Need for Reform in Collegiate Sports
The Need for Reform in Collegiate Sports The current institutional structure of intercollegiate athletics is attempting to maximize educational quality and athletic excellence simultaneously. Each of which will inevitably impinge on one another. Universities claim that their athletes are amateurs who are attending college for academic achievement and play sports in their free time. This is an impossible task for anybody. Higher education has entered the arena of big business with its athletic programs and with it many problems have emerged for coaches, athletes, and the athletic system itself. There is systematic corruption. Exploitation and hypocrisy are givens in college athletics. Athletic personnel are mistakenly given the responsibility for academic integrity of student athletes. With this responsibility emerges at best indifference and at worst complicate the corruption in college athletics. There is a huge demand for reform. The critics argue the issue of amateurism versus professionalism in college athletics. They also disagree on the means in which reform should be instigated. Many look towards the government for answers while the NCAA would like to regulate itself. There needs to be resolution somewhere because
Shannon Brownlee and Louis Barbash stress this point in their essays supporting professional zing college athletics. Reform needs to trickle down to high schools and junior high. Sports teach, "enduring values of challenge and response, teamwork, discipline, and perseverance (McKerrow, 63). They should also be entitled to full four-year scholarships. College teams would become a simple investment like apartment buildings, real estate, ECT. This is not a new idea, but the amount of money and popularity generated by this enterprise has overshadowed any progress. The major conferences have a 900million contract with ABC to televise the football bowl games. Universities primary existence is due to an academic mission, not athletic entertainment. It is a known fact that 44% of all African Americans in collegiate sports expect to play professionally. Unprepared and unmotivated athletes are no longer in classrooms. Each team playing in the series will receive 170million dollars. Research from a college Sports and Society class found that simply implementing one rule would take care of the problem facing college athletics. I feel that they are hypocritical in their actions and become part of the problem. This will not decrease the number of students getting educated. Raymie McKerrow, a professor, seems to think this is not all negative.
Common topics in this essay:
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Raymie McKerrow,
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