What will the basketball player do?

At the risk of offending half the readership of The Herald-Dispatch and probably half its management, I hereby declare that I really don't care where Patrick Patterson plays his college basketball. Don't blame those end-of-the-world headlines on me.

I do care, however, about how many other graduating seniors at Huntington High -- and Cabell Midland and Spring Valley and Fairland and South Point etc -- get full rides through college because of academic performance or need.

Those folks will make a bigger difference to this region than any one basketball player will, unless said basketball player turns pro, rakes in hundreds of millions and invests it back into this area in terms of business creation or contributions to worthy nonprofits.

So pardon me if I can't go all crazy about where any one basketball player, whether from Huntington or elsewhere, chooses to attend college. I am knee-deep in helping my own kids figure out where the best colleges are for them. We have to figure out what they want to study, what kind of environment they want and need to be in, how we will pay for it -- you know, all the fun stuff.

I've explained to them that there is no one "best" college. They need to find the best one for them.

And I do care about the continuing erosion of the Promise scholarship program. Let's save that for another day. Joe Manchin should be rolling through town for the annual Promise photo op tour. We'll save it for that day.