Sunday, April 21, 2013

Student-Athletes Get the Short End of this Deal

 Huge schools like USC make millions upon millions showcasing their athletes on national television, selling their jerseys in student stores, and reaping the benefits of their performance on the grand stage, but the athletes get very little in return.  

A large factor for many people going to a school is not just their academics, but also their athletics. Students want to attend a school with an attractive athletic program because it creates a fun college atmosphere.  My sister is a high school senior and was just recently accepted into several schools around the country.  Of course academics is the most important factor to her her decision making process, but another large part of her decision is the athletics program at the school.  It's not that she actually cares about football or basketball, but a strong athletic program bredes a strong school spirit.  The so-called "Trojan Family" at USC is a result of the strong athletic program, but it reaches into the work place as well creating a strong student atmosphere. 

So they use these athletes to essentially bolster their school in every way, but don’t give the athletes any monetary reward for doing so. Scholarships are great but one of my best friends is on a full scholarship and he literally lives from stipend check to stipend check just to get by. He’s devoted his entire college experience to being an athlete. He became a kinesiology major because it was supposed to be easier to get through, which he now greatly regrets as a senior more interested in entrepreneurship and design. Because he is so consumed with practice, meetings, weight training, and occasional homework, he rarely has time to socialize with me or any of his other friends, and when he does he literally can’t afford to do anything because he is always so strapped for cash. It’s not that he is lazy and refuses to work, but actually doesn’t have the time for a job. Like every other athlete at a major university, his sport is his job, and the only one making money from his work is that same university.

5 comments:

  1. I agree with your position on how collegiate athletes are treated. Many big schools lure in athletes with the hope of making it professionally one day when in reality very few do. The student may play sports just to earn a prestigious degree but even then many of the college athletes do not end up graduating. In the meantime large college sports programs are raking in money from these students free labor. My older brother got a scholarship to play football and at first everyone thought it was a wonderful idea. Later on we found out that it caused more harm than good. Like you mentioned there is no time left over for him to work orr do an internship and very little time to study. He's had to apply for a fifth earn to complete his degree because he wasn't able to take full load while playing football. Even worse is he's had many injuries that my parents have had to pay for through their own insurance. I think if sports programs should compensate their players a bit more. If not financially then with a better effort to help them in school, to work towards a career outside of sports and with a better health insurance plan.

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  2. This post is in reaction to a recent blog post by Jason Sneed at http://jasonasneed.blogspot.com/2013/04/bleeding-creed.html

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  3. I actually think student athletes get the larger piece of the pie. Academics is the centerpiece of all academic institutions. Don't get me wrong, I love sports. I often cannot wait for football season to start; I may flip if u dare change the tv channel while the Laker game is on. But I feel like some academic institutions like USC have become more sports centered than its necessary. As a result, some even consider us as a sports institution than one of the finest academic institutions in the country--and quite frankly in the world. Most student athletes are on scholarships, they register for classes before most of us do, and often times, they enjoy lots of other benefits other students do not have access to. That is a lot to be given the opportunity to play the game you love if you ask me.

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  4. I agree that the sports programs of these Universities are generating a great deal of money off of these Athletes who do deserve a piece of the pie. But do you think that paying college athletes will cause a shift in focus of high schoolers. As a talented basketball player myself, who had the opportunity to play college basketball chose an education instead. Now if a salary was offered to me, I may have made a different decision. This decision would have changed my life completely and my career would have surely ended in college. Then what? I would probably end up coaching High school basketball for the rest of my life.

    So much time is focused on the sport of a college athlete that education is pushed aside. Paying college athletes is something that might cause a greater degree of focus on sports, which could leave many more students out to dry when they graduate.

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  5. College sports can be a huge source of revenue for some schools, particularly sports like football. At USC, the revenue generated from football essentially pays for the rest of USC's athletics program, and then some. I read a Daily Trojan article that said USC pays the student body president $12,000 a year, the VP $8,000 and the senators $2,000. If were compensating USG for it's time, maybe we should start compensating our student athletes for their time. However, paying student athletes would have some negative effects on college sports. If colleges started paying their athletes, then the richest schools would always have the best teams and the poorer schools wouldn't be able to draw top athletes. For many state schools with top ranking teams, the revenue is essential for the school and loosing this revenue would widen the gap between the quality of education between public colleges and wealthy private colleges.

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