Introduction
Many people have raised different opinions regarding college sports and their benefits to the students. Individuals have analyzed school games to determine how they can benefit participants and not only the colleges and the coaches. Many researchers have also investigated the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to reveal how it ensures that student-athletes receive rewards in various sports. The organization has also shown that many schools have joined the association and contribute some money during the sports activities. NCAA plays a significant role since it designs competition and eligibility rules for intercollegiate sports. However, various ways that can be exercised to benefit college players have been discussed by various individuals. Therefore, student-athletes should benefit from sports to motivate them, improve their living standards, boost students’ work ethic, and increase the college graduation rate since they experience financial challenges, and balancing coursework and sport is difficult.
Motivation
Motivation in sports is essential as it helps athletes to work harder and achieve their goals. Mills and Winfree (213) argue that fair payments should be introduced to student-athletes to motivate them. Moreover, many students are talented in various games, and paying them can be an integral approach to encourage them to focus on enhancing their abilities. In most cases, failure to pay players impacts their morale, and many of them become reluctant and avoid training sessions (Mills and Winfree 218). NCAA also receives a large amount of money from the colleges. Therefore, these funds should be used to pay the student-athletes and inspire them to participate in various games. Cases of talented students who have given up on sports due to lack of payment have also been. The cost of college sports has increased since schools have to pay registration fees to join different games. Nonetheless, these funds do not benefit some student-athletes, which forces them to avoid participating in these games.
The cost of college sports has led to some people arguing that paying college students might incur debts in universities. However, this can be limited if the organizers focus on excellent financial management to ensure fair payments are exercised. Moreover, NCAA has revealed that student-athletes bring revenue for their team and college, whereby millions of dollars are involved in sports (Mills and Winfree 211). Thus, they should receive a portion of the amount to motivate them because they encounter challenges when balancing coursework and sports. For instance, former and current academic advisers, tutors, and professors, such as Mark Emmart, state that it is difficult for students to move from elementary to college level while juggling a hectic schedule as an NCAA athlete (Vogel et al. par. 16). Therefore, grueling workouts combined with academic projects and exams can be tough for learners, and payments can be used to appreciate the athletes.
Moreover, athletes should guarantee that they exercise daily to ensure that they keep fit. Hence, paying athletes can show that the colleges appreciate their hard work and encourage them to participate in the sports despite facing various challenges. Elite professional athletes regularly bring funds in their colleges that amount to millions. These individuals have to wake up to train before their course lessons begin. Various scouts in sports such as basketball and football from major clubs have acquired talented players from college sports. For instance, some of the English Premier League teams ensure that they watch the college games to ensure that they can nature young talents and sign them (Mills and Winfree 208). Therefore, paying the student-athletes can be vital since it can encourage them to work harder to develop their skills and attract big clubs. Moreover, it can help them focus on improving their talents despite facing challenges when balancing coursework and training.
Improving the Living Standards of the Athletes
Many college students experience financial challenges, whereby some are forced to quit school due to a lack of adequate funds. College life has also become difficult for some individuals since they have to pay for school projects, transport, food, and rent. These challenges have led to some students seeking jobs to sustain themselves in school. Additionally, many students have argued that debt accumulation is a significant issue for several college learners (Mills and Winfree 210). Consequently, paying school athletes can limit some of the monetary challenges and the struggles they face in college life. Some of the athletes are also from low socioeconomic families, making it hard for their parents and siblings to support them in college. Furthermore, some college students seek part-time jobs to help them offer financial support to their families. Mark Emmart, the NCAA president, also stated that the student-athletes are not employees, which reveals that most of them lack adequate funds (LastWeekTonight 00:02:36-00:02:48). Colleges can also use money acquired from sports to clear athletes’ debts. This would help in relieving pressure experienced by their parents due to lack of adequate funds and show appreciation to the student’s hard work.
Life has become difficult due to economic crises being experienced. Thus, many students face challenges when trying to access food and clothing in college. Mills and Winfree (221) state that athletes are encouraged to focus on healthy eating. Therefore, some of these student-athletes encounter problems due to a lack of funds to buy nutritious foods. However, these difficulties can be limited by ensuring that fair payment is exercised. Colleges can also pay the athletes and encourage them to buy some of their basic needs to guarantee that they do not miss training and coursework. Exercises can prevent some students from seeking part-time jobs since they have to spend their free time with the teams. Therefore, it becomes tough for the student-athlete to acquire funds from others sources. The cost of the sports can also involve expensive training kits. Students may also be forced to buy other medicinal products since they experience injuries and fractures in college sports. Thus, student-athletes should be paid to ensure that they improve their living standards and minimize the financial challenges experienced by individuals in college.
Motivate Student’s Work Ethic
Participating in college sport and course projects reveals that an individual has excellent time management skills. “Some students have managed to find the balance of athletics and academics” (Branch III 31). Moreover, teamwork skills are developed in college sports since coaches ensure that all players work together to achieve individual and collective goals. Therefore, students should receive fair payments to motivate them to join the college teams and develop other essential skills. Student’s work ethics are also vital since they involve leadership skills.
