Sustained Research Essay-How To Pay College Athletes

Jordan Hofferman

Writing & Communications

Professor Dwyer

December 2012

How to Pay College Athletes

            As my alarm goes off every morning at 7:00, it is met simultaneously with Sportscenter’s trademark “Da-da-da, Da-da-da”. Along with millions of other men across America, I am hooked every time. I don’t end up getting out of bed until about 7:45 or so, but when I do, I am filled with an extensive range of what is current in the sports world today. Around this time of year there is a pretty well distributed mix: I’ll get my share of meaningless December NBA scores, the NHL’s latest statement of how much progress it’s making towards ending its holdout, and if I’m lucky find out about this week’s latest off-field NFL tragedy.  Regardless of the quality of news that day, you will not find me anywhere else between 7:00 and 7:45 each morning. In the next three weeks or so, the lead stories will begin to stray away from the professional ranks and instead focus on college football, more specifically the countless bowl games that are the annual culmination to each college football season. These corporate sponsored “championship” contests bring together business and amateur athletics on a national level. From the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida to the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl in Detroit, Michigan, the willingness of corporations to shovel millions of dollars into college football is far from a secret. We won’t have to wait too long after bowl season ends for college athletics to again cast a shadow over its professional counterparts. A certain basketball tournament, held each March and broadcast nationally on CBS is guaranteed to dominate headlines when the time of year rolls around. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

Division I Football and Men’s Division I Basketball are two of the most lucrative sports and entertainment businesses in America today. Schools such as Ohio State, University of Miami, and Southern California generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually through their basketball and football programs. Programs such as these often rake in higher annual revenue than some professional teams of the corresponding sport. In many ways, these collegiate programs are run analogous to their professional contemporaries. Athletes are targeted and scouted from the time they hit puberty. The amount of “0’s” at the end of the head coaches’ multi-million dollar contract is predicated off wins and losses. It is a priority of the university to fit as many butts in its 20,000 seat arenas and 75,000 seat stadiums as possible. When you add together the mandatory diet restrictions, countless hours (as many as 43 per week) of training, practice, and competition, as well as fan/media commitments, there is no hiding that this is an around-the-clock, full time job for the athletes. A full time job that does not pay its employees, a fact that is common knowledge to even the most casual college sports fan. The subject of whether to compensate these highest level athletes is becoming more heavily debated as the space between these athletes and professionals becomes greyer. Mark Emmert, President of the NCAA, claims any compensation beyond athletic scholarship would bring on the “death of college athletics” (Nocera). In many ways he is correct. One of the most captivating aspects of college sports is the amateurism of its athletes. People are drawn to collegiate athletics because they find it refreshing to see athletes play for pride rather than a paycheck. Certainly paying these players in the form of a salary would compromise the amateurism of the NCAA.

Division I schools allow 85 full athletic scholarships for football and 13 for men’s basketball. Those who oppose the idea of paying college athletes cite the athletic scholarship as justifiable compensation for the duties they provide for the university. A full athletic scholarship is an extremely substantial tool that provides an opportunity for an education to many who otherwise would not be able to afford college. That scholarship however is renewed on an annual basis and an athlete can have that scholarship revoked as a result of injury or poor performance. As a former Division II scholarship athlete whose scholarship was dropped as a result of injury and subsequent surgery, I’m aware of the hardships that can come from this type of situation, albeit on a much smaller scale. I wasn’t dependent on my scholarship, and losing it, while annoying and disheartening, did not signify the end of my days as a college student. My situation however is not mirrored by all athletes who find themselves in comparable predicaments. Imagine being an elite football player on full scholarship. You are beloved by your student body, faculty and administration for your athletic prowess and are responsible for the massive amounts of national attention, not to mention millions of dollars received by your school. Midway through your sophomore season, you suffer a catastrophic knee injury that results in a sudden end to the rest of your football career, on both a collegiate and prospective professional level. At the end of the season your coach calls you into his office and informs you that your scholarship will not be renewed and instead given to an incoming freshman. Let’s hypothetically say you are from a family who survives below the poverty line and whose sole hope for financial liberation was hinged on your athletic career. You, the most recognizable figure on campus, are suddenly left out to dry with no degree, no money, and no fall back plan. While an extreme example, this is the harsh truth of the lack of certainty ascribed with an athletic scholarship. Athletes are aware of this possibility when they sign their Letter Of Intent their senior year of high school.

