I’m lucky. I get paid to do what I love doing. I don’t get paid a whole bunch, but for me, getting paid to write is like getting paid to sleep — I’d be doing it anyway, so it’s nice to get some cash for it.

But as much as I like working at the Daily, if The Washington Post called and offered me a job writing a column for, let’s say, $3 million per year for five or six years (and a $7 million signing bonus) I doubt my first question would be, “Hey, is it OK if I get my degree first?”

This isn’t all that likely of a scenario, but in some industries it happens often.

Plug in basketball for writing and the NBA for the Washington Post, and ISU star forward Marcus Fizer is facing the same dilemma right now.

Leave school without a degree and get paid millions of dollars to do what he loves or stay in school to finish up that degree in sociology and hope that the scouts still come a-calling next year.

It’s not so easy to criticize the man when you put it like that.

But hoards of pundits still do every year about this time, whether it’s Marcus Fizer or another in the long line of college basketball standouts that pass on a year or two of college to bolt to the big money of the NBA.

As a Cyclone fan, I want to be angry at Marcus. I want to be able to construct a logical, rational argument as to why his best move would be to stay here in school and make one more run at the national title with future pre-season All-American Jamaal Tinsley and one of the top recruiting classes in the country.

But I can’t.

I have no idea what would motivate Fizer to stay another year.

I couldn’t say that his team has not been successful enough. This year was by far the most impressive season in men’s basketball history, one that would probably be difficult to match even if Fizer was to come back and play another collegiate season.

I couldn’t say that his game isn’t polished enough. Sure, there’s always room for improvement, but what else can Fizer learn in the collegiate ranks?

He posts up, he plays defense, he rebounds, he has an NBA frame, he drives, he handles the ball, he doesn’t foul, he keeps his cool, he rarely misses the 15-footer and he is reasonably accurate from 20. Come on, is ISU head coach Larry Eustachy going to show him how to raise the dead, too?

I couldn’t say that his draft stock would go higher if he stayed an extra year.

He’s already unanimously predicted as a lottery pick and many analysts see him as a top five selection.

The difference in money between the third selection and the 10th selection is hardly negligible anyway.

I couldn’t say that his family doesn’t need the money. Fizer not only has his fianc‚e to worry about, but he’s also got a couple of kids to feed.

I couldn’t say that staying an extra year to get his degree would be good for him in the long run. It’s not like Fizer has a standard athlete fall-back major, such as communications or business. Last I checked, the job market in sociology (outside of academia) was not too peachy.

Now is the time for Fizer to leave, a sensible person can see that. The gaze of determination, reminiscent of an University of Iowa wrestler, that Fizer wore all year made it clear that he was on a mission this season, and only this season. It would be incredibly anti-climactic for Fizer to come back one more year.

It’s not without any sentiment that I bid Fizer good-bye, however. Like the editorial in Monday’s Daily pointed out, it drives home what I’ve known for a long time but have not had to deal with directly — collegiate athletics are increasingly about the athletics and not so much about the collegiate.

It is naive, though, to think that the most important thing in everyone’s life should be an education. Not to downplay Fizer’s intelligence, as media reports have pointed out he is in fine academic standing at Iowa State. But his obvious God-given gift is his on-court ability.

Not taking the chance to test that ability in the most competitive basketball league in the world while he still can would be a mistake.

Yeah, maybe Fizer would come back and the Cyclones would win the NCAA title, making him the top pick in the draft and giving Iowa State immense national recruiting pull.

Then again, isn’t it just as possible that Fizer would battle through injuries all year, the Cyclones barely make the tournament, would get ousted in the first game and his draft stock would drop to late second round (losing millions of dollars)?

To paraphrase Ben Franklin, one must create their own lucky breaks.

Fizer has one to create, and we should all be happy for him. As for myself, I’m still waiting for that call from the Post, but I haven’t scheduled any news conferences quite yet.

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David Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Aurora. He is a news editor at the Daily.