...Being a student-athlete at a higher education institute is a dream that many young athletes dream about, but only a few of these athletes actually get the chance to live this dream. What some may not realize is that there’s a lot more to this dream than just being able to go to school to play your favorite sport. In the article, “The Shame of College Sports” by Taylor Branch, Branch takes the time to create an argument about how the NCAA created the term “student-athlete” to use in certain NCAA statements/contracts to discuss the regulations, policies, and advantages that these athletes receive and have to follow. As Branch goes through the process of describing the these points, he uses a variety of facts and statements through evidence,...
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...is the time of year hundreds of college basketball players take to the floor in hopes of winning a national championship. Millions of fans invest time, money and energy cheering for their favorite teams. Billions of dollars are made by the television and advertising industries, the food and beverage industries and the College and University “industry”. We watch these young men and women play their hearts out never once considering they have classes to study for or calculating the amount of money they make generate. Today’s college athletes or “student-athletes”, as the National Collegiate Athletic Association calls them, are a part of a long time controversy. While they receive scholarships and are allowed to go to college for free, they also have to “work” in practice and games. They are no different than other college students in that they also have to pay for other necessities. Even if a fan wants to help them out in any way like buy them a meal they can’t because it’s a NCAA violation. This is a hot topic especially during the NCAA tournament. Even the popular IPhone application, Instagram has recently put this hot topic on display. This past week, University of Louisville women’s basketball player, Bria Smith posted a picture of an article about this debate. Her teammate, Monique Reid commented on the photo saying, “Pay us!!” Ohio State University women’s basketball player Raven Ferguson also commented saying the same thing. College athletes should be paid because they...
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...What gives colleges the right to use their athletes for their own profit? This has been a question that has been brought up for nearly a century. Taylor Branch in “The Shame of College Sports” and Derek Van Rheenen in “Exploitation in College Sports […]” both do a great job on describing the hardships that every college athlete goes though on a daily basis with the dictatorship of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The NCAA dehumanizes and only seeks to make profit off of the men and women competing in intercollegiate sports. Walter Camp invented the great game of football in 1869 causing a revolution in collegiate sports. No one has ever seen a sport so brutal and memorizing since rugby. Therefore, making the game of football very...
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...“Pay the college athletes?” Whether or not to pay college athletes has been in debate for a number of years. No one seems to be able to decide whether or not these “students” deserve to be compensated for their actions on the gridiron, or whether they should be treated just like every other student at the school. The fact of the matter is that these athletes are not actually like every other average student. These athletes for some of these big name schools aren’t just helping the NCAA rake in small chunks of money; in fact they are helping the NCAA make billions of dollars every single year. It seems like only the NCAA is benefiting from the money who are the people in charge, and the workers, the athletes, are working for such a large profit, with no compensation towards them. To some this is the way it should be, but to others, they feels as if the athletes are being abused in a way that they are unable to fight back about. Therefore, do scholarships and free-living expenses make up for the billions of dollars these top tier athletes are bringing in? Or are these college athletes being abused by the billion-dollar industry that they help fuel? Some people view college sports as students at a school, representing their school through the act of a sport. However, the truth is that these college students fuel a billion dollar business that has no income for the actual “employees.” In Taylor Branch’s article, “The Shame of College Sports”, he continuously shows how these...
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...Jack Cobain Prof. Leanne MacDonald Multimedia Writing & Rhetoric 13300 11/11/2013 Reforming the NCAA In recent times a litany of scandals has brought the corruption of college sports to the forefront of the national discussion. Fans and media commentators express outrage each time it is discovered that a college athlete has been receiving under-the-table payments. These scandals disguise the larger issue however. The true injustice is not that some athletes are being paid but rather that more are not (Branch). Varsity athletics have evolved immensely since their inception in 1869 as a toughening agent to prepare American men for a new era of Darwinian struggle (Branch). College sports have become a lucrative industry, built on a free labor source unavailable in any other business (Palutsis). Yet despite the billions of dollars college athletes generate for their universities, they earn nothing for themselves. The restrictions placed on athletes by the NCAA not only prohibit the payment of a stipend to help cover the cost of attendance but they also prevent student-athletes from marketing themselves, cutting them off from potentially lucrative opportunities. A large proportion of these student-athletes come from low-income families who can barely afford to keep them in school even with the help of an athletic scholarship and to cut these people off from this potential source of income is cruel and unfair. While the NCAA’s commitment to amateurism sounds noble, in reality...