The boundaries of amateurism, as per the NCAA are also the topic of hot debate. A variable that the three aforementioned universities at the beginning of this essay share is that they have been marred by recent scandal relating to NCAA amateurism rules. The most common high profile infraction is an athlete’s acceptance of what the NCAA deems an “improper benefit.” An improper benefit can range from an athlete accepting a free car from a professional agent to going out with a coach after the game and being treated to a cheeseburger. Obviously accepting compensation from a source outside the university is against the rules, but can you blame the athlete for taking it? As Michael Wilbon from ESPN points out, “if AJ Green, former wide receiver of the University of Georgia, has the ability to get $2,500 for his jersey, why shouldn’t he be able to do that?” (Wilbon) Aside from his 43 hour/per week nonprofit job, he is expected to maintain a full course load of schoolwork. He certainly doesn’t have the time to hold even the most flexible part time job so why shouldn’t he be able to make a little cash on the side? It’s an almost no brainer to many of these athletes when faced with this decision. Of course Terrelle Pryor, formerly of Ohio State, is going to sign a couple autographs in exchange for a free tattoo. Athletes will continue to break these rules for as long as the NCAA holds them in this vice grip. There is no rule preventing a collegiate musician or actor from making money off their talent, as long as it isn’t under a school sponsored play or show. Emma Watson was enrolled as a student at Brown as she was starring as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series. She certainly wasn’t working pro-bono. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook from his Harvard dorm room and presumably under Harvard’s internet connection but you don’t see Harvard after Zuckerberg as a result of this. Football players are not able to enter the NFL draft until after their junior year and basketball players must be a year out of high school to be drafted into the NBA. The very best are losing potentially millions of dollars with no real alternative choice. Job opportunities are available upon high school graduation for people from all walks of life who are talented in many capacities. Why should athletes be at a disadvantage?

 

Another variable in this argument is the companies outside the university that profit off these athletes on both a team and individual format. Video game companies such as EA Sports profit on using the likeness of collegiate athletes in their video games. Sure, the NCAA may be cut a fat check but the athletes don’t see a dime. This raises an argument on both a moral and legal level of whether it should be okay for athletes to not get paid when companies are making millions off their ability.  Individual universities profit from merchandise sales but again, the athlete see’s nothing. Former University of Oklahoma Quarterback and 2003 Heisman Trophy winner Jason White was one of the most recognizable and popular players in the nation during his tenure with the Sooners. Unfortunately for him, his skills did not translate to the NFL level and went undrafted and never played a down of professional football. Was it fair to White, a man whose highest moneymaking potential was probably during his days in college, to not be compensated in any way for the countless #18 jerseys sold during his time in college? The overwhelming majority of college athletes, even at the highest levels, will be going pro in something other than sports. Why shouldn’t they be able to have access to a portion of the money that companies make off their talent?

 

A glaring obstacle that would have to be addressed before any type of compromise is made is the issue of Title IX. Title IX states that equal opportunities must be available for male and female athletes at the same school (Grier). From the amount of scholarships allotted to the duration of time the teams can practice, everything must be equal. If a male basketball player were to receive any type of compensation, the same compensation would have to be made available to a female basketball player. Women’s sports such as volleyball and field hockey are supplied with scholarships to equal football. Whatever benefit is made available to football players would have to made equal to its female counterpart. A couple exceptions notwithstanding, women’s sports are not nearly as profitable as men’s. And those are the ones that are profitable at all. This would pose a difficult complication for both the NCAA and the universities.

 

Another issue would be what to do with all the other, generally less profitable sports such as baseball, lacrosse and tennis. Is it fair to discriminate off the sport the athlete plays? Is there justification for the top collegiate baseball player in the country to see nothing while the backup point guard at Duke gets paid? Then there’s the concern of Division II and Division III athletes. They are expected by their schools to make many of the same sacrifices as their Division I peers and are under the same amateurism rules. Is it fair to not compensate athletes at these levels regardless of what type of revenue their programs generate?

