Argument Paper

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Everyone has experienced some type of stress in their life. Whether it has been from work, school, or troubles at home, stress is stress. If anyone had played sports in high school, you know the challenge of balancing school and sports. Imagine that stress, then multiply it exponentially. Everyone knows that college is a much more rigorous version of high school. The only reason some athletes made it to college is due to scholarships for their performance on the field. If they don’t perform well on the field, that scholarship might get cut. This makes practicing the athletes main priority. However, college athletes have to concentrate on their grades so they don’t drop out of college. These athletes know they may not make it to the pro’s, so they know they have to have a back up plan. This back up plan is called a college degree. So college athletes have to concentrate both on sports and classes. Sounds kind of challenging. This is why I believe student athletes should be allowed to miss classes occasionally due to their sport. Athletes are under much more stress, are required to attend practices and classes, and complete their homework. This is simply impossible to do, at least for a human. I believe that this is an important topic because it affects all college athletes. It is very clear that college athletes are very devoted and committed adults. It is also very easy to see that these young adults are swamped with practice and game schedules. Many people don’t realize exactly how much time is devoted to practices. An article by O'Shaughnessy (2011) provides a run down of how much time each athlete puts into different sports. Division I baseball players spend 42.1 hours a week practicing on the field.(O'Shaughnessy, 2011) Divi... ... middle of paper ... ... A student athlete has many more responsibilities than the typical college student. With these added responsibilities, should student athletes be required to follow the same class attendance rules that are put into place for all students? If they’re good students, should they be allowed to miss class every now and then to train? In my opinion the answer to that question is yes. I have mentioned previously my proposition for the college athlete attendance policy. I propose that there should be a national rule that college athletes, with a GPA above a 3.0, should be allowed to miss class to train, work on homework, or rest. The athlete would have to notify the professor that they wouldn’t be in class and find out what is being covered in the class session. If the athletic department, student, and professors work together, I don’t see why this solution would not work.

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