( CNN ) -- As a father , my heart breaks . The starting five of the University of Kentucky basketball team â€ ” the 2012 NCAA champions â€ ” announced earlier this month that they 're leaving college to go pro . It happens every year in the wake of March Madness , but as an African-American father , I feel my heart crack a little . Yes these young champions will make money , lots of it , and will have access to instant fame . I understand why they made the choice , but their collective decision says something about the options in front of all young African-American men . The Great Migration that saw my elders move from the farm to the factory has shifted ; these days , too many men of promise move from college to pro sports . I 've been researching the lives of black men for much of my entire career , as a social worker for 15 years in Chicago and since 1998 as a college professor and scholar in Milwaukee . I 've interviewed them , written about them and filmed them , capturing their lives and hopes ; I 've spent most of my time with men who had little to no incomes and limited academic and employment skills . They are often frustrated , homeless , unemployed and debt-ridden . So I know what could be ahead for young men who put all their hopes into basketball . According to William Julius Wilson , author of `` More than Just Race , '' for the past four decades , low-skilled African-American men have experienced more difficulty getting jobs than any other racial groups . In Milwaukee , Marc Levine of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 's Center for Economic Development published a report in 2012 that reports when it comes to black men in their prime working years ( 25-54 ) only 44.7 % were employed . The recession has hurt people of all races , but black men have been hit the hardest when it comes to jobs . The starting five at Kentucky might think they 're a world away from these statistics , but how long will they actually have a career ? According to the Collegiate Basketball News Company website , only 51 players , or 11.9 % of the players on the 2011-12 NBA opening day roster have more than 10 years of NBA experience . The average length of playing time is approximately five years and the median salary is $ 2.33 million . That 's a big salary for one year , but not if it has to last you far beyond your playing years . When my son was a child , like many boys he dreamed of being a basketball player where he grew up . My wife and I did n't tell him otherwise ; we told him he 'd need to have options . But not every child hears that and not every child has that chance . Too many young black men are encouraged to perfect their `` balling '' skills but not their academic skills . I know , because I was there . As a college athlete at the University of Detroit in the late 1970s , I was a runner . But I also worked as the statistician for the basketball team , the Titans , led by the legendary Dick Vitale . The players were my peers and my friends . And some of them did quite well , playing for the Pistons in Detroit , the 76ers in Philadelphia and the Celtics in Boston . But not everyone left a winning Titan . Some of my friends did n't make it to the big leagues and because of their emphasis on basketball , they did n't graduate with a degree , either , unlike those of us in the other sports . Some of them ended up with drug habits or homeless . Others became fathers to children they could n't support . So , my heart breaks when I think of these young men from Kentucky . But it 's not breaking at the choice they made . The sad truth is , I understand it . If you look out on a landscape where so many black men are unemployed , rolling the dice on the pros can feel like a rational choice -- the only choice , maybe , when there are so few options , despite the terrible odds . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Pate .
The top five of the champion Kentucky basketball team are turned pro . David ##e says he understands their motivation but wonders about larger message . He says black men , hit hard by recession , need to focus on education . Pate : Too many young men encouraged to perfect athletic skills , not academic ones .