The overall culture and importance that American society places on college sports is susceptible to debate and criticism. Are we spending too much time and money on college football? Well that’s for you to decide, “Get football out of our universities” by Steven Salzberg expresses his concern that we are emphasizing too much on football and not enough on education. He makes his argument that America would be much smarter if only we would eliminate college football all together; he feels college football is driving academia to its death. Steven is effective in persuading his readers by utilizing rhetorical strategies and he provides his readers with facts and solutions. While reading Stevens article, you will see rhetoric used throughout his essay; he intends to open the reader’s eyes to the epidemic that football is having on our colleges and universities and provides viable solutions.
The reader should read this article to learn how football is “undermining our education system and hurting our competitiveness in technology, science, and engineering.” The author
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states that “If we keep it up, the U.S. will eventually be little more than the big, dumb jock on the world stage—good for entertainment on the weekend, but not taken seriously otherwise” this makes it important for us to read and consider the potential consequences of making football more important than education. The author mentions his own university “the University of Maryland”, which tells us that he has seen this epidemic up close; but he does not mention any form of degree or background. Let’s face it football is violent, so are we doing the football players justice, most of whom get a poor education, by subjecting them to long-term brain injuries, in the name of the university; is that ethical? The author is trying to open the reader’s eyes as to what is happening.
From what I witnessed in high school football revolves around the school life and the same in college. He is trying to tell us that school is about education not football. “The core mission of our universities is to educate our students, not to entertain them with big-time sports events.” I was disappointed to see how much money is spent on a college football’s team. He stated that the University of Maryland administration is more interested in building a better football team. I hope that’s not where most of my tuition money is going. We are making our universities known for their football teams instead of education. People go to college to learn not to be entertained every weekend by a football team and if you want to watch football stay at home. I want my school to known for having the best education, not the best football
team. Everything that he said makes his argument logical; he specifically stated what President Obama said to back him up. “President Obama is right: students do come from all over the world to study in our universities. But they don’t come because of the football teams.” The author is giving me the large amounts of money spent of football. “Football coaches salaries – they often make 3-5 times more than their own presidents” and “The brand-new President of the university, in office just one month, announced the hiring of a new coach, along with a $2 million payout to the old coach.” We are lining the pockets of football coaches instead of investing more in education. Universities are spending billions of dollars annually, and for what; is it worth the academic distractions that it has on students that are here to learn? Colleges are spending six times more per athlete than they spend to educate students. Steven’s solution to the argument that “football makes a profit” for the university; is to “spin off the teams as private corporations, and let them pay the university a licensing fee to use the university logo.” Yes, education is something that we should take seriously in order to compete in the new world. “We need to eliminate football entirely from our universities if we want to maintain our pre-eminent position as the world’s scientific and technological leader.” The author is expressing his concern that we are emphasizing too much on football and not enough on education. “We need to teach our kids that it’s not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair.” Salzberg is coming from a good place and brings up a legitimate concern about football and its place in universities. But nobody is forced to watch or participate or pledge their allegiance to any one team. College sports programs do bring in an incredible amount of money for the school and some academic departments suffer and get whatever money is left over. The problem lies with those writing or cashing the checks and it’s up to each university’s president to split the money evenly to each of their athletic and academic department which is not happening and hopefully America wakes up and realizes that we should equally invest in education so that we can maintain our place in the world.
If there’s one thing we dread in the summer more than the heat, it’s the afflicting sentiment that surrounds oneself when one is inhibited from experiencing the thrills of football for six long and gruesome months. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) football is a part of many Americans’ Saturdays, but to fewer does it mean their lives. Recently coming under debate, many sporting fans and college athletes believe that players should be paid more than just tuition, room, board, and books. Two articles on this issue that bring up valid points worth discussing are Paul Marx’ “Athlete’s New Day” and Warren Hartenstine’s “College Athletes Should Not Be Paid.” From these articles I have found on the basis of logical,
Are young children putting their health and even their lives at risk if they partake in the sport of football? Some claim that the American sport is far too dangerous and the risk of concussions and injuries far outway the pros of the physical sport, while others insist that technological improvements and new regulations have made the sport safer. Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, argues in his paper, “We Must Stop Risking the Health of Young Football Players,” that football is a sport that is too dangerous for the youth. He states his belief that technological improvements in helmets and changes in the rules of the sport have had little effect on reducing injuries and that nothing has worked.
