Wyatt Collins
Ms. Chambers
Rough Draft
Student-Athlete
I believe that the term student-athlete has been misunderstood for many years. The term student-athlete is defined as a student who is fully enrolled into school and fully involved in an athletic sport. Such as, football, baseball, basketball, softball, etc. Anything that is an organized extra-curricular activity is considered to be an athletic sport. The word pretty much explains itself student-athlete, student comes first and athlete comes second. Self-explanatory right? But is that really how the university and coaches look at it.
At division 1 programs the bigger athletic programs such as, football, basketball, and baseball bring the college millions of dollars a year based on
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Therefore, the athletic programs are going to bring in the best athletes that they can find no matter how good or bad their grades are. For example, if the coach is looking at two players and the one player has a 2.5 GPA and his athletic ability is way above average, and the other player has a 3.0 GPA but his athletic ability is below the other prospect the coach is looking at the coach is going to pick the more athletic player. He has a high enough GPA to be eligible to play but does not spend nowhere near the amount of time on his schooling as he does in becoming a better player. In a recent report there was 3,100 student-athletes at the University of North Carolina whose athletic coaches encouraged them to take fake classes to make fake grades so they could pass their classes and participate in the athletic competitions. The “University staff so called paper classes and the artificially inflated grades they handed out as the key to …show more content…
Student-athletes who attend larger schools consider themselves more of athletes than students and spend more time working on their athletic ability rather than their schooling and maintaining good grades with a high GPA. Taking that into consideration, if an athlete chooses their school based on athletics, then I would have to believe that the student-athlete would most likely spend twice as much time on their athletics instead of their academics. That is the complete opposite of what the word means and what it is about. A student-athlete is a student first and athlete second therefore he/she should be concerned with making good grades so they can stay eligible to participate in their sport. It also says that a student-athletes test scores and GPA is significantly lower than just a regular student. In the offseason football players practice anywhere between 40-60 hours a week, that is just physical practice on the field that is not counting workouts and watching game film. That is more hours than some full time jobs. In addition to, the student-athlete is still required to maintain a 2.0 GPA. For example, I am a student-athlete who attends a small Christian college. We do not take our athletics nowhere near as serious as bigger colleges do. But we are still required to maintain good grades, while having practices, work
Almost all colleges have friendly classes or teachers that understand the stresses of the student athlete that has to practice and study. But they do not understand the young man or woman who works full time and is trying to make a better life for themselves. These teachers are selected by the coaches and ADs as the teaches to have. These friends of the program will make sure that a student is eligible to play. These teachers will also sometimes waive assignments and even allow slacked attendance. Were as when the average Joe misses he will loose credit and not be allowed to make up missed work.
Imagine a business that brings in $60 million each year ,and the people fueling that industry receive none of the revenue(Wieberg). These same people work 40 hours in their sport every week, these “people” are college athletes. The NCAA, the governing body for major college sports, is the industry doing this to college athletes(Edelman). This is an issue of exploitation and control by large institutions over primarily poor people, the NCAA is guiding them in directions to make money for everybody while doing everything possible to keep the players out of the money. College Athletes deserve profit because they bring in large revenue into their program, the NCAA, and they invest tons of time into their sport.
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....
The student athlete is a term often used to describe a member of the student body at an institution as well as a member of one of the schools athletic teams. This is not a label that includes students who play recreational sports during their leisure time; this term is used for those students who split their time between athletics and academics.
The impact of college athletic programs on academics has always been a controversial and contentious topic. It seems that athletic programs have some contemplative effects on academics of colleges and universities. Different people have different ideas about how college athletic programs should be carried on. College presidents, administrations, student athletes, parents of students, and athletic trainers are along with these people who point out different facts about the fallouts of athletics on academics. A bunch of people suggest that athletic programs should be dropped from college system, while another group suggests that athletic programs should be taken care with more advertence. An analysis on the effects of college athletics on academics has two personal approaches: college athletics undermine academics, and athletics amplify academic experience.
College sports are a major revenue producing industry. Athletic programs and their student-athletes can achieve national recognition and generate millions of dollars in revenue for their university. Colleges use this revenue to invest in players, pay for their education, and provide state of the art training facilities, which are used to improve their athletic performance. As revenue driven colleges begin to prioritize athletics, the emphasis on the quality and standards of an undergraduate education are diminishing. Compromising their academic acceptance requirements, universities have now found that the educational ability of their newly accepted student athletes are inadequate, to say the least (Gurney). The same universities must then spend millions of dollars to provide these athletes with “learning specialists”, who in turn helps them to meet academic requirements and maintain their eligibility (...
