An 18 year old, fatherless youth just found out she is pregnant. Does this sound like the start of a success story? Thanks to athletic scholarships, universities, and the NCAA it is. Kaneisha Atwater gave birth to Andarious Fulton on December 31, 2011. “He was one of 333,746 babies born to teen mothers in the U.S. in 2011 and one of 275 in St. Lucie County, home to Fort Pierce, where the median household income is below $30,000 and the violent crime rate is nearly triple the national figure.” (Burnsed) Thanks to athletic scholarships, and other assistance athletes receive Kaneisha received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. “Kaneisha said she wants her son to see that there’s more to life, and wants to get him out of Fort Pierce.” (Burnsed) …show more content…
Despite that number, the NCAA had expenses amounting $908,600,000.” (Strachan) That only leaves them a profit of $80.5 million. “More than 460,000 NCAA student-athletes – more than ever before – compete in 23 sports every year.” (NCAA) If you take the profit and divide it between those student athletes you get $175. The so called “cash cow,” that is the NCAA is not producing in excess. Should the NCAA be punished for having a good business model? The NCAA, along with college program officials created the set of rules that all NCAA sports teams …show more content…
Were you ready to make millions of dollars? The answer is almost surely, no. The perception of college athletes getting paid for what they are worth needs to be thought out. Let’s take Johnny Manziel for instance. While playing football for the Texas A&M University Johnny Manziel, or Johnny Football, was the biggest spectacle in college sports. As a freshman he led his team to a victory over seemingly unbeatable Alabama. Along with doing so, Manziel won the Heisman Trophy, the first freshman to do so. With the fame of being one of the best came Manziel’s folly. He was frequently seen drunk in public, partying, was reportedly late to football meetings for similar reasons, and was always on the front page of some magazine. Even with an entire team of coaches Manziel couldn’t be controlled. Was he mature enough for the NFL? That was the question every pro scout was asking. At the end of the 2014-15 NFL season we knew that answer. “Manziel is expected to be in rehab at least a few weeks, but the amount of time depends largely on what doctors recommend, according to a source close to Manziel.” (Fowler) Even after being groomed for this spotlight by a team of coaches in college Manziel was not ready for millions of dollars. We want to put this responsibility on 18 year olds? Student athletes are students first, and it needs to remain that way. They need to learn responsibility before being given all of this power they are demanding. As
There are thousands of high school football players across the nation, and a handful of them have what it takes to play at the college level. Those that do have the raw talent normally get reached by college football recruiters and coaches. The NCAA, the National College Athletic Association, has many rules and regulations especially surrounding the rules and conduct of recruiting student athletes. Men's football takes the most notice, as well as basketball, of all collegiate sports in the U.S. today (Smith, 2015). According to Langelett (2003), the NCAA limits each school to 85 football scholarships. With a limited number of scholarships available, schools spend a considerable amount of time and money on recruiting players.
Since the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) inception in 1906 there have been laws in place to protect the amateurism status of its student athletes. Over the last 100 years the NCAA has morphed into a multimillion dollar business. The success and revenue that student athletes have brought the NCAA and its member institutions has sparked a debate of whether or not to compensate players for paying. Research in the field has focused on the debate and reasons to pay players and reasons not to. There has been little attempt to assert the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of the student athletes. The purpose of this study is to examine what the thoughts, feelings, and attitudes of the student athletes towards NCAA amateurism laws. Informal face to face interviews with Division 1 student athletes at universities in Indiana will be conducted to get an analysis of the attitudes, opinions, and feelings Division 1 student athletes have towards NCAA Amateurism laws.
First lets explore the history behind the paying of college athletes. Over the past 50 years the NCAA has been in control of all Div.1, 2 and 3 athletic programs. The NCAA is an organization that delegates and regulates what things college athletes can and can’t do. These regulations are put in place under the label of ‘protecting amateurism’ in college sports. This allots
Imagine a business that brings in $60 million each year ,and the people fueling that industry receive none of the revenue(Wieberg). These same people work 40 hours in their sport every week, these “people” are college athletes. The NCAA, the governing body for major college sports, is the industry doing this to college athletes(Edelman). This is an issue of exploitation and control by large institutions over primarily poor people, the NCAA is guiding them in directions to make money for everybody while doing everything possible to keep the players out of the money. College Athletes deserve profit because they bring in large revenue into their program, the NCAA, and they invest tons of time into their sport.
