Rochell Battle

Professor Warren

ENC1102

9April 2013

           

The exploitation of today’s collegiate student-athletes, especially the athletes who play in sports that generate massive amounts of income, has been a controversial issue for years. Student-athletes are considered amateur athletes, meaning that they cannot be paid for their services like a professional athlete would. In most cases, these athletes are on some type of athletic scholarship, meaning that their athletic ability is enough to make the university pay for their post-secondary schooling, whether fully or partially. These scholarships are may equal up to several hundreds of thousands of dollars when tuition, lodging, books, travel expenses, equipment, medical attention, and paraphernalia are taken into consideration as well. The hundreds of thousands of dollars that these schools pay for these student athletes pale in comparison to the hundreds of millions of dollars that the universities are making off these same student athletes year around.

 On a deeper note, many collegiate athletes aren’t provided with the necessary social, psychological, and academic support system that matches up with the strenuous workload that students shoulder; these are reflected in an alarmingly increasing rate of dropouts and declining graduation rates. There have been talks of a compensation plan for these student-athletes, but all in all students aren’t getting the proper support system that they need.

Here are some major findings from the National College Players Association: “College athletes on a full scholarship do not receive a “free ride”. In the 2009-2010 academic year, the average annual scholarship shortfall (out of pocket expenses) for Football Bowl Series (FBS) "full" scholarship athletes was $3,222. The compensation of student athletes who are on “full scholarship” receive for living expenses (room and board, other expenses) situates the vast majority at or below the poverty level. The average FBS “full” scholarship athlete earns less than the federal poverty line by $1,874 on campus and $1,794 off campus. If allowed to access the fair market like the pro, the average FBS (Division 1) football player and basketball player would be worth approximately  $121,048 and $265,027 respectively (not counting individual commercial endorsement deals). The year-old NCAA TV contract with CBS will average about $270 million in new revenues above and beyond its previous TV deal with CBS.” (Staurowsky).

These findings confirm the fact that collegiate athletes are being exploited the moment they step foot on campus; living below the poverty line while their coaches get paid millions of dollars, coupled with shouldering a full time course load, among a plethora of other things that may lead to psychological and social ailments. This could be explained by the declining graduation rates within the student athlete community, especially minority athletes that come from impoverished situations.

“Put differently, there are challenges minority student-athletes encounter which are not commonly experienced by non-minority student-athletes, and this as well warrants them receiving social support. These challenges have been well documented (Brooks & Althouse, 2000; Harris, Altekruse, & Engels, 2003). For instance, researchers have called attention to the racism and discrimination minority student athletes encounter from people within and beyond the university community, such as being treated differently than their White counterparts, being dealt with rudely or unfairly, and being denied access to campus leadership positions (Singer, 2005; Smedley, Myers, & Harrell, 1993). Further, minority student-athletes have often been perceived as competent in their sport, yet intellectually inferior to White student-athletes (Sailes, 1993; Harrison & Lawrence, 2004). In fact, it has been noted that, generally, individuals tend to give greater attention to the athletic prowess rather than the academic ability of minority student-athletes (Lapchick, 1996b), and this happens quite often with particularly Black male student-athletes (Hodge, Burden, Robinson, & Bennett, 2008). The challenges that minority student-athletes encounter at PWIs have also included prevailing racial stereotypes. For example, minority student-athletes have encountered professors who stereotype them as having been matriculated at the college/university based on affirmative action policies, or because general admission standards were lowered to help admit them (Scales, 1991). In other words, some professors have believed minority student-athletes to be incapable of gaining entry into their respective institution based solely on merit. Other scholars, such as Fries-Britt and Turner (2002), discovered that minority college students felt that they were stereotyped as the “token representative” in their class. For that reason, they felt enormous stress and pressure to prove that they belonged and could meet the demands of higher education (FriesBritt & Turner, 2002). Minority students also felt they were stereotyped by their White peers as being the one and only voice expected to represent all opinions of minority people” (Thompson).

The graduation rate is ultimately the main issue at hand, because it is the education of these athletes that makes the biggest difference in their lives. This is why the main focus of a university, of the athletic department, of the coaches, and finally the players should be graduation. Although the sport of choice should be a focal point as well, nothing should supersede education in any case during a student athlete’s tenure at a university. “Recently, the low rate of student-athlete graduation success has become a concern of the NCAA, individual universities, and the public. Although more recent studies have found that there has been a slight increase in the graduation rates of NCAA athletes, they are still sub-par and usually below those of the non-athlete undergraduates” (Heydorn).

All in all, there a many factors that goes into the proper molding and shaping of a young student athlete’s life. These years are vital and can shape the student athletes lives forever, so there must be tools to help shape the lives of student athletes in a positive light. Student athletes are the pistons run a multi-million dollar engine that is collegiate athletics; the least the NCAA and these universities can do is make sure that they are living above the poverty line, are duly compensated, have a great support system on and off the field, and make sure that they are graduating. Many groups are being exploited in today’s society, like in Miss Understood, and collegiate athletes are one of those groups.

Works Cited

Heydorn, Ellen. "Explaining the Graduation Gap - Athletes vs. Non-Athletes: A Study of Big Ten and Missouri Valley Conferences." The Park Place Economist (2011): 25-33.

Staurowsky, Ramogi Huma & Ellen J. "The Price of Poverty in Big Time College Sports." n.d. National College Players Association. 9 April 2013. <http://assets.usw.org/ncpa/The-Price-of-Poverty-in-Big-Time-College-Sport.pdf>.

Thompson, Jason. "Social Support and Minority Student-Athletes." Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletes (2010): 234-252.