 

When taking some of these factors into account, it is highly unlikely we will ever see a pay-for-play system in the NCAA. This would drive a stake right through the heart of the concept of amateurism the NCAA prides itself off. It would undoubtedly turn away a significant percentage of fans. Any kind of agreement would have to in some way preserve the amateurism of athletes. Ramogi Huma of The Atlantic suggests a “lockbox” where some sort of compensation would be available to athletes upon graduation (Huma). This is an idea that I think has some legs, but I want to take it a couple steps further. I would propose a “lockbox” idea where the athlete and the university would have to come to agreement on a flat sum before the athlete sets foot on campus as a freshman (or in the cases of transfers whenever they enroll). The purpose of this sum would be to cover ALL circumstances where an athlete would have the opportunity to make money while in college. There would be a maximum sum as well as a minimum and all schools would be required to provide each player on the roster (scholarship or walk on) with at least the minimum. The same scholarship rules in this scenario would apply. Each school would have a limit set on what they can spend for the total lockbox and that limit will hinge on the revenue generated by that specific sport for that specific school. That limit will be allowed to fluctuate parallel with revenue. Instead of making the money available upon graduation, I would push it back to when the individual turns 40. This would give that person the opportunity to start their own family and have an established professional life. The obvious difference in maturity between your normal 22 year old and normal 40 year old would point to the money being used in a much more responsible manner. There are a couple clauses I would add to the lockbox agreement. First, because one of the goals of the lockbox would be to deter athletes from accepting “underground” benefits, the same NCAA improper benefit laws would be kept. Any player proven to have broken one of these rules will risk having their lockbox agreement terminated. This will give the players the unprecedented risk of losing more than just games. Athletes will most certainly think twice about breaking these rules if there’s a significant amount of their money in jeopardy. Next, the lockbox money becomes void if a player signs a professional contract in the same sport and earns up to or greater than the amount agreed upon in the lockbox contract over the duration of their professional career. A player who is cut because of injury or performance would receive the value of their lockbox, prorated to the year they stopped playing. The school would not be penalized and the rest of the money owed to that player would not be reflected in those schools “lockbox cap”. The lockbox would only be available to Division I Football and Division I Men’s Basketball. College is the gateway for much of today’s youth to the real world. As Wilbon put’s it, “it will be a good lesson in supply and demand” (Wilbon). In the professional world, those who generate the most business usually make the most money. If college is a stepping stone and preparation course to the real world, why shouldn’t the same rules apply? If anything, it may inspire young athletes beyond what they once were.

 

One potential flaw with the “enhanced lockbox” idea is the health issues that plague college football players in not just DI, but all levels both during and after their playing careers. As we become more aware about the extent that some of these injuries go to, the more evident it is that the NCAA needs to provide its football players with some sort of safety blanket. Joe Nocera of the New York Times has suggested the idea of lifetime health insurance for football players (Nocera). If this became an option, it would have to be for all levels of college football, as all players are at equal risk. I would suggest the money for this come from the NCAA. The money they make off video game and television contracts could go directly into a lifetime health insurance plan for players who play at least three years, unless that player suffered a career shortening injury. The insurance would cover that player ONLY (no family benefits) and would be available as soon as they graduate. Certainly, a chunk of the $11.3 billion that the NCAA is getting in television contracts alone would make a dent.

 

This may just end up being a glorified pipedream, as the NCAA will refuse to budge from where they stand until they are forced to. In order for anything to be set in motion, someone, most likely an athlete or group of athletes, would have to put their athletic career(s) on the line. They would have to challenge the very organization that they are a part of and in doing so could very well spell the end of their athletic career. The only thing for certain right now is that the NCAA is still the owner of what you have to call one of the most one sided business models active today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Frommer, Frederic. “Should College Athletes Be Paid? As Much as $1M Says New Report.” Should-college-athletes-be-paid?-As-much-as. N.p., 13 Sept. 2011. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.

 

Grier, Alvin. “Should College Athletes Be Paid? Pros and Cons of Each Perspective Part 1.” Get2TheLeaguecom RSS. N.p., 27 May 2011. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.

