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The definition of amateur in sports is, a person who engages in a sport on an

unpaid basis. Until 1986, when the rule was changed, professionals were not allowed

to compete in the Olympics. The Olympics is a non-paying event. The payment that an

athlete would get is the satisfaction of representing their country and maybe even

winning. The issue of paying college athletes has a lot of similarities to Olympic athletes

and how they used to have to be an amateur. College athletes are amateurs and

therefore should not be paid for playing for the college or university that they are

attending.

The main service that colleges and universities provide is their education.

According to Troy Onink, CEO of the college payment planning website stratagee.com,

in his article on Forbes, College education worth $830,000 more than high school

diploma. These athletes who want payment are either forgetting the sole purpose of

being in college or are ignorant to the fact that they are in college to learn. Most of these

athletes are receiving full-ride scholarships, which means everything is paid for them.

However, some people say that full-ride does not necessarily mean free because of

extra costs like travel. According to Dennis Johnson and John Acquaviva, professors in

sports science, in their article, Point/Counterpoint: Paying College Athletes, the extra

costs can range from $2,000-$3,000. The idea that players full-ride scholarships are

less than what is expected is shot down very quickly because $2,000-$3,000 is nothing

compared to the average cost of tuition at a public institution.

If athletes were paid, a whole new spectrum of scandals could spring up because

of greed. In the Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10 says, For the love of money is a root of all kinds

of evil. There are already scandals due to money that happen now within college sports

without payment to players. For example, The Week Staff, authors of articles on
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theweek.com, write in their article, Top 5 'pay to play' scandals rocking college

football, that in 2005 Reggie Bush won the Heisman Trophy. Then in 2012 he returned

it and gave up his Heisman status because investigations had found that he received

up to $300,000 worth of illegal gifts from marketing agents. This scandal could be

relatively small compared to ones that could come in the future if players begin to

receive payment. Although scandals may not be the same with money, money involved

in the sports creates problems. One of the biggest scandals that has happened in

professional sports is the one with Lance Armstrong doping. According to Juliet Macur,

writer for The New York Times, he won the Tour De France 7 times but it was later

found that he was using performance enhancing drugs and was stripped of his titles. Of

course, one of the reasons that he did this had to be driven by winning and being the

best. On the other hand, another had to be the money. All athletes strive to become

better. If this striving is money driven, they will do anything in their power to have it.

Therefore, paying college athletes would do damage rather than enhance college sports.

Overall, a college athletes priorities are: student first, athlete second. It is like

this because the college is there for the athlete to learn. Playing sports is a privilege that

the college provides. To help these priorities to stand, the NCAA has put into place rules

and regulations that make sure the athlete is learning. In order to play, the student

must maintain a certain GPA. They are also monitored closely by counseling staff to

make sure they arent slipping up in any of their classes.

Greek Philosophers had the balance between sport and education worked out

long before the more modern era of sports that we have today. Eric Sobocinski, lawyer

at Walker Lambe law firm, tells us about those philosophers and the Grecian culture

they resided in
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The new cultural ideal, developed by Plato and Aristotle, focused on an

ordered and rational conception of reality derived from immediate

experience and promoted intellectual virtues. The resulting culture

demoted the status of athletics from the center of the religion and

festivities of daily life, to merely a part of the entire learning process. The

philosophers advocated physical training in order to achieve a balance

between development of the mind and the body. The ideal person was

able to achieve in both areas of development. The past emphasis on

challenges and contests, on strife and learning experience, was replaced

with a movement toward peace and harmony. Although the Greeks may

have learned from the past overemphasis on athletics, they were still able

to reform their ideals and recognize the value of athletics within

development of the entire person. (266-267)

Plato and Aristotle are very famous philosophers whose words still help people lead

their lives today. They were able to reform the cultural ideal of ancient Greece with their

words and those words have held up, to some extent, until recently. Athletes nowadays

are all about the money and just focus on their sport. This is what the athletes of Greece

did until Plato and Aristotle came along to show them that peace and harmony were just

as important to develop themselves as an entire person. This can be true today with

education. The overemphasis on sports need to be tapered away with education as a

substitute. This can be done by putting education first. With education first and sports

second, the overall quality of the athlete can be improved because they are learning in

the classroom as well as on the field.

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Many athletes believe that they should be paid because they have to work much

harder than the average student. Going along with that, since they are working a lot

harder, they are not able to get jobs to buy things like new clothes and to go out with

friends. This argument does not hold because all college students are broke, whether

they play sports or not. The athletes even have an advantage of their school being paid

for. While, on the other hand, an average student has to pay for their tuition and be

broke at the same time. Johnson and Acquaviva state that

Other benefits to the athlete include the regular use of pristine gyms, well-

manicured fields, athlete-only (and often team-only) workout facilities,

sports medicine care, the opportunity to travel via away games, specialized

meal plans and free foot gear and athletic attire. In addition, athletes are

improving their trade from the best coaching minds in the sport; not to

mention having access to some of the best nutrition and

strength/conditioning personnel. And perhaps the most overlooked

benefits are that the school provides the player with high-profile name

recognition, a dedicated fan base, media exposure, and a competitive

atmosphere with proven rivals, all of which took decades, effort and

money for each institution to establish.

