Struggles of a Student Athlete
The NCAA is organization that regulates college athletes, they over see all the colleges and their athletes, organize the majority of the athletic programs within the United States, and deal with anything else that has to do with college athletics. They have always given their student athletes advantages by giving them countless resources that regular students do not have access too. These student athletes are able to receive a free education, variety of different scholarships, access to advanced health facilities, opportunities to experience traveling around the country, play the best competition the united states have to offer, and a chance to showcase their skills. Many people would argue that being a student athlete already has enough privileges, they should be thankful they are given those opportunities, and any athlete that jeopardizes their career or education is ungrateful but I would have to disagree. These athletes are always classified as students first and athletes second, but is that really the case? With the amount of work these colleges put their athletes through, I don’t think being a student first even applies to them. I would even go as far to say that the NCAA treats their student athletes unfairly. We would only be able to say that student athletes are treated fairly when they finally are able to generate their own income during college, would not have to worry about so much NCAA rules, and are offered more security when it comes to their health and education.
Many people consider student athletes as amateurs, that's why they don’t get paid and get treated the way they do. Calling these student athletes amateurs is unfair, they work as hard as professionals and still have to remain eligible or work toward their degree but are still being called amateurs. According to the article Amateurism, it states that “Amateur competition is a bedrock principle of college athletics and the NCAA.”(ncaa.org) although they are classified as amateurs by the NCAA, I don’t believe that’s the case. These students put in countless hours of practice, do interviews, play on tv, make appearances for charity, and promote the program they play for. These student athletes do all this while the universities they play for make millions and the NCAA makes billions in total. Athletes that play professionally, all participate in these exact same activities for their organization. With that being said, why are they still being called amateurs when they are giving professional level work and effort? In an interview, Wallace renfro, retired Vice President of the NCAA, states that “student athletes, because they should be motivated to be a student athlete by education and participation in sports, they should be protected from the influences of commercialism and professionalism” (schooled: the price of college sports) which is hard to disagree with that statement but the NCAA is looking for professional level athletes and wants everything that comes with commercialism. When that’s the case then these players should be treated less like amateurs and more like professionals.
When you begin school and want to play sports it is quickly mentioned that you are a student first and athlete second. That makes perfect sense for everyone playing in high school, you go to school, do your work, behave, and anything you do outside of that is completely up to you. If you ever get the opportunity to play in college, especially for a highly recognized one, the term student athlete changes a bit. According to ncaa.org, it states that “In the collegiate model of sports, the young men and women competing on the field or court are students first, athletes second” and that should be the case for all students attending college, you should be a student first and anything after that should come second. It is sad to say that even if the NCAA states they are students first, that isn’t necessarily true. These students are all recruited to play their respective sport to help improve the program, bring in fans, and generate revenue. In an article from businessinsider.com, it states that “Many student-athletes, however, reported that they practice at least 30 hours a week on average, with some sports reporting weekly practice commitments of more than 40 hours” I assume that NFL players practice the same amount of time or something similar. Jeopardizing their education for the sake of their sport only disproves the fact that being a student comes first. In an interview, NFL cornerback Richard Sherman states, “You wake up in the morning, you have weights at this time. Then after weights you go to class and after class, you go maybe try to grab you a quick bite to eat. Then after you get your quick bite to eat, you go straight to meetings and after meetings, you've got practice and after practice, you've got to try to get all the work done you had throughout the day..” (fox sports) I can’t even imagine how hard it is to be a student athlete during the season. As someone is a full time student and works 25+ hours a week, I find that it’s real easy to fall behind if you don’t manage your time right. With that being said, these students put in around 40 hours of practice at times, still have games, other activities for their campus, and class, are they really student's first?
We can all agree that obtaining your education is important, it is very valuable and will give you more opportunities than what you would have without one. The NCAA offering these scholarships to athletes is great, a good amount of these athletes would not have the opportunity to go to school without their abilities and for many of them their only way out was that was through sports. Despite this, you can also say that the NCAA is actually hurting these athletes in a variety of ways. According to Mary Willingham, a learning specialist at UNC, there were some students that had trouble reading and writing. In a cnn article, she goes on to state that in one instance a student asked “If I could teach him to read well enough so he could read about himself in the news, because that was something really important to him” (cnn.com) colleges are doing these athletes a disservice by giving them scholarships when they are not even able to read at an average level. Willingham also found that there were courses with minimal course work and felt that this was wrong for the students, later exposing her findings to the news, causing a whole academic fraud scandal for the NCAA and the University of North Carolina. In the end, the NCAA declared that UNC did not violate any academic fraud rules and did not take any further action. According to si.com, the NCAA stated, “While student-athletes likely benefited from the courses, so did the general student body,” so their reasoning must be that it’s not a violation if all the students are able to participate or benefit from it. Either way, UNC should be embarrassed for enabling their students in general. Education should be valued, and all students should be able to obtain it without being taken advantage of.
