Should College Athletes Be Paid #2 (Essay Sample)

Speech on why College Athletes Should be Paid
Saif Al-Ibrahim
Cal State San Marcos
Speech on why College Athletes Should be Paid
Christmas is just around the corner. For you, the next thirty days or so are filled with the joy of receiving gifts from family and friends. For the college athlete, the next thirty days will be nothing, but pain and exhaustion and while you are all thinking about how to receive and give gifts, all that fills their minds is freedom! Today I will be talking about paying college athletes.
This is a topic that you all want to listen to because it affects all of us in a way. For the past two weeks I have been reading newspapers and talking to numerous athletes and clearly, there is a problem that needs to be addressed. In the next seven minutes, I will show you the conditions that college athletes live in and then present my reasons on why I think these athletes should be paid. I will then present to you a positive and a negative picture to my proposed solution and then ask you whether you still think that college athletes should go without pay. Now, ladies and gentlemen, let us take a journey together in the life of a college athlete.
As many of you seated here probably know, college athletes usually put in extra hours to entertain us without any pay. Just so you know what I mean, I would like to take you back on a short journey, precisely to Thanksgiving. For many of us seated in this classroom today, Thanksgiving was filled with food, going out shopping, sleep, more sleep, and of course football. Before I lose some of you, I would like to put a disclaimer. I know that not each one of us here is an ardent football fan, but acknowledge it! Your Thanksgiving was largely affected by this sport that most people have come to love. Whether it was watching your local team being demolished by the visiting team or turning on the TV and realizing that there is nothing else to watch, but football and more football, the fact is that football has grown to become a part of our Thanksgiving. My question to you ladies and gentlemen is, have you ever taken a moment to think about what it takes to be able to play just a single game on TV? My proposition to you is that those young men miss being with their families just as you would if you were out of home during that period. Moreover, let’s not forget that these young people still have to deal with the day-to-day pressures of being a college student. Friends, the question that I want you to ask yourself is what makes it worth the sacrifice? This is a question that you should all be asking yourselves.
There is sufficient evidence that explains the dangers of failing to pay these college athletes. To begin with, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has abandoned its original mission. When this body was established in 1906, it was meant to protect the talent of young people from the oppressive athletic practices of the day (National Collegiate Athletic Association, 2013). Friends, the dream of President Roosevelt, who pioneered the formation of this body was to ensure that student-athletes received funding that was in their best interests. In the mid 20th century, many students were getting funding to play for schools, simply because they could not afford the college of college tuition. Due to the challenges that this presented, funding was replaced by scholarships (Bennett, 2011).
Today, athletes are being pushed more than any other time in history to make sure that they are at the top of their program. My research has shown that the ordinary college athlete spends close to 50 hours every week on the practice. This amount of time is way above those consumed by other professional sports where the estimated practice time is 35 hours a week. It is only fair that individuals who are pushed this hard to perform be given some form of recompense. In 2012, there were reports that thirteen football players were diagnosed with Rhabdomyolysis, which occurs when muscle fibers breakdown and enter the bloodstream. This diagnosis is nothing shocking. There is no single month that passes in collegiate sports where a participating athlete is not harmed in some way. We all know of stories upon stories where athletes are forced to sit out for an entire season due to bone fractures. Even when such athletes get back on their feet, the fractures never heal fully, and they are forced to live with permanent injuries. Just before you forget, these players who are undergoing these physical brutalities are students who still have to sit their term papers and write their projects. But then these students are getting nothing in return. Most, if not all of them are competing for scholarships (Slack, 2013).
The challenge is that due to the constantly rising cost of collegiate living; the scholarship that are meant to act as payment for the hard work put in by the students do not even cover their basic needs. Estimates show that such students are left with more than $3,000 that they have to fund from their own pockets. This has pushed most students to carry out underhand deals simply because they are desperate, and they have to live. While these students are languishing in poverty, their coaches have been living a posh lifestyle. Estimates show that the Division 1 Bowl Games and other junior athletic games rake in excess of $6 billion each year (Crowley, 2012).
Now that brings me to my proposed solution. As I indicated earlier, most athlete students are forced to work hours that are equivalent of a full working day. On top of this, these students are also full-time students. I am quite sure that none of you seated under the sound of my voice today would like it if you had to work for 50 hours every week and in return you get experience and some college boarding. Independent analysts have pointed out that the worth of a college standard athlete is over $100,000, but at the present such athletes get nothing. Paying these athletes will be a way of appreciating the many hours that they put into practice and also the sacrifices that they make for their colleges. This will also act as a balancing act as the coaches and school get high reimbursement while the students who do the bulk of the work get nothing (Crowley, 2012).
Just to answer the question that I know many of you are asking themselves, I want to show you quickly how this theory can work practically. The good thing about the program that I am proposing is that instead of leaving the school to single-handedly cater for its athletes as is currently the case, the financial burden would squarely land on the various organizations who would want to enlist the help of the athletes in marketing their products. This would stil...