 

Huma, Ramogi. “How to Pay College Athletes: A Three-Part Plan.” The Atlantic. N.p., 21 Sept. 2011. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.

 

Nocera, Joe. “Here’s How TO Pay Up Now.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 01 Jan. 2012. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.

 

Simzak, Michael. “Bowling for Dollars: Should College Athletes Be Paid?” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 19 Dec. 2011. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.

 

Wilbon, Michael. “College Athletes Deserve to Be paid.” ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 18 July 2011. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.

Your Stupid Rage

The first sentence of  the essay grabbed my attention immediately because of the authority in which it was delivered. In the beginning, Phillips starts to discuss the nature of professional level coaches and how they have been infamous for years for “deflecting” blame of their team’s misfortune. He highlights the outward anger these coaches show towards the referee’s and points out that because their easy targets, they receive a lot of the blame because it’s most convenient for the coaches. He goes to add that this isn’t necessarily some smokescreen conjured up by the coaches, but they actually train their minds to believe these referees have a conspiracy against their team.

He then makes the point that the reason we are so drawn to these rants is because they represent the deep down unfiltered thoughts of our own. We have such a bias approach to how we view the game that we refuse to believe “our” team has anything to do with it. The coaches behavior only adds justification to our’s. When you turn the tables around however, and the other team’s coach  is now doing the same thing, it’s them who are crybabies and are making excuses. He goes into explaining how fans take a rest-of-the-universe-versus-us mentality and it’s either “your with us, or against us”. He says that the hyper partisanship displayed by these fans leads into this delusional way of thinking.

I feel this article was well written, and the points of the essay were hammered down in a very effective way. There were examples, such as fans getting angry and yelling at the tv, that were very relate able  however, I don’t think he touched both sides. Maybe for the sake of his argument it wouldn’t have been a wise idea, but I know some very civilized fans that are more than capable of rooting for their team through a partisan perspective.

Lobster Festival

To start, I was immediately drawn to this essay solely based off the topic. Lobster is and has forever been my favorite food and I have traveled every single summer to Maine with my family  for the past 18 or so years for the purpose of exercising this fancy. I have not been lucky enough to attend the MLF, however I have heard my dad bring it up before. I found this essay to be very powerful because it made me, the biggest lobster fanatic I know, cringe a little when describing the way lobster is “prepared”, a process I have been familiar with since age 5.

The essay starts off with an effective description of the festival and the enormity of the whole production. The negative stigma he attaches to “tourists” I find to be dead on for we always seem to run into similar people whenever we visit. A part I really took interest to was how lobster was perceived 200 or so years ago as compared to now. At one time lobster was known as a prison food and a low end one at that. Fast forward a couple centuries and you have one of the worlds most highly sought after delicacies. I know lobster didn’t always have the high end reputation it does today but I wasn’t aware it went to that extent.  

From the beginning of the essay, I could tell the direction was going to be in the way lobsters are prepared. What makes his description good is that you can’t really tell what side he is on for most of the essay. He describes the delectable qualities of the food but then goes into almost gory detail about how it’s made. The most effective part is when he relates a lobster to an actual creature with actual feelings and tries to put us in that type of situation. I had never really given it much thought before but his argument really compels me to believe this practice is in some ways inhumane. The intricate details and connections he makes, such as Aztec sacrifice and cattle slaughter, make this essay interesting and his thoughts effective. He brings both sides to the table and lets the reader decide how he/she feels. The fact that some cooks even have to leave the kitchen when cooking lobster gives substance to his argument. There really aren’t many types of foods that make me squeamish, by either methods of consumption or preparation. I have always thought about my mother as a bit of a “wussy” for not having the heart to cook a lobster and to only come into the kitchen once it’s bright red and cooked all the way through. In a way, after readying this essay, I can relate to her. I do not believe this essay will change my love for this food, nor will it send me on a detour on my annual pilgrimage up north. The fact that I will at least give this essay some thought the next time my old man and I drop a few lobsters in that boiling pot makes this a more than interesting and well written essay. 

