Commercialization of College Sports
Watching college athletes play sports is one of America and Canada's favorite pastimes. People love the thrill of hard competition and the fact that these athletes will always give 100% effort. College athletics has always been at the heart of this. It has always been something more pure than professional sports. Unfortunately, college sports today is a business and college players and coaches have drifted away from what it used to mean to play college sports.Every individual on a team is expendable, and every individual at one point or another will be replaced. Coaches will typically form relationships with their players on an authoritative level. The coaches sometimes control every aspect of the player's life. It can be anything from eating habits, extra curricular activities, and training for the particular sport, to such things as dating behaviors and other social characteristics of the normal life of a college student. Basically, it is just a trap. Take for example a high school student with great athletic talent and good enough grades that is recruited to a division one school with a large scholarship. Let's say he or she plays basketball. They will accept the offer and sign a National Letter of Intent, which declares that
It is well known that Ohio State University is a "breeding ground" for future NFL players, and so people can be sure that nobody goes to Ohio State because of its fine arts program. Ohio State is first known as a competitive football producer and is realized secondly as an educational institution. This school because of its past successes is endorsed by NIKE and also has an enrollment of well over thirty thousand students. The state of the art facilities there are directly related to this impact. According to an NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) survey done in 1998, sixty-seven percent of Division 1-A football programs showed an average profit of $3.9 million with many of the largest programs bringing in more than that amount. Add in revenue from other sports and the NCAA took in $267 million in 1997-1998. Universities definitely don't hide the importance they place on successful sports programs. if the student wanted to play for another school, he or she would have to take a full year off from playing that specific sport. Basically, the student is bound to that school; however the school is not bound to the athlete. The athlete will probably feel as though signing the letter is just a small price to pay in the way of higher education. If, though, the student in their first year of college believes that they are incapable of competing at such a high level; what once was a way to pay for their education has become their downfall. The contract that they signed is non-renewable and non-negotiable. The coach will therefore have to, let that athlete go. Since that specific athlete signed the letter of intent, they have no cha
Some common words found in the essay are:
America Canada's, Letter Intent, Division I-A, Nebraska Georgia, School Associations, Ohio University, Athletic Association, Red Sox, Donnelly People, Stephen Brunt, student athletes, college sports, pay education, college sport, college athletes, letter intent, specific sport, division school, colleges universities,
Approximate Word count = 1112
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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