Pro/Con Paying College Athletets Essay

Even though paying college athletes may be fair in some people’s eyes, there are many negatives to this topic that could affect college sports for today’s athletes and the future of their sport. The NCAA and their colleagues all have different views and they vary from being supportive and backing up the idea, to being one hundred percent against it. No matter what type of fan it is and no matter what sport it is, there are positive and negative views on this argument and the variety of disagreement is astonishing. The most positive outlook on this is in most eyes would be that paying the athletes would be fair, and that they deserve at least some money. And even though that is without a doubt the most popular opinion, there are still many more. If the NCAA decides to pay the students, a good way to keep paying college athletes under control is by paying the student athletes for certain things, the key word is student. One plan is too pay the athlete as long as him or her maintains a certain grade point average. â€Å"If we want to reward college athletes and dramatically reduce the cheating that goes on in college sports, we should consider paying student athletes $1,000 per month during their four years of eligibility, providing they maintain a pre-determined grade point average† (Freeman, Marv). This plan would not only keep the student athletes in school, but it would make them do well and succeed in school. Even though some fans of pro sports may want to see a star player leave and go to the pros after one or maybe two years, education is still very important and so is graduating. This strategy would be a great motivator and would without a doubt grab the attention of the player’s parents. Another positive affect is that without a doubt the amount of money brought into colleges and universities would increase by large amounts because it would attract more student athletes to go to college. This plan could affect all levels of student athletes in a more than positive way; it could change the future of student athletes forever. The controversy on player’s safety is a very big issue in pro sports, but you don’t see nearly as much attention on it in college sports. There is no doubt that injuries occur more often in pro sports, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen in college sports, and the NCAA really doesn’t protect their players very much at all. A solution to this is to have the players sign a contract for the college or university they attend. The contract would contain a variety of things, but the two most important things would be a certain amount of money and then a health care plan for the athlete. Lifetime of health insurance and benefits is very important to athletes, and remember not all student athletes go pro so they don’t have the luxury of pro sport health benefits. This plan would without a doubt make more players not only want to stay in college to receive these benefits, but it would also make student athletes want to attend a college and not have to worry about being disabled as an adult. Joe Branch, a great high school football player, told reporter Joe Nocera that he had turned down a scholarship to play football at Georgia Tech because, â€Å"I wouldn’t have had any shoulders left if I had played football in college.† This man turned down the opportunity of a lifetime because of the fact he knew he wouldn’t have health benefits for playing college football, so he had to give up his dream. This plan would be great for the NCAA and their athletes now and especially in the future. To every controversial topic there are positives, and there are negatives. In this case a huge problem is, where is all the money for the players going to come from? There truly is no answer for this, that’s why paying the athletes isn’t even close to becoming a done deal. According to Mike Higgins of USA today, only 20 NCAA division 1-football programs make a profit. And considering the fact that college football is the most popular NCAA sport, the number of other sport programs making a profit can’t be a very large number at all. Another question that can’t be answered is, do you pay all the athletes? There is no doubt that men’s basketball and football bring in the most money for their schools, athletically speaking, but you can’t only pay them. According to http://www.statisticbrain.com/ there are over 420,000 student athletes and combined in Division 1 and 2 there are 26 different types of athletic programs. The amount of student athletes and athletic programs makes it almost nearly impossible to have enough money to pay every single athlete male and female. This also puts small schools at a huge disadvantage. Schools like Notre Dame, Texas, Florida, Ohio State, and Alabama already have huge reputation advantages over small schools, but if the NCAA starts paying their athletes the bigger schools like the ones I mentioned will be able to offer so much more because schools like that already make more than enough money. Overall, this point in the argument really shows that if the NCAA starts paying their athletes it would truly take a  miracle to come up with that kind of money, and if they ever did come up with the money, it wouldn’t be fair to many schools across the country. One of the many reasons why the NCAA is considering paying their athletes is because they believe it will stop all the â€Å"under the table deals.† A solution like that will not stop corruption in the NCAA. That kind of solution is just the easy way out, and it won’t stop the people who offer the student athletes money, cars, jewelry, tattoos, etc. because those kind of people will stop at nothing. If the NCAA truly wants to put a stop to players accepting or being offered gifts they need to enforce more discipline. According to Todd Pheifer of Yahoo News, â€Å"Cam Newton was ultimately â€Å"exonerated† by the NCAA while at Auburn, there were stories of an $180,000 payment that was demanded by Newton’s father for Cam to attend Mississippi State.† A young and naà ¯ve student athlete would take that kind of offer without even hesitating because the amount of money the NCAA is offering to pay the student athletes, couldn’t even come close to that. Overall, the main point of this is that if the NCAA believes that paying their athletes a certain amount of money is going to stop the offers and the greediness, they are going to need to come up with a better plan then that. Even though paying college athletes may be fair in some people’s eyes, there are many negatives to this topic that could affect college sports for today’s athletes and the future of their sport. As we see here, there are many great controversial arguments on this topic. The cutting off of the athletes money if their grades slip, also the health care plan would not only help the reputation of the NCAA, but it would no doubt make the game safer and assure the student athletes a better future. On the other hand, we still have no idea where the money would come from and who would they give it to. In conclusion, I don’t believe the NCAA should pay their student athletes, even though it may seem like the fair and just thing to do, there are just too many negatives and downfalls to this argument and in the end would more than likely put many colleges and universities into debt.