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Eric Maritato Ms. Rand English 1102 March 23 2014 The Treatment of College Athletes Imagine waking up at five in the morning to get ready for early football practice functioning off around four and a half hours of sleep. After practice you are required to go to class, mandatory meetings, film studies and scouting reports with your team throughout the day. After dinner when you think your day is almost over you have to go to study sessions for particular classes and then try and study for your other classes with the few hours of the night you have left. When thats all done you can finally go to bed just to hear your alarm go off four and half hours later, so you can wake up and do it all over again. This brings up the current debate of, are college athletes being treated fairly? This common question is floating around college sports today. Some people think they deserve some sort of pay, others believe their athletic scholarship and a free education is plenty. The thing is there is never a normal day for an athlete. They are constantly traveling, working out, practicing and trying to find time to study all at the same time. Universities are benefiting greatly from their athletes hard work and college athletics has turned into a huge business. Certain athletes have increased enrollment, improved recruiting classes for generations and earned their university millions of dollars in revenue from sporting events. On top of that The NCAA is currently earning billions of dollars in revenue from college sports, but their strict rules are causing student athletes to fight back with lawsuits. In this essay I plan on telling my reader the things that I believe should be changed in college sports and ways athletes can be treated more fairly. I will also talk about an interview I had with

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a division two college athlete and former teammate, Mike Sawyer and his argument on how he feels his athletic scholarship and free education is actually quite fair. Currently today top universities are signing contracts to athletes to play for their elite division one schools on full ride scholarships. This gives players a chance for free education, publicity off the field and the opportunity to show their talents to an entire nation on the field. This sounds like an incredible opportunity and an easy decision, but most athletes dont know exactly what they are getting into when they sign the contract. Players are required to fulfill a time commitment and their scholarship depends on it. For example at Northwestern University football season starts the first week of August. Players are required to report to training camp that last around a month. During this month players are constantly practicing, walking through plays and going to meetings to improve their skills. (Ohr 5) After training camp is over school starts and so does the regular season. The hours they put in are pretty similar, but now they have to balance school as well. Players have to put aside forty to fifty hours a week just for football. (Ohr 6) This is more hours then a full-time employee works at their job. On top of the fifty hours of commitment players also have to find a way to study. Athletes are also traveling on days they have class. (Ohr 6) During March Madness college basketball teams that make it far in the tournament can miss up to a month of class at one time. Personally I dont see how it would be possible to focus on your schoolwork and your sport at the same time. Practice, weight lifting, film studies and games take a physical toll on your body. All schools have a GPA requirement to play on a sports team, often around a 2.0. If you cannot meet the requirement you cannot play your sport. I would imagine players would have to pick easier majors in order graduate. Putting fifty hours into a sport a week and trying to become a doctor would be incredibly hard to accomplish.

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The NCAA and universities are earning massive profits from college athletes work. For example Johnny Manziel last years quarterback for Texas A&M who is now going pro has changed the image of his school for generations. For the three years Johnny played for the Texas A&M Aggies he cost his school around 120,000 dollars in scholarships, after Jonny Manziels breakout year donations to the school rose from 300 million to 740 million dollars. (Scwaltz) One study shows Johnny Manziel earned his school 37 million dollars in commission the year he won the Heisman Trophy. (Scwaltz) This is just one example of many on how one single athlete can earn their school millions. For the NCAA they earn even more. Broadcasters are paying 7.3 billion dollars over ten years to televise college football and the new playoff system and that is just football. On top of that NCAA also has a contract to televise college basketball that is worth 10.8 billion over 14 years. (Star) College sports have become a massive business. This brings up the debate whether or not college athletes should be included in the NCAAs wealth. Recently student athletes from Northwestern Universitys football team have been trying to form a union to improve the conditions for college athletes. This strike is led by Northwesterns former quarterback Kain Colter and National Collegiate Players Association. (Ohr 15) The quarterback and the director of the association went to court and were able to win the right to hold a vote to organize, which would finally give them a voice in the NCAA system to address different issues with college athletes. Some of their demands include a guarantee of treatment for sports-related injuries for current and former players. Better safeguards against brain injuries, a more complete program to ensure athletes leave school with a degree and the opportunity to pursue commercial endorsements.(Star) Something that stood out to me was college athletes wanting to pursue commercial endorsements. Currently for all of NCAA college athletics the rule for commercial endorsements is this: You are not eligible in any sport if, after

