Shaq vs. Box turtle

I never weighed in on the whole Ben Domenech affair. This was mainly because when I first read that the Washington Post had hired him as its standard-bearing partisan conservative blogger, my reaction was Ben who?

In short order I learned that he was a former blogger for RedState, an intemperate cad who called Coretta Scott King a "communist," a 24-year-old college dropout, a sometime GOP speechwriter, an editor for the execrable Regnery Publishing, and — most amusingly — a flagrant serial plagiarist.

While that delightful debacle was playing out, I was driving every day past one of those Foundation for a Better Life billboards. This one featured Shaquille O'Neal in the cap and gown he earned as a graduate of Louisiana State University.

I've always respected Shaq for going back to get his degree. He left college early to become the first overall pick in the 1992 NBA draft and quickly began earning millions as one of the dominant figures in the game.

For all the lip-service paid to staying in school and the praise of higher graduation rates at certain schools' programs, most universities are no longer capable of explaining why somebody like Shaq should stick around — or go back — to get a bachelor's degree.

Ask any college president, or the admissions office of any college or university, why anyone should go to college and they'll all give you the same answer: to prepare you for a Good Job. And what's a Good Job? One that provides Security, i.e., pays a lot of money.

By that standard, Shaquille O'Neal already had a Good Job and had no need to spend nine summers finishing his degree. But he went back anyway because Shaq seemed to appreciate what most colleges and universities seem to have forgotten — that there's more to education than "career preparation." He didn't finish his degree in order to become a better employee or a better careerist, he finished it to become a better person.

Such ideals are so old-fashioned they almost seem corny — corny enough to qualify for one of those unabashedly earnest Foundation billboards.

Contrast those old-fashioned ideals with the cronyism, connections and ladder-climbing that characterized young Ben Domenech's fast-forward ride through the contemporary GOP story arc.

Domenech figured he didn't "need" to finish college in order to pursue his career as a partisan Republican player, so he left early and entered the draft for GOP movers and shakers. It's interesting that this decision isn't regarded with the same tut-tutting disapproval as, say, LeBron James' or Kevin Garnett's decision to forgo college for the NBA.

Anyway, I'm sure Domenech doesn't want my advice any more than he wants my pity, but here it is: Go back to school, kid, and get your degree. Not so you can get a better job — it's college, not a vo-tech program — but, you know, to learn. Paideia and all that. It probably won't be easy — academia really frowns on plagiarism so you'll probably have to agree to probation and to retaking some credits you'd already gotten — but as the billboard says, "perseverance."