Ethical Issues In College Sports

846 Words4 Pages

Introduction: Since the beginning of college sports, people have been captured by it. Some fanatics will say it is not a game, but a way of life. Today millions of fans, young and old, flock to stadiums and arenas around the country. They aren’t paying to see super-star millionaires, they come to see teenagers and young adults in college compete against each other. These athletes of big-time division I college football and basketball teams aren’t your typical college students. They were chosen to come to these universities for a reason. However it is not for a higher education, rather than to play sports. The student-athletes of today’s big-time college sports are closer to full-time employees rather than students. In this paper, I’ll present …show more content…

Whether it be for pride issues or money, people have always tried to gain an edge on opposing teams. The NCAA started in 1910 with sixty-two members. According to Mary Miller (2012) the NCAA was created to “protect young people from the dangerous and exploitive athletic practices at the time” (p. 1141). She went on to say during her study, an NCAA employee told her the organizations “father was football and its mother was higher education” (p. 1145). The NCAA as an organization has always been about sports first, that’s why they were established. They weren’t protecting the students and their education but the athletic side of college. Even before 1920 the relationship between the student and the athlete was becoming a gray area. In Miller’s findings (2012) “Study in 1929 to the NCAA focused on the two main issues, commercialism and negligent attitude towards the educational opportunity for which a college exists” (p.1145). This has been a problem for decades now and it’s only gotten …show more content…

Rheenen states 90% of revenue generating athletes are African-Americans (2012, 559) p. More specifically poor black athletes. In 1985 Harry Edwards called African-Americans the “backbone” of revenue producing collegiate sports (p. 10). The NCAA takes advantage of these kids because they are the easiest to abuse. Universities offers a scholarship and pay for them to go to college for free or a reduced fee. Without these scholarships many student-athletes would not be able to go to college. In this instance, the NCAA and the university control the player. If the kid doesn’t comply with the NCAA and follow the rules, they take away his scholarship and he’s unable to attend his university or play his sport. Consequently these kids are caught under the NCAA’s spell. For some, the only way out of their community is to play a sport and try to make it to the professionals and the only way to do that is to play for college teams. They work their whole life for it to try and make it big. LeBron James, a professional basketball player, won’t allow his son’s to play football because