High School Athletes Turning Pro

The topic of my final paper is the decision of young athletes to forgo college and turn professional. In thinking about why athletes make these decisions you need to understand both sides of the decision. There are benefits of turning pro and also draw backs of bypassing college. There are conservative people who believe that everyone should go to college and get an education. These are the people are that believe that it is wrong to skip college to pursue a career in sport. There are also liberals who believe that every player is different. Each player has reasons why they would or wouldn’t turn pro after high school. These liberals believe that if the player thinks that it is in his best interest to bypass college then that’s what needs to be done. I chose this topic because I understand both arguments for and against making the conversion to the pros. This topic would interest me if I was a student athlete looking to pursue a career in sport. The topic really interests me because I would like to be involved with college athletics, and if this situation would arise with a recruit that my school was trying to sign I would be directly affected by the decision. To fully be able to talk

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In summary there could be some things changed in our current system but for the most part it works.

In discussing the topic of high school athletes turning pro I would think in a structional functional perspective. But who wouldn’t like to get that check in the mail? Each player who decides to go to the pros has a different reason why they want to skip college. A high school player could turn down millions expecting to get the money after a couple years of college and then get injured and never be able to play basketball again. People have hosted TV shows, radio shows, written columns, and has been the subject over meals. It also brings people together and creates social interactions. This way players who didn’t want to attend college could still get recruited by the NBA. There is no way that you can make a young athlete go to college just because he needs to play basketball there. (Gerald Olivari, June, 2002) Five more players will declare themselves eligible for the upcoming draft. While thinking about high school athletes turning pro in a structional functionalism perspective, I would have to believe that the current system is correct. The media always begins talking about the young kid thinking about making the jump. In the future there will probably be some tinkering done to the way players advance there skills but for now the system works and that is all you can ask for. There are some negative things involved with structional functionalism, including over emphasis on the good things that happen and under emphasis on negative things. One problem with this is that students in the same class are not always the same age and it could cause some other problems. (Bobby Narang, July 1998) Basketball is the sport we hear the most about when a player goes to the NBA straight from high school.

Approximate Word count = 1739
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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