What they are saying here is that even though no monetary payment is involved, other

forms of payment, besides education are involved in playing sports in college. This is

especially true for high-profile teams.

Some people say that the rule that players are not allowed to be paid is

hypocritical. They say this because the university profits from their players performing

well and succeeding. However, even though the universities are profiting from the
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players, the profits go right back into the athletic programs. The profits can help fund

costs that the team has, like travel for example. They can also bring in new players with

full-ride scholarships. In his article, Paying College Athletes: Take Two, Andrew

Zimbalist, the Robert A. Woods Professor of economics at Smith College, says that, Not

all 350 athletic departments in Division I make money. In fact, only 20 do, and that's

before considering millions of dollars a year in capital expenses. When capital expenses

are included, there are fewer than 10 athletic departments a year that generate a true

surplus. So, according to that, most schools are not making profits from the athletes.

Essentially the players are playing for their education. Mike Emmert, president of the

NCAA, could not have said it any better when he stated, rather than push college

athletics further and further from academics, we need to bring it closer.

The issue of money and universities profiting from players also brings up the

point that only a certain pool of teams win championships every year. These

championships create revenue. Now, if only a few teams win every year, then only a few

teams will get the majority of the profits. Then, if you allow the universities to pay their

players, this will lead to an even smaller pool of teams who win. This is because the

teams with the money will easily pick up the high profile players because those players

will be looking for the school that gives them the most money. While, on the other

hand, the teams without money will have to settle on the low profile players. This

process will lead to an increase in competition gap between teams and there will be less

and less competition each year. For example, even now, without paying players, only

certain football teams win the National Championship game every year. Nam Le,

graduate student at UCLA, presents information in his article on SB Nation that gives

evidence to this claim. His data shows that in the BCS bowl era of NCAA football, 16
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championship games have been played. Of those 16, only 15 different teams have played

in it, and of those 15 teams, only 11 have won it. Imagine if the universities were able to

pay the players! There would be a lot less competition than there is now.

If payment of players was implemented into college sports, then college sports

would have more of a professional sport feel. This is positive for some people like

professional coaches looking for players who are ready to come to the next level.

However, there are negatives to a more professional feel. One of those negatives is the

reality that the athletes are making money. This money is not scholarship money, it is

their money and they can choose what they do with it. This creates problems that show

up in professional athletes. Problems ranging from gambling to buying illegal things

can occur and ruin the athletes career. Also, just the feeling of being paid to play a sport

can change someone. It becomes all about greed and fame. The athlete will become

consumed by themselves. Then when graduation day comes and they did not care about

their grades and barely passed their classes, they will either enter the draft of whatever

sport they play in or settle for a mediocre job that they do not enjoy and are

compensated very little. If the latter happens, the athlete may not be used to not having

money at his/her disposal like when they were in college from playing sports. This

could cause them to become impoverished and live a low quality life.

In conclusion, college athletes should not be paid for their work that they do. In

paying athletes, college sports would be ruined, reasons for athletes to go to college

would be skewed, and many more controversies like the Reggie Bush scandal would

arise. College is a place to learn and grow towards the next chapter in life. If that

chapter is in a professional sport, then the athlete will finally be paid. If the chapter is in
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their career field, like most athletes will be in, they will be prepared from what they

learned on and off the court.

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Annotated Bibliography

Debate Club. "Should NCAA Athletes Be Paid?" US News. U.S.News & World Report,

n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2015.

The Debate Club presents the issue of paying college athletes. They state both

sides of the story and then end off with a quote from the NCAA president. This

quote swayed me towards no payment to athletes. The president of the National

Collegiate Athletics Association stated that the athletics need to become closer to

academics rather than further away. This means he is against paying athletes and

I will stand with him.

Johnson, Dennis, and John Acquiviva. "Point/Counterpoint: Paying College

Athletes." The Sport Journal. The Sport Journal, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2015.

The authors present the issue of paying college athletes. They state both sides of

the story which helped me understand the topic more clearly. I believe that the

authors have come up with great points and sufficient evidence to support no

compensation for college players. They show this when presenting the

counterpoints, or people who think that the athletes should be played. The points

that these people make are loop holes and excuses that try and support their

claim.

The Week Staff. "Top 5 'pay to Play' Scandals Rocking College Football." The Week. The

Week, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2015.

This article showed me the scandals that have happened over the years in college

football. The scandals shown are pay to play which means athletes were caught

being paid to play college sports. Paying college athletes is illegal, therefore it is a

scandal. The stories helped me realize that paying college athletes would just
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make scandals become more prevalent. The scandals may not happen in the

same way, but, because money would be involved, more issues would arise than

be solved.

U.S. Sports Academy. "NCAA Division I Athletics: Amateurism and Exploitation." The

Sport Journal. The Sport Journal, 3 Jan. 2012. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.

This article stated a new side to the story that supported payment of athletes but

then also show why payment of athletes is not necessary with multiple example

situations. It helped me form new ideas of how people can see the argument and

overall gave me more insight into the topic.