Education and athletics, two of the most prized activities within our society. It's therefore no surprise that the two so closely link in one of our society’s favorite pastimes: college sports. Some believe that these two things benefit each other and some don’t. In the Forbes article titled “Rethinking the Benefits of College Athletics,” the author Jonathan Robe, a research fellow at the Center for College Affordability, explains, “In my short life, I’ve long been perplexed with the way many higher ed administrators–particularly college presidents–tend to laud college sports for the benefits they add to institutions of higher learning.“ He argues that college athletics do not benefit colleges and in some ways can even harm them. A majority of the supports are strong and, despite a few ineffective supports and language, Robe's argument is effective for its intended audience.
Robe’s first appeals to logic. Logic impresses a business audience like readers of Forbes magazine. He examines the notion that college athletics help create exposure for colleges and that itself being a benefit. Robe makes the concession this does create exposure based on his own personal experience, himself unaware of some smaller universities until he saw them competing. He questions, however, the real world value this exposure provides, asking “to what end is all this exposure?” This appeal, however, could offend readers that agree with him but also value college sports, affecting the credibility of Robe’s argument for his intended audience. While the title of Robe’s article will attract both readers who agree and disagree with his thesis, the article itself targets those that agree with his thesis. This appeal to logic and potential humor appeals to rea...
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...cle uses many rhetorical tools to support his argument. He includes an adequate amount of statistics, authorities, and appeals for credibility. Robe strengthens his argument further by making concessions to commonly held beliefs about the benefits of college sports, while putting forth convincing counter arguments. His argument are well rounded, examining the effects of college athletics on both academic institutions, as well as individual athletes. Some logical fallacies and ineffective language do have a negative effect on the argument, however, on balance the effective supports outweigh the ineffective, further convincing Robe’s intended audience.
Works Cited
Robe, Johnathan. "Rethinking the Benefits of College Athletics." Forbes 15 Mar. 2012: n. pag. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. .
Sports provide a nice source of money for the college but some of the money is given to the coaches where coaches are given much more money than professors that do make an effort to teach students. The money can be potentially be used to promote more departments and of the like, but to see that coaches get paid more than professors, it makes a statement of how sports are more important than education. Colleges are made to educate students and ensure that education are the highest quality valued, but to have professors who are the basis of education being paid less than coaches. Colleges are made to enhance student’s education and should not focus too much on its sports
Van Rheenen, Derek. "Exploitation in College Sports: Race, Revenue, and Educational Reward." International Review for the Sociology of Sport 48.5 (2013): 550-71. Print.
Hartnett, Tyson. "Why College Athletes Should be Paid." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 15 May 2014. .
Pappano, Laura. “How Big-Time Sports Ate College Life” Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition, 8th ed. Pages 591-600. 2013.
Throughout the country young men and women are losing their priority for an education. To attend a university should be a highly cherished privilege, and it should be an even greater honor to play athletics for the university. Therefore, the writer supports the decision that the “student” comes before “athlete” in student-athlete. Playing for pay should be considered a job for “professionals”. In the rulebook, the NCAA views college athletes as armatures. This statement sums it up best. When athletes go to college, not all of them go in with the mindset that athletics is going to be their future job....
Rick Reilly, in his ESPN column (2007), contends that sports competitions are more than simple games, instead, they are events capable of bringing people together in unique ways. He reinforces his contention by integrating inspirational anecdotal evidence, bold syntax, and unvarnished diction. Reilly’s purpose is to point out the importance and humanity of sports in order to convince a college professor and readers of sports magazines that sports writing is indeed an advanced and valuable profession. He assumes a humorous tone (“...most important- sports is the place where beer tastes best”) for an audience of sports magazine readers, but more specifically, a professor that told him that he was “better than sports.”
Pennington, Bill. "Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships." nytimes.com. New York Times, 10 Mar. 2008. Web. 17 Dec. 2013.
Luzer, Daniel. "College Guide: The Profit in College Sports." The Washington Monthly. N.p., 18 Sept. 2013. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.
Zimbalist, Andrew S. Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism And Conflict In Big-Time College Sports. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Howard-Hamilton, Mary F., and Julie Sina. "How College Affects College Athletes." New Directions for Student Services (2011): 35-43.
It is no secret that college has absurd tuition prices. If colleges were to lower the prices of tuition, everyone would be universally happier. Brooks uses the following quote to address the obvious “it is the outrageous sticker price of a college education, and its steep upward climb in seeming defiance of the rest of the economy, that has fueled a demand to know why American families should sacrifice so much to a possibly dubious product.” (Brooks 59). Although I agree that college may be too inflated compared to off campus, I came to the realization that the price of college is mostly worth it. Umass Amherst has the best Sports Management program and is worth the money because they have the largest alumni in this field. They have alumni in all the major sports leagues in America and even in the other continents. They have a strong connection to Umass and tend to hire other Umass Amherst graduates from the McCormack Department of Sport Management. Brooks believes that instrumental learning, teaching students to pass the course, rather to understand the central questions of humanity hinders the value of college (Brooks 65). Yet this could not be further from the truth. The first time reading the essay I supported his arguments, but the more times I read the essay the more I began to disagree. At first, I questioned if a year’s tuition for
The payment of NCAA student-athletes will deteriorate the value of an education to the athletes. The value of an education for a young man or woman cannot be measured. It is our gate way to success as...
"College Athletic Programs Undermine Academics." Student Life. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 27 July 2011.
Herbet D. Simans, Derek Van Rheenen, and Martin V. Covington focuses their argument on academic motivation of student athletes and what drives them to want to succeed in the classroom as well as on the court or field. Although Flynn also focuses on academic motivation of student athletes, he also discusses how colleges tend to spend more money on sports related necessities for the students instead of towards their education. Flynn’s argument displays how colleges are basically a business...
Sports programs have been an integral part of all schools. They support the academics of the school and therefore foster success in life. These programs are educational and help produce productive citizenship. They help students experience and build skills that may help them in their future, like interpersonal and time management skills. Education may kindle the light of knowledge, but sports help to maintain the proper physique. Sports are also an important means of entertainment and a use for energy after long hours of study. Sports increase a student’s performance not only in the classroom but also in their life.