Playing a sport in college is equivalent to working a full-time job (Thomas). There are rules that allow major-college football coaches to only demand twenty hours of the players time each week (Wieberg). However, studies show that those athletes are doubling those hours per week during the season (Wieberg). Other sports are putting in the equivalent of a full time work week (Wieberg). Some NCAA officials are concerned with the amount of time spent stating that beyond forty hours is inhumane (Wieberg). Most of the athletes compete and do whatever it takes to succeed, so they enjoy spending countless hours on sports (Wieberg). Many athletes even have struggles in the classroom because they do not have enough time to study. Student-athletes at top Division I schools think of themselves as athletes more than students (Wieberg). Less than one percent of college athletes actually make it professionally (Wieberg). That means these kids should focus more on their education than on athletics. In reality, these official...
Many people believe that College athletes have it easy, and who wouldn’t think that? A free education, free living; getting to travel and play the sport that many people would love to still be able to. Student athletes also get to pick classes earlier than a regular student and have the ability to be excused from classes to go to games and special events. The life of a student athlete sounds like an enticing thing for many people; especially those who are not student athletes on scholarships or walk-ons to a college team. The rising cost of attending college has made the younger athletic population work just as hard to receive a scholarship to play a sport, because they may come from poverty where they can’t otherwise afford to attend school, which is beneficial to them. Understand, that college is a place where academics comes first, and everything else is second; this includes athletics. But are these athletes treated fairly and given all the right things they need to succeed in life, let alone college?
The reality is that college sports programs, namely the "big name" programs such as football and basketball programs at marquee schools, are businesses that stand to make a large amount of money for their respective schools. According to an article in the Harvard Journal on Legislation, "[i]n the past twelve years, the amount of money generated by these two sports has increased nearly 300%, such that they now fund almost all other sports programs. 41 Harv. J. on Legis. 319. The student-athletes who participate in these programs are part of the reason why these schools stand to make such handsome profits: through ticket sales, endorsement deals, broadcasting deals, and jersey sales (although player names cannot be represented on jerseys), among other things.
A unique facet to the nationwide college athlete discourse surrounds the rigorousness of their academic standards. Supporters of the current standards cite that student-athletes must meet the same minimum GPA as traditional students. Although the GPA requirements differ depending on the institution, the students must make progress toward graduating based on a schedule established by the NCAA. Violating the rules can result in ineligibility. Bill Hawkins, a professor at University of Georgia, points out that student-athletes must also adhere to the same admission standards as other students, despite many athletes coming from poorly funded public schools. Hawkins also argues that student-athletes are devoting 50 to 70 hours a week to sports and cannot handle a full-time academic course load during the sports season. The NCAA points out that graduation rates for all student-athletes are rising. Graduation rates among women student-athletes are around 80 percent for many sports and exceeds the rate for women students overall.
College is a time for young people to develop and grow not only in their education, but social aspects as well. One of the biggest social scenes found around college campuses are athletic events, but where would these college sports be without their dedicated athletes? Student athletes get a lot of praise for their achievements on the field, but tend to disregard the work they accomplish in the classroom. Living in a college environment as a student athlete has a great deal of advantages as well as disadvantages that affect education and anti-intellectualism.
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.
When applying to University there are multiple steps which lead to many frustrations and stress. Everyone from the top student to the student who is forced to apply, deals with these frustrations. In my experience, I threw things, abused my computer, and my eyes may have watered from the frustrations of course. Not only is the process hard, filling in every form, obtaining letter of recommendation, but the four years that you spent trying to come up with the information you are providing was hard.
However, this has many downfalls within colleges and even becoming problematic to athletes attending college. However, addressing the educational aspect college athletes are often on scholarships to big division one universities. When being a big-time division one athlete you are expected to be professional by your 3rd year of college. Fact of the matter is it is simply affecting colleges that are well known for excellent academic standards. The problematic “fake
Have have you ever been excluded, or have you excluded someone else? I have. I have experienced the feeling and know what it’s like, and I believe that if we all work together to stop exclusion the world world will a much happier place.