Ways to Improve Group Collaberation

After reading Rosen’s article on group collaboration, I was able to draw a few parallels to the group I am currently working with and some of the techniques we have been using. First, the availability of the different technologies has been very helpful and has contributed towards our productivity, but it is the culture of the group that really gets the work done. Online collaboration is only as effective as the willingness of its group members to do the work. Google Docs, Minutes, and WordPress have all been very useful tools for our project, however they do nothing on their own. They certainly do make things a little easier for all of us but it all starts with the efforts we all put in as individuals.

 

It is probably a positive for our group that there is no real hierarchical structure. The way the project was put together was in a way designed to prevent just that. Everybody is responsible for the same amount of work, and therefore, the incentive to produce quality work is high. The democratic style in which we work allows us the freedom to dictate our own pace and focus on the actual content of our work.

The tools to which we are provided are only as helpful as we allow them to be. They are more or less empty gifts without the willingness of the group to achieve a common goal.

Group Progress Update

The online Zine we have decided to go with for our project I feel is the best way to get across the information we are presenting in the most effective way. We are doing it in a WordPress blog where the individual articles will be available on top of another. The other pages, such as the About Us page, the Mission Statement, and the Press Release, are going to be easily available at the top of our Zine, but it will be the “meat” of the Zine, the articles, that we want to center focus around. We want the articles to appear like individual blog posts on top of one another, with each containing their own individual aspects, however we are going for a common theme to be evident throughout each article so it flows and is easy to go from one to another.

Shirky Chapter 3: Mass Amateurism

When first looking through Chapter 3 of Clay Shirky’s book, “Here Comes Everybody” we learn the reason behind professions and why they in most cases shape our lives into a certain direction. We live in a world of specialization. It is much more valuable in our world to be an expert on one thing than have adequate experience or knowledge in multiple areas. Once we graduate high school, we start to hone in on what it is we want to specialize in and by the time we are our of college and graduate school, we are expected to be at a “professional” level in that area.

What the internet has been changing is the access to information needed to be considered an “expert” in any given field. Before, you needed a diploma, degree, and often a publishing contract or media related job in order to write about something and have it available to a large quantity of people. Now, all the research necessary to become an expert is at the hands of almost anyone and so is the forum necessary to publish their ideas. Wikipedia is a prime example of the capabilities amateurs have when it comes to contributing to the professional world. Obviously the world will always need its professionals (you wouldn’t want an amateur “volunteer” brain surgeon cutting open your head based off of 5 Youtube videos they’ve watched would you)? What the internet has been able to do however is give the “average” non professional a leg up on that similar person 20,30,50 years ago. A much higher percentage of the worlds population today has the ability to have their thoughts understood and their words read then at anytime before in the world’s history.

Different Levels of Plagiarism

After reading about the three different cases of recent plagiarism in the professional world, it became quickly evident that not all forms of plagiarism are committed in the same fashion, and not all carry the same weight. There are countless stories where a high school or college student will copy off a friends paper, buy a paper online, or even take information straight off a source and claim it as their own. What makes you raise an eyebrow is when these acts seep into the professional world and effect some well respected journalists.

In the Zakariah case, the CNN journalist used a passage in his journal almost identical to that of another article previously published. His mistake is obviously that he didn’t give the previous journalist, Jill Leopore credit for the work. Zakariah promptly apologized immediately after this story broke and took full responsibility. The quick apology and admittance to guilt in this case does have an effect on the story to me. It lightens the act and assures the reader that this is something that won’t happen again.

In the Anderson case, we have an author that didn’t properly cite himself while copying Wikipedia material in his book. I find this case to be a little more troublesome because Anderson claims to not have known how to properly cite Wikipedia and therefore didn’t feel the need to do so. Also, according to the article, it appeared as the quotes used in the book were more close paraphrasing verging on verbatim copying. I find this case to be a little more alarming than the Zakariah case in great part because of the attempted cover up.

