Writing About Whether The College Athletes Should Be Paid Or Not (Essay Sample)

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Introduction
The conversation on whether the college athletes should be paid for their efforts in the respective sporting activity seems to not to end anytime soon. With different groups coming up with different arguments on the matter on question, it seems the conversation will take a very longtime. As a person of interest in the sporting activity I find this to be interesting. On my own view I support the group that argues that the college athletes should be paid. I find it hard to understand why the young men and women should not be rewarded as they play a very crucial role in the growth of sports in the different institutions and thus increasing the financial gains of the institutions of their belonging. The college football season may be over but the discussion on whether or not the institutions should pay their players. It is normal especially for the football players to feel frustrated for not receiving any payment as the game is considered to be bringing the highest revenue to the institutions compared to other activities. The debate heats up as according to Money nation, a website responsible for tracking of salaries and the net-worth, the National Collegiate Athletic Association brings about 12 billion dollars annually and to my wondering none of the money in question goes to the individual athletes. Due to the heated up debate that seems not to bring definite answers I decided to carry out a research do determine the validity of the claim from both camps and to ascertain if my view of the matter was correct or not. The research question was should the college athletes be paid?
During the undertaking of my research I came across different answers to the research question. Those in support of the debate argues that the athletes always put their bodies on line on every game that they are involved in which gives a good reason why these athletes should be paid. There are cases where players have been paralyzed due to bad or accidental tackles during football matches. In most cases the paralyzed person’s life changes drastically. They start living a different kind of life from the one that they enjoyed leading. Their dreams in most instances become cut short due to their innocent contribution to the love of the game. The institutions should take the responsibility of value the effort that the athletes put by playing the game which in some cases tends to be dangerous. Their ultimate sacrifice for the game that they love should not go unrewarded if the institutions are honestly run. They should be paid some amounts as a form of motivation and for appreciating their good work towards the wellbeing of the institutions.
Another evidence to support the claim for remuneration of the college athletes is the large sum of money that the NCAA gains each year due to the effort of the college athletes. It is sarcastic how the people responsible for the generation of the large sums of money for the institutions end up with nothing for appreciation. It can only be viewed as a form of exploitation of the students by the institutions. They NCAA uses the scholarship program as scapegoat for not paying the athletes but for any upright thinking man the scholarship program cannot prove to be the best way of appreciating the students. According to me this is very weird how non-profit organizations find it hard to provide a decent wage to those responsible for the annual inflow of billions of dollars to the institutions. It is evident that most of the revenue earned from the sweat of the college sportsmen does not go toward their academic but the money goes towards the coaches, the technical directors and all the parties that facilitate the presence of the game in the institutions. Thus the coaches of the teams question boast of huge salaries for just directing the way things are done but forgetting the importance of the people responsible for the outcome.
The college athletes should be compensated in order to enable them to gain a sense of financial awareness. When many people are involved in the debate of whether or not to pay the college sportsmen overlook an important issue that has always been experienced in the past. Most of the professional athletes in the field of NBA to be precise 60% of the players are broke within their five years of retirement. The institutions should pay the college students some amounts of money, this is to enable them learn on how to capitalize on their money while they are young. Another reason why I advocate for paying of the college athletes is due to the fact that they may have financial advice from their teachers and parents at the young age. Poor investments and the lavish lives that the athletes live at times hence to the benefit of the students the schools can initiate programs for guiding them through introducing them to financial investors who can be trusted and have the best interest of the college athletes in their minds.
Many student athletes may be receiving scholarships but not all of them are catered for by the program. It would be a good move to compensate the player so that those who not manage to secure a scholarship can advance in their future endeavors. Through that move the students love of the game can be enhanced thus making them promote the growth of the game and their growth as individual players. Other could use the money earned to finance their studies and wellbeing around the institutions.
On the other hand those that are against the argument of paying cannot be assumed as they give substantial reason as to why the current system should continue to be in place. In my research I noted some points from the opposing side that cannot be just overlooked. There are fans of college sports who love the games because they believe that the activities are carried out purely from the passion for the sports under the question. In their argument they suggest that paying of the college athletes could detract the purity of the game. In many cases where money comes into existence in places where it was not present before, it overtakes the forces that may have been motivating them. In this argument, the players will only play to earn the money at the expense of playing so as to entertain the lover of the sports involved. There are those who think that players at the college level play with passion and love of what they are engaged in comparison to the professional who do not p-lay as hard as they feel that they have already made it in life. The players who expect monetary compensation do not play hard as they avoid the risk of accumulating injury in the process that6 may affect their way of earning a living thus affecting the mode o play.
In other situation it is fair not to pay the college athletes as not all the sports activities are money making. Apart from college football and the college basketball games the other sports cannot claim to be more of revenue generating games. When some sports pay well and others do not pay at all, this can bring about division in the institution as a result of paying some athletes and not paying the others. In other situations, the taste of the other sports may be diminished as everyone may be in preference of the well paying sports.
During the process of my research activities I was lucky to have an interview with Bruce Ballack, an education activist in California. According to him the practice of not paying the college student plays a good role in ensuring that the core objectives of these institutions are maintained and not over taken by the sporting activities which are some of the activities in the process of learning but not the main objective of setting up schools. Ballack argued that there is need to maintain the importance of a school as a center for learning and not a business centre as things seem to be. He continues that students go to school to be helped nurture their abilities through engagement in different activities in the co-curricular program hence no one should claim payment for participating in different school programs. Ballack says that the education institutions can only prosper through the tradition of competition. The competition can either be in terms of academics or the sporting activities. Through paying the athletes, the tradition of competing against schools for pride may end up lost forever. The players play with passion of the game and their pride to belong in certain institution. At the end the fans enjoy the display of the athletes as they are always will to go a step ahead so as to ensure that their institution emerge the champions at the end of the play. Ballack goes on to state that even though these players are playing at advanced level, they are still not professionals hence paying them any institution should be a co-curricular activity and should remain like that. It doesn’t should not be a topic of discussion. He advocates that schools are non-p...