The US Supreme Court, the NCAA and many states have agreed that college athletes should be compensated for use of their images and their names. High school athletes in the major sports will be recruited extensively by big universities, wined and dined on big budgets and in ways most other college freshmen never will experience. They will have great facilities to train and play in. They will be trained by coaches who will make more than any professor or even the president of the university. They will be fed, housed and given top notch medical care as well as scholarships and tutoring. They will get free media coverage on a regular basis, national attention, profiles and performance awards. They can hire agents and create clothing lines. They will get adulation for what has little to do with the academic mission of the universities.
True, these athletes perform in front of large audiences and generate large amounts of money for their universities. But they are not victims. And it often seems they are really more entertainers/performers than they are students. The star players will, get the financial rewards even though they could not perform as they do without their team.
Many students, especially in the performing arts and the sciences, put in as much work and as many hours in pursuit of their dreams as athletes do. But with much less recognition. This is the reality we have to accept in a system in which money rules and subverts academic values.
No comments:
Post a Comment