College Athletes Should Be Paid
I am a young black high school athlete. I put in work six to seven days a week twelve months a year. Sometimes I have stress levels of a grown man between juggling school, sports, home and my personal life. School has always been hard for me and I feel like I have to work ten times harder than other students to just get a passing grade. I know that I would never get an academic scholarship so my only chance of attending a D1 school would be through my gift of playing football. I suffered a head injury last season that made me question if this is all worth it. Is risking my health and even my life worth a college scholarship? Can I stay healthy throughout my football career in college if I make it?
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USC’s football program recorded one of the worst graduation rates for black athletes with only 48 percent. The Graduation Success Rate for all Black student athletes at UCLA is roughly 74 percent, compared with 89 percent for Whites, a 15-point difference (Glenn 2013). The Graduation Success Rate for all Black athletes at USC (including mostly basketball and track and field) from 2007 to 2010 was 53 percent, or 18 points less than the overall 71 percent Graduation Success Rate for White athletes (Glenn 2013). At UCLA, Black athletes make up approximately 51 percent of the football roster and approximately 72 percent of starters. In basketball, Black athletes make up 80 percent of the team and starters. These numbers show that these colleges do not care about the athlete off the field, off the court or once that athlete gets …show more content…
It’s not uncommon for high school athletes to accept some type of an incentive to attend a college who is interested in recruiting him; however this is breaking the NCAA rules. Many college athletes are just looking for a source of income that they can survive off of. Most families cannot support their kid in college and pay their own bills too. Some say that if you pay one college athlete then you have to pay them all, including swimmers, runners or cheerleaders. With colleges making multi millions off of sport programs then there should be some type of way to divide that extra revenue in a fair way. Even if it is paying that athlete for each hour they practice, train or