first of all, "going pro" is probably misleading- I doubt Webb is doing it for the money he could realistically expect in the next year or two.
Second, Would anybody have said to Tiger Woods that he needed to stay at Stanford through a full four-year ride? Sure there's a difference- Woods had already won everything in sight. But if he'd stayed at Stanford we'd probably have been deprived of that 'rookie year' 13-stroke win at the Masters (or thereabouts). Hindsight is always perfect- he had no way of being certain he'd be hugely successful when he made the decision to break with the NCAA scene- there was a risk involved. If he'd been unsuccessful the naysayers would be harping about what a bad idea it is to leave college. You want a better example directly from our own sport-in fact a middle-distance racing example? Who fared better- Johnny Gray getting out of NCAA competition at the start, or Michael Granville slugging it out over four years and getting nowhere? Sure there are examples of success and failure both ways- but the Gray / Granville comparison is pretty startling. We'll never know if Gray would have got down to 1:42 and a very long successful career if he'd stayed in college, but it is clear that NOT going to college certainly didn't seem to hurt his progress! So let's give Webb a break, and see if he can follow the Johnny Gray model and become a medal contender at any competition in the world. I look forward to observing from the stands (and the satellite TV dish). RT
