again in the future, when the time is right.