Meghan Walsh's Article 'I Trusted Em'

Both chapter 4 of my SPH-M328 textbook Sports in Higher Education and Meghan Walsh’s article 'I Trusted 'Em': When NCAA Schools Abandon Their Injured Athletes, that I critiqued, were concentrated upon the lives of student-athletes. Although both were centered on the examination of issues that student-athletes, the scope of these two articles differed. Walsh’s article focused in on the emotional, physical and financial ramifications of injuries for student-athletes. Chapter 4, on the other hand, utilizes a more broad perspective and examines numerous facets of the life of the student-athlete including: academics, social lives, recruiting, usage of social media, their relationships with their coaches, as well as usage of intoxicating substances.

Schools aren’t even obligated to pay the medical bills for injuries suffered by student-athletes whilst representing the university. In her article, Walsh, uses the harrowing stories of Kyle Hardrick and Stanley Doughty to further drive her point home. These athletes were both abandoned by their school’s athletic department after they could no longer offer any value in their respective sports. As a result of their injuries and the callous actions of their athletic departments, both athletes were denied the opportunity to receive a degree from the school where they had initially committed. The NCAA isn’t exactly innocent is this whole affair, as their rulebook offers little to no guidelines in regards to health care for student-athletes. Also the NCAA’s rule that makes athletic scholarships year-to-year has allowed coaches to revoke a student-athletes scholarship because of their

Among the topics this chapter looks into is how participation in athletics can put student-athletes at a disadvantage both socially and academically relative to their peers. While in-season, student-athletes often are spending 30-40 hours a week on their respective sports; which is the equivalent of a full-time job. This exhaustive time-demand often makes it difficult for athletes to develop relationships with peers who aren’t fellow student-athletes. The lack of interaction between student-athletes and their non-athlete peers contributes to the cultivation of the academically inferior and “dumb jock” stereotypes that many non-athlete students hold of student-athletes. The time commitment that athletics require also has a negative effect on a student-athlete’s academics. College-level academic work is often a major step-up in difficulty from high school for many new college students and thus they may need time to adjust. Student-athletes are often not afforded this luxury because, from the moment they set foot on campus, they are expected to devote a significant amount of time towards their athletic performance. Since student-athletes often spend more time on athletics than on academics, they often only strive to get by in a class. Student-athletes are sometimes even steered into undesirable majors because they interfere less with their