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College Athletes Should Be Allowed In College

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Imagine making the decision to commit to the University of Oklahoma to play collegiate basketball at only 14 years old. Most kids your age only dream about having such an opportunity! Once the time finally comes to hit the court, you only play for a total of six minutes because you sustain a severe knee injury, putting your life and sports career to a complete halt.
This is what happened to the 6-foot 8-inch forward, Kyle Hardrick, in 2009. The talented young athlete lost his scholarship, meaning his family got slammed with the costly tuition of attending the University of Oklahoma. And, because his family could not pay the steep monthly fees, he couldn’t receive a transcript to transfer to another, less expensive university. While Hardrick …show more content…

(Siebold) He is being paid for winning games that haven’t even been played yet! Harbaugh is being paid without needing to worry about injuring his body, losing a scholarship, or paying for housing and meals. He does not have to stress about paying his college tuition. His 38 million dollar contract is proof that college athletics are not equivalent to a sports club. College athletic programs are a massive industry that is designed to make money off talented strong young men and women who work just as hard if not more than those that are paid millions to exploit them. There is absolutely no reason why these hard working student-athletes should not be paid for their efforts. A barely discounted college education is simply not enough. And in most cases, if a player is injured and cannot return to play their sport, their scholarship is dropped and they are made to pay tuition that was originally promised to be free. The student-athletes are struggling deeply, while the schools, the TV networks, the vendors and the local communities thrive. Year after year, college athletes entertain, perform, and compete in front of the millions of fans who watch them religiously. Million dollar advertisements are played during their games by huge corporations and the coaches make millions of dollars to coach them in salary, bonuses and even …show more content…

However, many if not most of those students, will not be able to come up with the money to pay for college until years later, when they have their own jobs and can make their own money. Even with their jobs, however, they still find themselves under the stress of thousands of dollars of debt. Students find themselves struggling throughout the year, finding ways to balance sports, education, and a social life. Students who feel prepared enough to tackle a sport their very first year of college often find themselves overwhelmed, thinking about all of the bills that they are leaving their parents at home to pay the price for. While families drown in debt because of the money that they owe in tuition, student loans, books, and meals, the coaches of college athletics are floating comfortably in the money that they receive for doing nothing but giving kids guidance that they already received in high school. These coaches are most likely not lifting one finger; they are hoping for a win from their team, and they are hoping for a bigger paycheck. However, coaches would not have even half of the career that they do without their student-athletes. Coaches would have no one to coach if there weren’t families willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars that they don’t have on their kids and the sport(s) that they have a passion to play. Coaches owe

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