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...Colorado Seminary (University of Denver) v. National Collegiate Athletic Association This action was brought by the University of Denver (“DU”) and several of its student-athletes to enjoin the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) from imposing sanctions against DU and declaring several of its hockey players ineligible. Colorado Seminary (Univ. of Denver) v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 570 F.2d 320, 321 (10th Cir. 1978), aff’d, Colorado Seminary (Univ. of Denver) v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 417 F.Supp. 885 (D.Co. 1976). Because DU refused to enforce the ineligibility of several of its hockey players despite the NCAA’s declaration of such, the DU hockey team was put on a two-year probation period, all DU athletic teams were unable to participate in post-season NCAA events and have its regular season games be televised, and the University was forced to forfeit its 1973 national title. 570 F.2d at 321. Plaintiffs claimed that the NCAA violated their due process and equal protection rights through its ineligibility declaration, however the trial court disagreed, denying Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment in favor of Defendant’s, albeit with some conditions. 417 F.Supp. at 893, 900. Plaintiffs appealed the denial, but the 10th Circuit affirmed the trial court’s decision and ultimately held that: the “students’ interest in participating in intercollegiate athletics did not rise to level of the constitutionally-protected property or liberty interest...
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...THE EFFECTS OF CAMPUS STRESS On campuses across this country, college students are under an abundance of pressure. From parental stress to, academic stress, to social stress, students are pulled in a never-ending maze pursuing their education to do whatever is necessary in order to graduate from college. Generations of today-- teenagers, young adults, and senior citizens alike, face challenges that are dramatically different from the past. Today we have sophisticated technology equipment, interactive strategies and the World Wide Web, just to name a few. For instance, now you have application tablets such as iPads, e-readers, Kindles and Nooks. Students find themselves constantly worrying about trying to keep up with every new device that is put on the market for sale. There is the stress of not having the money or being able to afford all these devices. Additionally, students are faced with the hassle if their gadget is stolen or worse if a hacker breaks into their system. For college students, the anxiety of it all comes from a multitude of different directions. There is constant pressure to pass this class, participate in that forum, excel in this sport, ace this exam or give the presentation of your life. With all of these mounting demands, the hustling, frustrations and academic decisions, the result to this chaos is stress. One important reason why college students are stressed is the weight of expectations being placed upon them from their parents. Sam...
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...After viewing the documentary, Pony Excess, I thought that the film was both entertaining and informative about college football in the 1980s. The power of the media was well portrayed in the film because all the news sources such as newspaper, radio, TV channels had roles in breaking out the news of SMU. I thought this film was great to have the whole class watch it together because sports in general are for entertaining but can also be educational for us. The film interviewed some of the influential people at that time such as coaches, athletes, and media members. My thoughts about the documentary, I was impressed that the coaches, athletes, and some people who were involved in the scandals come forward and speak out. The cheating that was happening back then occurred because winning was the ultimate goal of sport team such as SMU. The way SMU played their games were not how sport is played, but just to get...
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...College sports have always been enjoyable and entertaining to watch. March Madness and the College Football Playoffs are some of the most exciting sports events to view. The Super Bowl and NBA playoffs may be exciting too, but the key difference between professional athletes and collegiate athletes is that college athletes do not get paid. Many professional athletes play for money, so the passion may not be there. College athletes on the other hand, play for pride, their school, and for their team. The passion is obviously there, so it makes the game more intense, more energetic, and more intense. In recent years, a conflict has occurred as in deciding if college athletes should receive a salary or not. College athletes should not get paid...
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...10 March 2014 Amateurs or Professionals? Big-money college sports takes your breath away. College football and men’s basketball have become such huge commercial enterprises that together they generate more than $6 billion in annual revenue, more than the National Basketball Association. A top college coach can make as much or more than a professional coach. Powerful conferences like the S.E.C. and the Pac 12 have signed lucrative TV deals, while the Big 10 and the University of Texas have created their own sports networks. Last year, Turner Broadcasting and CBS signed a 14-year, $10.8 billion deal for the television rights to the NCAA’s men’s basketball national championship tournament (a.k.a “March Madness”). And what does the labor force that makes it possible for coaches to earn millions, and causes marketers to spend billions, get? Nothing. The workers are supposed to be content with a scholarship that does not even cover the full cost of attending college. Any student athlete who accepts an unapproved, free hamburger from a coach, or even a fan, is in violation of NCAA rules. Nevertheless, the NCAA prohibits any form of payments, beyond scholarships, to any athlete who is responsible for producing the revenue. The NCAA also restricts the ability for any college athlete to earn income from an outside source. In a study sponsored by the NCAA, they discovered that college players have less money than non-athletic students, and almost fifty-eight percent are not even provided...
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...middle of a cacao trees farm where his grandfather was the manager of this farm. His parents never lived together. His mother was a nurse and she always to care of his needs. His father neglected him; he was never there for him. His father never took any time to spend with him and rarely help financially. It was a shame that his father never brought him to a baseball stadium, which is one of the favorite sports in that country. ------------------------------------------------- I was always interested in learning English. A friend of mine, by the name of Sisto, was teaching me how to speak and write in English before I came to this country. When I came here in February 11, 1984, I starting working in a factory and I were attending English classes at a church close to my home. One day a director for Bilingual Program at Mercy College went to visit the English class and he spoke to us about Mercy College and the benefit of getting an education in the United States. I became very interested and I began attending college in 1985 at Mercy College. While going to college I was taking English As a Second Language (ESL) and I met one of the best teacher in the college, Warren Herendeen; and he became one of my best...
