Persuasive Essay: College Players Should Get Paid for College Athletics

“UNLV quarterback and former five-star recruit Tate Martell has retired from football”(Salvador). College players should get paid for college athletics. Players put their health and wellbeing on the line every day for no pay. College athletes don't have enough free time or time to do other things in their life.  

College players put their health and wellbeing on the line every day when they step on the field. This article by Preston Blake backs this statement,” the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), out of every 1000 college players, 8.9 of them get seriously injured each year…”(Blake). This shows that the college injury amount is at a high number and only will continue to rise. College players risk their health by playing any type of college sport. Players get seriously injured and cant play again. It is not worth putting the rest of your career on the line as Tom Dart expresses in this excerpt,” Stanley Doughty, a top defensive lineman at the University of South Carolina in the mid-2000s who suffered a serious spinal injury”(Dart). This player never played another down in football. Players are putting the rest of their careers on the line for no pay. Players get injured and when they get injured they can have effects on their professional career and rest of their life as stated in this quote by Paul Weinacht,” You get a physical on the way But there isn’t a physical on the way out. No one asks about your injuries when you leave.”(Weinacht)

College players also need free time to do other things such as mental health, academics, free time, etc. Players have academics to work on too and sports can be a hindrance to that as Jasmine Harris says in this article,”(Sports players)quickly fell behind due to scheduling constraints. Only so much time was set aside for academics and, often, it wasn’t enough”(Harris). Players have to have 9 credit hours out of 12 hours out of the day and sports can affect that. Also, players have been known to be stressed out due to sports this is not good for their wellbeing and sometimes forces them to quit. Bryan Mann backs up my statement,” Stress-injury models of health suggest that athletes experience more physical injuries during times of high stress”(Mann). Lastly, College players don't have free time or time to be normal students. Players don't have a lot of free time because their sports take up too much time as Josh Rosen states in this quote, "Look, football and school don't go together. They just don't. Trying to do both is like trying to do two full-time jobs”(Rosen). Players don't have time to do many things such as doing things to better themselves.

Some people may say that students shouldn’t get paid for playing college sports for multiple reasons such as there's not enough money, that it’s not fair to other students. This article by Alexandra Laurence explains one of the reasons why college players shouldn't get paid for college athletics,” If a university starts paying student-athletes, it could negatively affect other sports programs. There would not be enough funds to pay every single student-athlete equally and to be able to keep every single sport”(Laurence). This is flawed because players can get paid the money made off of their name or the sport they are playing for. Another reason is that it is not fair to other students in the college. An unknown author of collegesportsmadness.com agrees with this statement by saying,”...(its)not fair toward other students. Athletes are not considered the only students who struggle to afford tuition, books, and other expenses”.This statement is also flawed because the colleges get an estimated 18 million dollars off of student-athletes there not getting 18 million off of regular students, so it would make sense for them to pay the players who make them this large sum of money. In conclusion, different people have different views on if college athletes should be paid or not.

Players put their health on the line daily or sometimes multiple times a day. Athletes also sacrifice their free time and time for their mental health such as seeing family or having time to relax. In conclusion, Players should be paid for their sacrifices in sports.