Baseball Joe
With this said, I have decided that my paper will be about college sports, and the lack of education that division 1 athletes have. I will compare and contrast Baseball Joe's experience with the experience of the modern day division 1 athlete.
From the research that I have done so far, I have learned that student athletes at the competitive college level are not really students at all. They don't go to class very often because they are constantly working for their sport. To stay academically eligible, the students will enroll in a class like Swahili that is designated for athletes. It requires literally no work. As a result, these division one athletes leave school without an education at all. If you think these athletes don't need an education cause they're headed to the pros then you are wrong. Only 2% of division one athletes reach the professional level.
Also I plan to make the argument that college athletes deserve to get paid. Yes it's true that they most likely get a full scholarship, so their education is free, but these students aren't getting an education. Furthermore, how could it make sense that other students at the same college get paid for selling their jerseys. The school makes so much money off of these athletes, that it is absurd for them not to pay the athletes back. In the NCAA tournament in 2013, Shabazz Napier a UCONN player made a tough game winning shot. He commented later that when he got home that night he didn't have anything to eat. College coaches get paid up to millions of dollars per year, so why don't college athletes get paid at all? NCAA makes it clear that there can be no benefits for college athletes. One example is that an athlete's mother died so the coach bought the athlete a plane ticket to attend the funeral. This was considered breaching the rules because a coach is not allowed to do anything for an athlete if he/she wouldn't also do it for a regular student. I plan to argue that by not paying their athletes, and also not educating them, the NCAA is exploiting college athletes for money.
Have you followed the Northwestern athlete who is looking to unionize college athletes. I also want to say that it depends on the sport. I will be eager to read about what you learn.
ReplyDeleteWow, I've never heard of this happening. I completely agree about the fact that the students should be paid, since students are often able to manage their study time in order to have part time jobs on campus, and division one athletes don't have any time to study, let alone earn money in order for them to eat. What do you think happens to the division one athletes in college who don't make it to the professional level? Maybe you could do some research on that as well in order to show colleges that they are not educating these students the way they should be, and just letting them get into all the debt a student who could afford to pay it off after getting an actual career. Even in high school, they have graduation requirements and certain grades you have to meet in those classes in order to be in sports as well as graduate. It seems like these colleges are intentionally putting the sports ahead of these student's lives for the simple reason that the better these students do in sports, the more the college makes for themselves. Based on what you're saying, these colleges are letting these students get into debt with no benefit for themselves, and them leaving them out to dry when they don't make it into the professional level.
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