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...| College Football and Pay for Play | | | | | | Introduction “The rising dollar value of the exploitation of athletes is obscene, is out of control.” -Roger Noll, Economics Professor Emeritus, Stanford The whole purpose in researching this topic was based on the fact that the researcher is a fan of college sports, football and basketball especially. As the researcher has grown into adulthood and come to understand that with most things in life, it’s all about business in some form or fashion. So with that being said, as in any business situation, laborers get paid for revenue they work to produce. “The NCAA's current men's basketball tournament agreement with CBS and Turner is worth an average of more than $770 million per year, and the current Bowl Championship Series television deal – money that goes to conferences and then is distributed to schools, with no NCAA involvement – is worth $180 million per year. The new college football playoff, which starts in the 2014 season, will be worth about $470 million annually to the conferences.” (Cohen & Russo, 2013) This is money that is created through the blood, sweat, and tears of the athletes. On multiple occasions, the researcher has participated in and listened to many arguments on how a scholarship is equal enough payment for student-athletes. The researcher has always found that theory to have a multitude of flaws though, and that’s mainly because common knowledge tends to show that things...
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...What’s wrong with school systems today? What is wrong with the school systems these days? In the book Friday Night Lights it says “It’s just a part of our lives. It’s just something that you’re involved in. it’s just like going to church or something like that.” Is it talking about the presents of drugs? Is it talking about all the alcohol that is consumed by high school students? Or is it the fact that they spend all of their time chasing after someone? Nope, it’s talking about sports. Sports in most public high school allow most kids to just slid by with their grades. I asked my boss at work once, how his school treated sports players. He answered “well I played both football and baseball so I didn’t have to do crap in school they just let my slid by with the easiest class.” He also added that “even if you were failing a class if you were valuable to the team the coach would call your teacher and tell her to give you a D for right now so you could play.” If you ask me that is kind of messed up like in the section of the book They Say I Say, by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. The authors state “what happened to personal responsibility” this it talking about why do people take responsibility for their own actions and that is so true. If you do this then what are you teaching these kids? Are you teaching them to work hard for their grades or are you teaching them to just be good in one category in their lives? If you think you are actually going to go pro here are so...
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...Ryan Scott Dr. Dunn ENG 100.12 Proposal 11/13/13 Pay for Play? Define Problem: Last year the NCCA signed a 14-year, $10.8 billion dollar contract with CBS and Turner Sports to allow them to broadcast the annual March Madness of college basketball on their channel. The Bowl Championship series of college football also signed a $125 million dollar deal with ESPN (Ford 1). Depending on how deep of a run you make in March Madness or a big win in a highly anticipated BCS bowl game, teams could potentially bring in millions of dollars to their university. But the men and women who are the ones on the field putting their body and wellbeing on the line are the same ones who see absolutely none of that money. How can this even be possible? College athletes, who put in just as much time if not more than an actual job, receive no type of money for the amount of revenue that they bring in. Sure they get an athletic scholarship that pays for most of their schooling but, not for everything outside of that. There is more to college than just books and schoolwork. People still need to buy food, pay bills, gas, and just everyday essentials. When writer William J. Ford asked senior guard Gary Clark from Wake Forest University about the topic he said “At a lot of schools, players come from underprivileged families. I know we are getting a scholarship, but some folks don’t have cash to get something to eat when the school cafeteria is closed, or money to buy a used car,” he continues. “I...
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...Abstract Should college athletes get paid? Does it teach kids that they do not have to have a job to make money, and that they can just do whatever they like because they know they are too good and will not be let off? I find this topic interesting because I want to play a sport in college. I know that a full ride scholarship would pay for the athlete’s college tuition, food, housing, and their books. I also know that multiple hours are spent by the athlete practicing throughout the day and year. Athletes are expected by their coaches to practice before the season starts and after the season so that they can be the best that they can be for the team. With that being said, how do athletes manage their time with practice, school, and a social life? My intended audience is for anyone who is interested in sports or the benefits college athletes receive from a scholarship. Any athletes might find it interesting what the process is to get a scholarship, whether it is high school students or college. More specifically this would be beneficial to any high school student or parent who would like to know about college athletic scholarships. Compensation of College Athletes There has been an ongoing debate continuing since the early nineteen hundreds on whether college athletes should get paid. This argument comes from the coaches, the athlete’s parents, and the athletes themselves arguing that universities make money off of the players and the players, in turn, do not receive any...
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