Many have begun to question the NCAA and how much power they have, there has been a growing belief saying that they rule out of fear and intimidation. All these athletes have one thing in common, the dream of one day being able to play professionally. The only way they are able to do that is by going through the NCAA, everyone knows this and that gives the NCAA a large amount of power. Many people have called out the NCAA and their actions, but players are always the last ones to come forward. These athletes become intimidated and don’t want to come forward because they want to stay eligible to play, they don’t want to jeopardize their potential careers. It is also very difficult to keep up with all the rules the NCAA has, the division 1 manual has about 400 pages of information, restrictions, rules, and policies. Honestly, why is a book that has 400 pages of rules necessary? I doubt any of the athletes, coaching staff, and many of the people employed by the NCAA know the majority of the rules or have the patience to go through the manual. This causes many issues within the college’s program because student athletes are ruled permanently ineligible for a variety of different reasons. This summer a case appeared, the article UCF Kicker Ruled Ineligible states, “UCF kicker Donald De La Haye has been ruled ineligible after he refused to give in to the NCAA’s demand for him to stop monetizing his popular YouTube channel” (si.com) their reasoning for taking action was because he was making money off videos relating to athletics. I don’t understand how that calls for ruling a student athlete ineligible, he is making money on his own time just like every other student. If the students who participate in other activities had to deal with the huge amount of rules, were not able to make money, and were punished for violating any of this everyone would be outraged. If other students don’t have to deal with this, it is unfair to treat student athletes that way. They need to look at the whole college system as a whole if they don’t want the student athletes to be treated better.
The NCAA is an enormous business, each year they generate more money through ticket sales, donations, tv contracts, endorsements, and merchandise. According to moneynation.com, College athletics as a whole pulls in about $12 billion annually, all that money gets distributed to pay coaches, staff, and maintain facilities. According to the article Largest Stadiums in the World, 8 out of the top 10 biggest stadiums in the world belongs to colleges (si.om) colleges generate so much money they hold 8 spots in the top 10, they obviously help their players with their facilities but you can also say much of it is unnecessary. According to the article List of Highest-Paid College Football Coaches, it states that “Alabama head coach Nick Saban topped USA Today's 2017 highest-paid coach in college football list, earning $11,132,000 in total pay” (si.com) and many other coaches are close behind when looking at the total pay. These athletes are the ones performing and their coaches receive all the benefits financially. The NCAA is continuously able to fund all these stadiums being built, be able to pay coaching staffs millions of dollars, help out their campus, but constantly deny that they are not able to pay their players doesn’t make too much sense. These colleges use their students athletes and exploit them all the time, why are they not aloud to earn extra money? They have their hands full with school and sports, it’s impossible for them to get a job and excel in other areas. Many former college athletes have reported that there were times when they had no money to eat, shabazz napier states after a college basketball game, “Sometimes, there's hungry nights where I'm not able to eat, but I still gotta play up to my capabilities” (fox sports) this isn’t the first time where a player displays his frustration. All these college athletes want to do is do their best to perform, they just want the same resources as the people getting payed around them to be able to do so. These players are not even allowed to earn money because it violates the NCAA rules or gets in the way of their student athlete scholarship. If they are not being compensated to even eat well enough, how is it fair to have the people coaching them making millions of dollars?
Compensating these college athletes has been under discussion for a very long time now and a couple questions always get brought up. How will we compensate these student athletes? What sports will get compensated? Will all players get the same amount of compensation? In an article, Mark Emmert, President of the NCAA, states that "These individuals are not professionals. They are representing their universities as part of a university community” (cnn.com) Emmert’s logic seems a bit flawed, you can still represent the place you are a part of but still be able to receive compensation for the work or revenue you contribute to bringing in. Usually, these questions will end the discussion because it’s a “complicated” issue but I don’t think that’s fair, it sounds more like an excuse. I believe there are many solutions to all the questions or problems people may have. Education should be the main priority, each year players have to renew their scholarships but they can be taken away at anytime if they get injured or do not perform well. They should definitely be offered security for at least 2 years and be given an allowance for each semester. Obviously, depending on the school and the sport this would be vary but it should be very possible. There are coaches making millions every year, I definitely think they can afford to give their athletes an allowance. I know achieving this is way harder said than done, much more thought is needed to go into it, and this situation might be complicated, I definitely believe there is an achievable solution.
College athletes face a large amount of challenges for players that are supposed to be grateful and lucky. One of the main argument seems to be that even though they are not being paid, they have the chance to get drafted and make millions for years as professionals. Those people fail to realize that becoming a professional is very difficult, close to impossible. Only 2% of college athletes have the opportunity to make it and play as a professional in a sport. That chance is too low for these athletes to be working as much as they do and for these colleges to not make their education a priority. These colleges either need to focus more on the education, the term “student athlete”, be less strict with their rules, or begin compensating these athletes for the amount of work and effort they put into their sport. The NCAA has a great thing going on, they generate a great amount of money to fund their schools, offer scholarships thousands of students, and bring communities together with a common interest. It would be a shame if their organization collapses all because they did not want to compensate their student athletes for all the effort they put in.