Student Athletes

College athletes are not professional athletes; subsequently, the sport an athlete participates in is not all they do all day, every day. These athletes also have their college classes that they must attend and keep their grades high in if they wish to continue playing their sport of choice. Currently, the NCAA has restrictions on how long a student athlete can practice per week, which as of right now is twenty hours per week (Jacobs). Even with these restrictions in place, colleges constantly exceed this limit in many sports, not just the sports that are bringing in revenue. The charts below show how long on average student athletes spend time either practicing a sport or competing in a sport. The charts shown below have been pulled from Peter

In every category of the chart based, on the data collected, every sport averages at least thirty two athletic hours per week when the NCAA’s limit is twenty-hours a week. In sports that are popular, such as Men’s Basketball or Football, the average hours per week is double the NCAA’s guideline. Women’s sports are not receiving any break either; in fact, Women’s Basketball, which has been historically less popular then Men’s, practices only around two hours less then Men’s. Keep in mind, these numbers are also from 2010 and are based off of student athletes self-reporting. This chart proves that student athletes that are involved with marquee sports, such as basketball or football, are not the only athletes being overworked in collegiate

This leaves no time for them to be able to have a full time job, or even a part time job. Without a steady source of income many student athletes have no access to money for crucial items that they need, such as gas in their vehicle or the insurance that covers their vehicle and so on; subsequently, students are not able to travel to places that they wish to go. However, if they were paid a stipend every week during their season, it would provide a steady source of income until their season ends and athletes can join the work force once again. Once an athlete starts a job after their season, they would not need the stipend anymore and the stipend money would be used towards the next wave of student athletes starting new seasons.

With new sport seasons starting year round, there will also be new injuries year round. According to the NCAA, “There were more than 41,000 injuries and 25 million athlete exposures from 2004 to 2009” (Football Injuries Data from the 2004/05-2008/09 seasons). Those forty one thousand injuries were just from football alone. Concussions are one of the most common injuries that occur in college sports. Recently, concussion rates have been rising, below is a chart the ratios of the odds that a student athlete will suffer a concussion while playing collegiate