Barrett 1

Brendan Barrett

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

2/16/2017

College Athletics: 21st Century Jim Crow

Introduction/Overview

I will be investigating NCAA on their paternalistic control over amateur athletes;

preventing superstar athletes from the pay that they deserve and using them to run a multi-

billion-dollar business. The age-old argument has been that athletes are given an opportunity at

free education, and an opportunity to get exposure for the professional level. All of which sounds

very convincing, but what is their education truly worth?

I looked through a lot of different websites such as Time Magazine, CNN, and even the

NCAA website for research. I found that an overwhelming majority of schools could care less

about the athletes education, and focus strictly on their athletic performance. Per Time, UNC

offered a no show class for student athletes (where students received grades for phantom

classes that they didnt attend), and Syracuse allowed academically ineligible athletes to

compete. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported last year that the NCAA was in the

process of investigating Academic Fraud at 20 colleges. Theres a lot of other information that I

found and plan to use for the paper itself. The research that Ive conducted so far has been very

useful in assisting me to better understand my topic and get a few different perspectives that I

could write about.

This topic is very complex because of all the varying positions and opinions that people

have on it. A couple of examples for the side that is favor of paying the athletes: College athletes
 Barrett 2

put their bodies on the line, risking injury and physical health without compensation; The student

athletes bring in a lot of money for their school; Compensation for their work would help to

create a sense of financial awareness. A couple of examples for the side that is not favor of

paying college athletes: The athletes already receive scholarships and other benefits; Paying

college athletes could detract from the purity of the game; Its too difficult to determine a proper

wage for the athletes.

My Interest in this Topic

Im interested in researching this topic because I am an avid sports fan and can see the

unfair paternalism of these athletes happening right before my eyes. My sister plans to play

college sports within the next couple years and I dont think its right that she is sacrificing her

time, and health for what could potentially not even pay off. I know that scholarships and other

benefits are given to athletes that attend big-name schools but in terms of DII, and DII schools

what are the real benefits to playing sports other than the love of the game!

Next Steps

For my research, I will continue to use magazines and sports articles to inquire more

about this topic. Such as; Sports Illustrated, ESPN, CNN, CBS Sports, News & observer, etc. I

also plan to use the librarys database to find scholarly articles and books about my topic.