Paul Dietzel, former head coach of LSU, once said, “You can learn more character on the two-yard line than anywhere else in life.” Ever since the beginning, not only children but also college athletes have been playing sports for the love of the game and have used it as a way to grow character, teamwork, and leadership. Although when playing for a University an athletes job is to bring in profit for the school, this is not why these young men and women have continued with these sports they love. It is usually these students passion, a way for them to express themselves like others have art and music. The question has been up whether these college athletes should be paid for their loyalty and income for the University but by paying these students more than their given scholarship, it would defeat the purpose and environment of a college sport versus a professional sport, cause recruiting disputes, and affect the colleges benefits from these school athletics.
A handful of athletes will have a chance to turn pro before they have completed their college career. Job-wise there is nothing better than getting paid for doing something that you truly love and enjoy. There is nothing wrong with players doing everything in their power to make them go pro. However it is a decision bound with peril.
Even the waterboy gets paid! NCAA football is a billion dollar a year empire, in which coaches, executives, school presidents, board members, athletic trainers, athletic directors, equipment managers, Waterboys, towel boys, ball boys, and even team mascots all receive a chunk of the revenue. Everyone gets paid except the athletes, who don’t receive a dime of the money. That’s because it’s against NCAA rules to pay college athletes with anything other than an athletic scholarship; anything else, and it’s deemed as an improper benefit, thus making an athlete ineligible if he/she were to accept. The NCAA defends its rule of “no-pay” by claiming that all its student-athletes are “amateurs” and not employees; therefore, they’re legally not compensated. The argument over whether student-athletes should be paid or not, is particularly unsettling within the sport of football, because NCAA football is the most popular and profitable sport of all college athletics. The NCAA’s discrepancy over whether it should pay its players or not, currently has the association fighting a lawsuit filed by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, who’s suing for compensation on behalf of former Division I football and men’s basketball players. The lawsuit challenges the NCAA’s use of student-athletes’ images and likeness for commercial purposes (PBS.org). In recent months the argument has been geared more towards whether current student-athletes should be paid or not, particularly football players, who like former Texas A&M star quarterback Johnny Manziel, provide the athleticism and entertainment that makes NCAA football the million dollar empire that it is. So, should college football players be paid?
All college students sitting in classrooms today face challenges that can impede their success. A challenging course schedule, competing demand for the student’s time, and college readiness are all factors that can hinder a student’s performance in the classroom. Moreover, these challenges also have the ability to impact the student’s overall student development. While most students share a common set of stressors, there are certain groups on campus that face pressures and challenges that are not shared by the majority of their peers. Student athletes are such a group. Joshua Watson (2005) noted the positive benefits of participating in intercollegiate activities, but also noted that such participation can lead to issues of “maladjustment, emotional illness, and psychological distress” (p. 442).
It is reported that the NCAA makes $6 Billion annually. This is all from TV deals, advertisement, merchandise, and sponsorships. All this money because of the players and they don’t see any of it. How would you like to go work for a company make that company a million dollars and you not receive a dime of it? It just doesn’t sound right. Especially when you take into the fact that these players are putting their bodies at risk for their school. A college football player for example, his body takes so much punishment on the football field and injuries absolutely happen and he isn’t getting paid to put his body on the line. What happens to these kids’ scholarships if they suffer a career ending injury? If they were receiving some sort of compensation they can help pay their way forward to having an education if they can’t play a sport again because of an injury. These same athletes are also getting stuck with the medical bills when they get hurt. For example at the University of Maine athletes are responsible for the first $10,000 in deductibles (Emmert, Mark 2014). How is this fair they aren’t even receiving any money to pay for this
The 2012 Heisman Trophy winner, Johnny Manziel, began the 2013 season sitting on the sidelines. Due to a half game suspension handed down by Texas A&M University, Manziel was only allowed to watch as A&M took the field versus the visiting Rice Owls. To “Aggies” fans, this half game suspension came as a huge relief. It had been feared that Manziel may receive a multiple game or year-long ban from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for violating NCAA Bylaw 12.5.2.1. The bylaw prohibits athletes from allowing their name or picture to be used in a commercial matter (Berkes, 2013). Luckily for him, a half-game suspension would be his only punishment. Manziel was put into this predicament after reports surfaced that he had accepted money in return for autographs. No proof of this was ever found, but it was proved that someone, probably a memorabilia collector, profited from his signature (Berkes, 2013). So wait, a man can’t receive money for signing his own autograph? The answer is “no”, if he is a student athlete following the strict rules of the NCAA. The only benefits he can accept are those included in a lucrative scholarship given by universities. As more incidents like Johnny Manziel’s have occurred, it has been debated by sports analysts and the news media whether or not these scholarships are a fair payment. Another Heisman Trophy winner, Cam Newton, was accused of trying to sell his services to Mississippi State University after his decision to transfer from a community college following his junior year. While an NCAA investigation would find that his father had indeed tried to shop Cam to prospective schools, Newton was cleared to play (Wojciechowski, 2010). The 2005 Heisman Trophy winner, Reggie Bush, was ...
