Dear Editor, All student athletes need to listen up, because I am about to advocate for everyone who feels that they are being treated less than they should be. Being a student athlete myself, I had wish there were more perks for all of the work I put into making the athletic department to its highest standards. Although, I cheer on the sidelines for all of the sports teams, I see how hard they work, and feel I work just as hard as them. There should be a tweaking in how different sports and student athletes deal with this situation and should be the same across the board. I feel very strongly, and think that the importance of athletes getting paid and treated better for what they do is crucial. The issue of whether or not to pay colligate athletes a salary is a complicated topic of interest, and this is why I feel the need to put my word out there and be a spokesman for all student athletes. All student athletes should be given a full scholarship from the university. The scholarship should provide a generous amount that covers tuition, room and board, books, and a meal plan. This compensates for their blood, sweat, and tears, they put into their sport and what they love. However, there are many people who feel that the athletes are receiving an unfair deal for all the work that they do; such as the revenue that they bring to the university, and their appearance in memorabilia, and appearing in video games. On top of all of this controversy, student athletes often struggle to provide themselves with the basic necessities, from buying a meal when the dining centers are closed, buying toiletries, or even purchasing a ticket to go home incase of an emergency. This is the struggle that athletes face every day, while universities are making billions of dollars every year off of memorabilia, media contracts, and concessions, the student athletes are getting no form of credit.
Athletes should still receive a salary in exchange for their playing time, because of their perseverance and hard work besides the point of getting “VIP treatment”. Not only do the athletes receive scholarships they also receive paid summer classes, free uniforms, free room and board and even sometimes a free meal plan. They also are granted access to tutors that only athletes can use to help them accomplish their schoolwork in a more timely and efficient matter. Some players even get a stipend of around $1,500 a semester, which equates to almost $100 per week to spend on whatever they want. It may seem unfair to regular students when athletes are having all of their schooling paid for along with making the same salary that an upper class American individual makes just because they are playing sports. Clearly many people think that college athletes should not be paid a salary, but what they might not realize is that it would help not only players but also their families financially. Many athletes come from a lower class background, have to find ways to support themselves in college. With their workload in the classroom and on the field it is hard for students to go out and find a job. There have been many cases in the past where athletes have turned to selling drugs to make spending money and ease their situation. Skeptics that claim receiving a full ride is more than enough payment, and don’t realize that so many student athletes are so poor and have no source of income while attending school. This is hard to swallow when athletic programs and universities are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year off of these young adults. These Division I student athletes are competing with the best payers in the nation while the university just sits there watching and benefiting the money they make off of each individual.
Athletes may receive free tuition, room and board, books, and other incentives for the four years that they are in college for but what happens after they are done playing? These students put their body on the line every single day, competing against the best athletes in the nation for the benefit of their team, their university, and it’s community. If an athlete is seriously injured and can no longer perform up to the standards that he or she was recruited on, most of the time their scholarship is upheld along with the terms their scholarships were agreed on. What are the athletes from low-income families supposed to do? They cannot afford to pay the price out of pocket for everything that was supposed to be all-inclusive to them. If they were given a salary based on each semester, students can be financially independent and choose to spend their hard earned money on whatever they choose to. There could also be a case where they get hurt, they can help use the money to pay for school while they figure out what the is the next step.
Almost every other Division I sports program does not turn a profit and most even loose money and are supported by the other big programs like football and basketball. These are by far the two biggest programs that also bring in the most amount of money and they should be rewarded accordingly. Not saying they should be paid more, but I could see how they get treated better and given more things than other athletes. College is all about taking on new responsibilities every day and seeing how you react to them and giving players a salary is a great way to teach them how to manage their money in the future.