The last case was an instance where an author, Jonah Lehrer, fabricated Bob Marley quotes in his book, then fabricated a string of lies in attempt to cover his ass. I find this case to be the most first and foremost alarming because Lehner did not only post information he didn’t rightfully cite, he completely made up a quote of his subject. Legally, that seems more serious than the other two plagiarism cases alone. To make matters worse, Leher started a string of lies once confronted about the incident and it wasn’t until he dug himself into a meteoric sized hole until he apologized and took responsibility. To me this is by a long shot the most serious of the three incidents and it would completely shock me if this guy was ever given a chance again to publish a book.

Shirky Chapter 2

When taking a look at Shirky’s first chapter in “Here Comes Everybody”, we get to see just how the internet is changing the landscape in which we communicate. Long gone are the days in which actual physical contact is necessary in order to put together ideas. In Chapter 2, we take a look at the hierarchical structure of firms and how an emphasis on management and organizational structure can be costly. We take a look at how the internet can completely bypass this idea and attain a highly efficient and productive end goal for a fraction of the cost. The internet has given us the ability to maximize our ability by incorporating a “one for all and all for one” mentality. 

 

There is a quote by college basketball coaching legend John Wooden that reads, “It is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.” I feel like this is the attitude that goes toward the success of a company like Wikipedia. Instead of having a hierarchical structure, Wikipedia employs a wide scale collaboration effort from countless contributors and has created the worlds largest online encyclopedia. What allows all the information on Wikipedia to be available free of charge is the volunteer work that goes into the business. The reason why Wikipedia is so successful is because the people that put all the time into creating these pages are doing it on their own time. They have to have a strong enough interest in the topic in order to put forth their own time and effort into publishing pro-bono work. Often times, you will see that a persons best work comes out not when they are compensated or have to work with deadlines, but when they are genuinely interested in the topic enough to make the effort for personal satisfaction. 

What Shirky points out is that a company like Wikipedia would not even be close to possible without the internet. The internet brings together the largest range of people and combines the greatest number of interests. This produces a wealth of both useful and not so useful information. A large number of things you see on Wikipedia are topics no company would dream of paying their employee to write about. That in itself is the magic of Wikipedia. It is able to combine the desire to learn and the desire to teach and make itself readily available for anyone.

Here Comes Everybody Chapter 1

The story of the Stolen Sidekick was an effective way to start the book because the story epitomizes the effectiveness technology can have with our everyday lives. Usually when someone loses a phone in a cab, that’s the last they will ever see of it, unless you come across an abnormally generous cab driver or an extortionist. When Ivanna lost her phone, her friend Evan went to extraordinary lengths to make it into a story and generate a significant amount of awareness about it. After making a great deal of noise, including the coverage of over a dozen media outlets, Ivanna finally got her phone back.

 

While this story is more of the exception rather than the norm in everyday life, it just goes to show what the power of the internet combined with a collective group effort can produce. The efforts of Evan to make this known over the internet rather than in the “real world” ie posters etc. gave him a exponentially greater chance of recovering the phone because he was able to eventually reach so many more people with useful information of how to recover it. 

8/29 McSweeney Discussion

Both of the the essays illustrate a comical yet accurate portrayal of a typical college student or young professional. It tosses aside the hardworking, dedicated depiction that society has grown to expect and instead replaces that with a much more realistic version of a minimal effort skater. In the Internet Age Writing Syllabus passage, the author frequently attests to society’s reliance on social media. He uses humor in non-direct demeaning way towards our generations mass dependance on social media and how it has dulled down the way in which we communicate. In addition, it addresses the broken down language which is very pervasive in social media and demonstrates how it would be tought in the contemporary world. One bit I found to be particularly funny was the “passage” that warned against reading newspapers or books by a fire, pointing out the danger of the paper catching on fire. Another humorous part was the grading scale of this prospective course. From a 90-100 “A+”, to and “A-minus, minus, minus” for a 0-49, the grading scale points out the obvious laziness and sense of entitlement of today’s generation.

In the writing class assignments post, the author uses “real world” examples that apply to what I have come to know as the typical college student. The informality and even crude topic suggestions point out the informality of this suggested course. His witty use of humor in this post exposes many of the real life techniques and the real life extents college students will go to in order to get around different obstacles.

In all, both posts capture and expose trends and tendencies that or accompany, or plague today’s generation, depending on how you look at it. The style of humor in both bits was very effective.