While college sports play a valuable role on university campuses, it is important for administrators to not lose perspective. That some football coaches earn more than university presidents, for example, is clearly wrong. Essay Task Write a unified, coherent essay in which you evaluate multiple perspectives on college support for sports teams. In your essay, be sure to: • analyze and evaluate the perspectives given • state and develop your own perspective on the issue • explain the relationship between your perspective and those given
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
Is High School football a sport, or is it more than that to some people? Recent newspaper headlines include such items as coaches abusing student athletes; fathers of athletes murdering coaches, and mother’s disabilitating cheerleading candidates to assure their daughters make the cheerleading team. In Odessa, Texas high school football is a major contributor to the society of a small town in Texas society. Every Friday night, 50,000 people fill the stadium to see high school students put their lives on the line to win a football game. H. G. Bissinger writes a novel called Friday Night Lights, about a year in 1988 where High School players prepare and play on the High School team, and what an impact they have on a small city in Texas.
Pappano, Laura. “How Big-Time Sports Ate College Life” Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition, 8th ed. Pages 591-600. 2013.
With the recent controversy and scandal surrounding the University of Colorado and the college football world, this off season has been one of the busiest ever. College Football has experienced an eye-opening revelation and these experiences call for major changes in the traditional recruiting practices. Last month, stories surfaced about the University of Colorado using sex, alcohol, and parties to lure blue chip recruits to their program. While these types of actions are prevalent at every major football program, this is the first time that they have been officially exposed. This exposure has started a chain-reaction of changes to the recruiting part of college football and has grabbed the attention of the United States Congress. The involvement of the most powerful government in the world shows the seriousness of the present situation and also that these inappropriate recruiting practices are not going to be ignored any longer. The face of college football will change dramatically and the results of this scandal will have a lasting impact for decades to come. For any person who follows college football and has a favorite team, this is an important issue because the traditional way that many of us have come to love, is about to disappear.
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....
Within a community is a sense of unity, which for many is brought together by the young athletes of the community. In his article “High School Sports Have Turned Into Big Business,” Mark Koba of CNBC highlights that within the last thirty to forty years high school football has escalated into a highly revered tradition in which not only communities, but highly successful corporations have begun to dedicate millions of dollars towards (Koba n. pg.). This highlights the status of sports within the community and may explain part of the reason schools would favor sports over other programs. Because sports programs can often turn over big profits for schools, they tend to dedicate most of their excess funds towards sports, and rely on sports programs to create large profits for the school. When school administrators see how much sports unite, excite, and benefit the school, they develop a respect for sports and consider it a necessity to provide a good sports program for their students and community. Also in his article, Koba quotes an interviewee named Mark Conrad who is the associate professor of legal and ethical studies at Fordham University 's school of...
"College Athletic Programs Undermine Academics." Student Life. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 27 July 2011.
Branch, Taylor. "The Shame of College Sports." Atlantic Monthly, The. 01 Oct. 2011: 80. eLibrary. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
Sperber, Murray A. Beer and Circus: How Big-time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education. New York: H. Holt, 2000. Print.
College football is beneficial for both the players and city. College football is more than a sport for entertainment; it’s a sport that has been the unifier for colleges, players, and most Americans. It brings people together; strangers standing side-by-side, jumping, getting excited, high-fiving one another, cheering on a group of fifty men playing a game. The cities that host the game are receiving more recognition. Intelligence Squared hosted a debate on whether the sport should be banned. One debater Malcolm Gladwell(2012) stated:
classifies Division I football players as amateurs, not professionals, student-athletes, not employees, which is how colleges get away with paying them nothing.” In a way it is not fair with the players that are who are generating most of the profit to the team and the league, but more important is the fact that they are being offered a free education.
For decades there has been a debate on student athletes and their drive to succeed in the classroom. From the very beginning of organized college level athletics, the goal to want to succeed in athletics has forced students to put academics to the back burner. In spite of the goal to want to succeed over a hundred years of attempts to check limits of intercollegiate athletic programs on colleges' academic standards still seems to struggle to this day. This brings to surface one of the most asked questions in sports, “What effect does college sports have on academics and economics?” Herbert D. Simons, Derek Van Rheenen, and Martin V. Covington, authors of “Academic Motivation and the Student Athlete” researched the topic on whether athletics and academics benefit each other. Bryan Flynn, the author of “College Sports vs. Academics” poses the question “Should institutions of higher learning continue to involve themselves in athletic programs that often turn out to be virtual arms races for recruiting talented players who bring big money and prestige, but put academics to the back burner?” Although both authors agree that sports have an impact on an athlete’s academics, the focus of their argument differs.