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you become a student-athlete, you accept any pay for promoting a commercial product or service or allow your name or picture to be used for promoting a commercial product or service." (Summary of NCAA Regulations 3) How does the NCAA have the power to do this? I think being in a commercial has no relations to playing sports. Players should be able to accept these offers and endorsements to build their savings and future career outside of their sport. To some extent I can see why the NCAA put this rule into place. Top division one players could make millions from commercials and endorsements and not all players would be smart with their money. Their work ethic in school and performance on the field for some players may diminish after receiving large sums of money, but the long hours athletes are putting in per week studying and working with their team is already negatively affecting their studies and performance. Saying that I believe this rule is too strict and could be changed by setting a line on how much money a player could receive from commercials and when they receive it. If players arent allowed to use the money they earned through commercials until after they graduate it will help keep students performance and work ethic up. Not only is has NCAA dealt with the attempt to unionize college football, they have also had to deal with a lawsuit when they sued EA sports over the NCAA college football video games for forty million dollars. (Russo) In old NCAA Football games players could play as major college football teams but the names of the football players were not used, but the similarities between the athletes in the game and the college athletes in real life was to similar and was the main reason of the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by a former UCLA basketball player Ed OBannon who said he was used in the video game without receiving compensations. (Russo) Other athletes claimed the same thing saying EA Sports used their names and likenesses without receiving pay. EA Sports was earning millions of dollars in revenue from the game

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without paying any of the college athletes. The case was settled in favor of the players and now thousands of athletes are eligible to receive money from previous NCAA football games. (Russo) For the future of EA Sports, college video games the NCAA has decided to know longer allow EA Sports to use their logo. NCAA Football 2014 was the last edition, but they will not stop making college football games. EA Sports will continue making the game just without using the NCAA logo. (Russo) In my opinion I agree with the lawsuit. A player in the game looked exactly like the player would look like in real life. In any other EA Sports game, such as Madden NFL or FIFA Soccer, players receive money for participating in the game. I am curious to see the next college football game produced by EA Sports and the changes they make. This is just another way college athletes have been treated unfairly. Not all athletes think they are being treated unfairly like I said before; I was given the opportunity to interview an old teammate Mike Sawyer who is now playing division two lacrosse at Pfeiffer University. He believes athletes are being treated fairly and he told me why. First off I asked Mike about his normal practice schedule at Pfeiffer University. Mike told me that he practices from 3:30pm to 6:15pm eats dinner and then watches film of previous games. This schedule is the same accept for Fridays where they have a scouting report after practice of their next matchup. (Sawyer) I asked Mike with the work you put on and off the field for your team; do you think you deserve some sort of pay? Mike said, No, that is the life of a student athlete and we knew what we were getting involved in prior to being an athlete. Balancing athletics and academics is not really hard if you just go to class. You will miss class every now and then for a game but on a normal practice day its class before practice. If you have to be late youre late, if you can not come one day so be it. (Sawyer) After saying that I asked Mike if his opinion is the same for top division one schools who would most likely put in more time into their sport then a

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division two athlete would. Mike stood by his opinion and said there is no reason why student athletes in any division should be paid they are receiving an absurd amount of money with their scholarships and receiving free publicity. They are also getting free everything including food, gear and equipment. (Sawyer) One thing we did agree on is we both think athletes should not receive a salary on the field for playing, but athletes should be allowed endorsements opportunities for the fame that they bring to their colleges and communities. In conclusion as you can see treatment of college athletes will be a heated debate for years to come. Even though Mike believes athletes are mostly being treated fairly since they know what they were getting into when they sign their contract, I still stand by my opinion. Things need to be changed in the NCAA, division one athletes are putting in more hours in to their sport then a full-time employee with zero incentives, accept their scholarship they agreed to. Players are having trouble finding time for school and falling behind in classes. Theyre switching the majors in order to have more time for their sport. I do not think players should be paid a salary for playing at their college because players will no longer play for the love of the game, but as I said previously players should be given opportunities to accept endorsements for the hard work they put in on and off the field. The NCAA is earning billions of dollars from their players and college sports have become a very big business. It is time we give back to the players and give them a little more freedom on what they can and cant do. Most lawsuits and violations are occurring in division one college football and college basketball. Players in these two sports have the biggest work load. If the NCAA could make rules more fair for those two sports in would be a major accomplishment. I hope to see previous Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter win his case and unionize football. Players will be guaranteed treatment to sports-related injuries. Better safeguards against brain injuries and a more complete program to ensure athletes leave

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school with a degree. This is outside paying athletes and is focusing on improving the safety of athletes which in my opinion will always be greater than earning money.

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Works Cited: Ohr, Peter. United States Government before the National Relations Board Region 13. ESPN Union Decision. 26 March 2014: Web. 30 March 2014 Russo, Ralph. NCAA Ending EA Sports Video Game Deal Amid Lawsuit. Huffington Post. 13 July 2013 Web. 30 March 2014 Sawyer, Mike. Interview with Eric Maritato. 24 March 2014 Scwaltz, Nelson College Athletes Aim to Put Price on Priceless. New York Times. 27 March 2014: Web. 30 March 2014 Star, Anniston. The college try (to unionize.) -- NCAA has mostly ignored complaints from scholarship athletes for decades. Editorial. 27 March 2014: Web. 30 March 2014 Summary of NCAA Regulations- NCAA Division 1. NCAA. n.d. Web. 30 March 2014