Some people say that college athletes get paid by having a scholarship, but if you look at it a different way, scholarships might change your mind. Coaches try to get players who they think have the talent to make them win and to persuade them to come to their school by offering them scholarships. The whole idea behind a scholarship is to lure the athlete into coming to your school. Scholarships are nothing more than a recruitment tactic. They will give you a scholarship as long as you produce for them. It’s all about what you can do for them. Indeed these scholarships pay for tuition, room and board, and books, but these athletes don’t have money for other necessities. The NCAA doesn’t want friends or boosters to offer athletes jobs because they ...
The NCAA does not just make money off from the basketball games. The tournament comes along with television networks, commercials, marketing, gambling, tickets, and more. 81% of the NCAA’s revenue comes from the Men’s March tournament alone. Each year the NCAA makes a profit from the tournament of about nine-hundred million dollars (“Revenue”). The athletes in the tournament are attracting all the viewers who are providing the money for the NCAA. However, none of the athletes receiving income. The NCAA would not be able to sponsor other sports and events too without the tournament because there would not be as much money in the budget. Viewers of other college sports would be disappointed to say the least if their games were not being televised. In fact, the tournament has been attracting over eleven million viewers every year since 2014 and has been on an increase. With addition to people watching the games, there are commercials every few minutes. The NCAA is earning about 1.15 million dollars per every thirty second commercial because so many companies are willing to pay because of the amount viewers the tournament receives (Berr). The NCAA is earning millions of dollars every game. The tournament has a plethora of games too, which means hundreds of commercials. On the other side, none of the profits are being shared amongst the players. If the athletes in the tournament
Imagine fourteen and fifteen year olds verballing to colleges, yet I am still sitting here having a hard time what I am going to wear to school student athletes should not be able to be recruited until their junior year because, One players develop at all different ages, next they are not emotionally ready to handle being pressured to decide on what college or c issues they can't comprehend at a young age. second reason is some student- athletes are not as fully developed athletically and academically as other and so they get recruited earlier and then the late bloomers miss the window of time in their class getting recruited. Finally my last reason is it's not good for the school Therefore college coaches should not recruit athletes prior
College is a time for young people to develop and grow not only in their education, but social aspects as well. One of the biggest social scenes found around college campuses are athletic events, but where would these college sports be without their dedicated athletes? Student athletes get a lot of praise for their achievements on the field, but tend to disregard the work they accomplish in the classroom. Living in a college environment as a student athlete has a great deal of advantages as well as disadvantages that affect education and anti-intellectualism.
For decades there has been a debate on student athletes and their drive to succeed in the classroom. From the very beginning of organized college level athletics, the goal to want to succeed in athletics has forced students to put academics to the back burner. In spite of the goal to want to succeed over a hundred years of attempts to check limits of intercollegiate athletic programs on colleges' academic standards still seems to struggle to this day. This brings to surface one of the most asked questions in sports, “What effect does college sports have on academics and economics?” Herbert D. Simons, Derek Van Rheenen, and Martin V. Covington, authors of “Academic Motivation and the Student Athlete” researched the topic on whether athletics and academics benefit each other. Bryan Flynn, the author of “College Sports vs. Academics” poses the question “Should institutions of higher learning continue to involve themselves in athletic programs that often turn out to be virtual arms races for recruiting talented players who bring big money and prestige, but put academics to the back burner?” Although both authors agree that sports have an impact on an athlete’s academics, the focus of their argument differs.