A leader has to possess various traits such as confidence, honesty, and excellent communication skills. In this case, encouraging students to participate in sports by paying them can enable them to learn such skills to help them in society after graduating. Furthermore, college students are encouraged to learn different aspects from other people they interact with to improve their social skills. Thus, sports can be used as a medium to allow students to learn from different individuals during competitions. However, failure to motivate them by offering fair payment can prevent them from engaging in sports activities. Thus, student-athletes should benefit from college sports to encourage them to join the teams, whereby they can learn different skills such as leadership and time management skills. Therefore, sports have been encouraged since they have a positive impact on an individual’s growth and development.
Increase College Graduation Rate
Many people in colleges drop out due to financial challenges. Moreover, some of the student-athletes join professional clubs before graduating to obtain funds. Many clubs have ensured that they pay their players adequate funds to prevent them from joining other teams. Therefore, some of the student-athletes who these big clubs have signed have dropped out of school since they experience financial challenges in college life. However, these issues can be limited by ensuring that college athletes receive their payments and coaches and institutions provide high-risk athlete-students with an enhanced array of supports (Vogel et al. par. 35). In most cases, people focus on the benefits of a particular activity. Thus, students ensure that they quit school and join professional tournaments, where they can be paid. The cost of college sports should also be analyzed to ensure that finances are managed and used to reimburse the athletes to stop them from seeking other money sources that can force them to drop out before graduating.
Scholarships can also be essential since they benefit college athletes. NCAA Division 1 and 2 have played a significant role in ensuring that schools can offer scholarships to incoming athletes. The cost of college sports has been analyzed to ensure that scholarships are used to reward student-athletes. In most cases, some talented students drop out of school due to a lack of college fees, whereby they join other clubs to acquire some money. Thus, these scholarship programs use financial aid from the universities to pay for the gifted players. Students are encouraged to understand what division level best matches their skills and start researching the colleges. The student-athletes can start communicating with the college coaches and ensure they learn about the institution’s recruiting process. Evaluating the athletic scholarship programs is also encouraged to enable individuals to learn how to benefit from college sports. NCAA should also ensure that colleges are encouraged to inform applicants about the programs that can help students during their university life. For instance, moderate amounts of funding to student-athletes can attract more students to the institutions.
Benefits from advertisements is one of the ways that colleges can reward their college students. Many colleges have used sports to advertise their programs, which benefits the schools. Typically, many companies use celebrities to market their products since it draws more customers. For instance, Nike Inc. has used various stars to market their sportswear. Consequently, college athletes can advertise various school programs to attract more applicants to their institution. Many talented students are likely to join schools that perform well in different sports. Hence, college athletes should benefit from the commercials since they help their colleges to increase their revenues by inviting more learners. Most college students are interested in fame and can be influenced to join the colleges by the renowned athlete students used in advertisements. Thus, many student-athletes have been of great significance to their schools and should be appreciated by the universities through compensation.
Counter Argument
Although many issues have revealed that college sports should benefit student-athletes, some factors have been analyzed to show the disadvantages of paying them. One of the aspects is that paying a huge amount of funds to students can lead to taxes, limiting their aids (Mills and Winfree 221). Moreover, the levies can be high to a point where players cannot benefit from the payments. Another disadvantage is that paying students can affect other college programs since many institutions will focus more on making profits from sports. “In this case, schools are likely to prioritize winning at the expense of educating student athletes, which can lead to violating their obligations to educate these students” (Kelley par. 56). Another issue is that some colleges have ensured that student-athletes benefit from their participation, whereby they are rewarded with free tuition and house allowances. Therefore, encouraging such institutions to pay the athletes can lead to financial challenges in the colleges. The process of paying college athletes can also be difficult since an issue such as how much they should earn in different sports is complicated. Moreover, people have argued that it would be hard to determine whether it is the institution or the NCAA’s responsibility to pay the athletes. Therefore, people have revealed that some disadvantages are associated with paying student-athletes.
Conclusion
College sports have a great significance to colleges and should also benefit student-athletes. Although there are disadvantages and advantages of paying the athletes, the pros outweigh the cons. Many students have argued that they have dropped out of school due to financial challenges. Therefore, such athletes can be paid to ensure that they acquire some funds to sustain them in college. Balancing sports training and coursework is also difficult for many individuals. Consequently, they should be paid to motivate them to work hard in both sports and academics. Benefits such as scholarships can also be used to help student-athletes complete their courses. Graduation rates can be increased since few students will join professional teams to acquire funds. Moreover, some of the students are from low socioeconomic families, and paying them and clearing their debts enables them to finish their college level. The financial burdens experienced by the parents can also be minimized by paying the student-athletes. In essence, one can argue benefits of college sports for the student-athlete should be analyzed to show that university players should be paid.
Works Cited
“The NCAA: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).” YouTube, uploaded by LastWeekTonight, 2015, Web.
Branch III, G. E. “Balance Between Win-At-All-Costs and Sportsmanship Hard to Find.” Diverse: Issues on Higher Education, 2015, p. 31.
Kelley, P. Christopher. “Institutional Reforms and the Recoupling of Academic and Athletic Performance in High-Profile College Sports.” The Sport Journal, 2018. Web.
Mills, Brian, and Jason Winfree. “Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics.” Review of Industrial Organization, vol. 52. no. 2, 2018, pp. 211-229. Web.
Vogel, Brenda L., Jeff Kress, and Daniel R. Jeske. “Student-Athletes and Athlete-Students: The Academic Success, Campus Involvement, and Future Goals of Division I Student Athletes Who Were University Bound Compared to Those Who Would Not Have Attended a University Had They Not Been an Athlete.” The Sport Journal, 2019. Web.