Time and time again you hear the same things when discussing the importance of college athletes. They question often referred to is, should college athletes be paid to play their sport? Now me personally, I’m gonna have to agree and say that they should be paid for playing their sport. Vince Lombardi quoted and said, “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand. ” Now there are hundreds of thousands of college athletes all over the world, and all of them do not make it professionally unfortunately.
So for the ones who don’t, does that mean it was all for nothing? What about injury? Depending on the injury, players need medical treatment, and are sometimes hospitalized. How do their hospital bills get paid? The argument can last a lifetime because they’re are valid reasons to both sides. Some say that they are already on full ride scholarships, but not all athletes are and for the ones that rent, its not fair to them. This may be one of those arguments that will go on for years to come.
People often say that players play with more passion and energy in college because they’re not getting paid, but i completely disagree with that. With me being a college athlete, i feel like we play with more passion than professionals simply because we are trying to get to where the professionals are. If you are asking of my standpoint, I totally think college athletes should be paid if they are not on an athletic scholarship, or are on a partial scholarship because schools profit from sports teams, athletes are risking their bodies, and players gain financial awareness.
But in this, I will give both the pros and the cons of paying college athletes. This way you get a little bit of knowledge on both simultaneously. In a recent article titled Court Time, by Ed O’Bannon, he endeavored his incite on the topic, stating the following. “In this age where social media has taken over, making a profit out of sports is an even more absurd pursuit. Schools are actually making more money than ever from the revenues of televised college sports, especially the most popular men’s football and basketball.
However, the athletes involved in these games, the reason why sporting shows are such a hit in the first place, are not getting more than their scholarship grants; it is not even enough to cover for all their expenses; tuition, food, board, travel, books, and others. They have no other means to compensate for this need since sport practices take up all of their time after their academic responsibilities. Paying college students, a little extra, would actually go a long way, especially for the ones belonging to a family with low income. ” That is one reason why us college athletes compete so hard.
Some of us have families that are struggling, and often times since we are college athletes, our families are looking for us to make it professional so that we can help take care of them. But then you have the ones that don’t make it professional, are they supposed to just give up because they didn’t make it? if we were to get a salary, we wouldn’t have to worry about that. Often times, students can’t afford tuition to stay in school long enough to go to grad school, and there is a slim chance to get a really great job without a grad school degree. Schools can afford to pay their athletes.
Another reason college athletes should be paid is because they are putting their bodies, even their lives on the line every time they play a game. Bob Litan stated in his article, The Big Lawsuit, the following. “In the 2013 NCAA tournament Louisville player Kevin Ware suffered a horrific injury to his lower right leg while attempting to block an opposing player’s shot. Six months later, Ware was healed and back to practicing. He was lucky. There have been instances of players becoming paralyzed by hits or tackles on football fields or other injuries that have ended player’s careers before they even get started.
These athletes are sacrificing their bodies and physical health at a chance to play a game they love, and possibly make it to the professional level. My question is, if they do not make it professional, was it all for literally nothing? ” Not paying college athletes is not fair, especially for the ones that need it. Former Baylor star Isaiah Austin has been diagnosed with a serious medical condition and will not be able to pursue a career in the NBA, it was announced Sunday. The 20-year-old Austin, who had been projected as a late first-round pick, underwent a standard physical at the NBA combine where his EKG test revealed an abnormality.
After additional genetic tests, results came back positive for Marfan syndrome. The recommendation was that Austin, who is 7 foot 1, quit playing basketball immediately. “They said I wouldn’t be able to play basketball anymore at a competitive level,” Austin told ESPN’s Holly Rowe. “They found the gene in my blood sample. They told me that my arteries in my heart are enlarged and that if I overwork myself and push too hard that my heart could rupture.
The draft is four days away, and I had a dream that my name was going to be called. This would crush any athletes heart and what does he have to look back on? Memories? its simply not fair. Last pro from Sharon Terlep’s article, Inside the Doors of the NCAA — Pressure Is Building for College Sports’ Governing Body to Modernize Its Rules, is that college athletes will gain financial awareness and sort of get an idea of what that form of income is like, an in-come period actually. One aspect I find lacking in this topic discussion is the ignoring of the very real fact that a lot of athletes are very financially irresponsible.
The ESPN documentary Broke gave an inside view of the financial woes of many professional athletes, noting that around 60% of NBA players are broke within five years of retirement. Many of these players blamed poor investments, trusting unethical financial advisors and lavish spending habits as the reason for their money troubles. If schools were to begin paying players, they could also help these students build a foundation of financial literacy. This would allow them to introduce these students to financial investors who had their best interests in mind.
Whether or not these college athletes went on to play professionally, they would at least, have some type of financial literacy to carry with them into whatever career they choose. This would, hopefully, set them up a better financial future. This graph indicates the amount of money in millions that the average college football and basketball program brings in. Pasted Graphic 1. tiff ¬ Although this is just a graph of ncaa division 1 schools, you can see where I’m going with this. That is over 50% of schools bringing in up to 10 million dollars in revenue and they still aren’t getting to see any of that.
There is my outlook on paying college athletes and its really difficult to argue back with the facts provided in this essay. I totally think college athletes should be paid if they are not on an athletic scholarship, or are on a partial scholarship because schools profit from sports teams, athletes are risking their bodies, and players gain financial awareness. They are making the school money year after year, and what do they have to show for it majority of the time? Absolutely nothing if they don’t win the national championship.
