Paying College Athlets: Pros and Cons

Many issues have been hovering the sports world recently, especially the of paying college athletes. Some claim athletics are so important that colleges need to put out millions of dollars per year just to pay for students to play for them. As said in a Huffington post article on this topic, paying college athletes is like throwing a lit match into a haystack: once the fire is started, it just keeps burning, making a bad situation worse. There are many differences between the haystack and paying athletes. For starters, throwing a needle in a haystack is a totally negative concept; everything will burn. However, with paying college athletes, some are able to find reasons why this could be a positive thing. For an example, some believe paying athletes will bring more competition to the table and make some colleges much more talented or gifted than others. Others say this will bring in more money and more revenue fro the program and the school.

Another, difference is the end of the situation. At the end of the fire, there is smoke and it will eventually snuf itself out. But, this is an issue that isn’t able to be extinguish by itself. No matter what the ruling on this matter, someone is going to be vexed and the "fire" will keep burning. Consequentially, exept these differences there are many similarities. One is the haystack going up in flames and the whole educational system along with it. If we pay our college athletes the focus will be more on the monetary value that are able to rake in, not at all on the learning. College is supposed to prepare a student for life's work through learning, not be life's work. College sports will also become more like professional sports that is manly about money and less about sport itself. Related to this are scholarships. Are scholarships not enough of an incentive. And how is it decided by how much money each player receives. What does this monetary equivlent for inate athletic abiligy, depend on how much they receve.

Continuing, this has to deal with going up in flames. By throwing one little lit match into that haystack, the whole thing goes up. Just by paying college athletes many other issues arise. Paying athletes may bring in more revenue, but how much of that will actually go back to the college or institution that they play for. This issue that comes up is the fairness to other students. Young athletes already receive many things that non- athletes do not. Not only do they have the opportunity to travel and stay overnight in the best hotels, they also get special treatments away from the sport. Some athletes may receive special attention from certain professors or even people throughout the town in which the college is located.

A third similarity between the burning haystack and paying athletes is the rate at which things will "burn". The haystack will burn fast, leaving nothing behind, and getting bigger and bigger as it goes. The same goes for this issue. Everyone wants to voice their own opinion about it, snowballing into a bigger and bigger issue. People will quickly become angry and quick to defend their side. Paying college athletes is like throwing a lit match into a haystack: the educational system and other issues go up in flames and they will occur very quickly. I believe there are more problems with this idea than there are good things about it. I find nothing about it to be worth spending millions of dollars to pay students to play a game. They need to be worrying more about their studies. This issue will be burning for a long time.