Fees For High School Sports

Do student athletes make the most of their opportunity to obtain a post-secondary education? Do they have the same academic success as those students that are not athletes? Are student athletes just “dumb jocks?” The answers to these questions might surprise you. Much research has been done to dispel the myth that athletes going to college are only there to play sports with little regard to their education. Programs have been created to assure that colleges and universities hold athletes to the same standards as the everyday student. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has decided that the “magic number” to put the “student” back into “student-athlete” is 925 (Hamilton).

College is a time for young people to develop and grow not only in their education, but social aspects as well. One of the biggest social scenes found around college campuses are athletic events, but where would these college sports be without their dedicated athletes? Student athletes get a lot of praise for their achievements on the field, but tend to disregard the work they accomplish in the classroom. Living in a college environment as a student athlete has a great deal of advantages as well as disadvantages that affect education and anti-intellectualism.

In “The Case Against High School Sports,” Amanda Ripley, a journalist for The Atlantic, states that America is spending more money on high school sports rather than on academic purposes. “High School Sports Aren’t Killing Academics, “ written by Daniel Bowen, a postdoctoral scholar at Rice University, and Colin Hitt, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas, discusses the benefits that come out of sports programs to improve the classroom and the school’s social capital. Co-founder of a sports recruiting social network, Kai Sato’s article “The Case For High School Sports,” focuses on how school does not just involve scoring well on a math test but to educate us to be productive in what lies ahead. Ripley’s article discusses how

Sports have always been a hot topic in the academic world. They are seen as a great extracurricular activity that creates a sense of community between players. On the other hand, sports are viewed as a distraction from school. Everyone can agree that sports have become the focal point at many schools leading teachers to feel academics have become secondary. The seemingly endless debate is addressed by Dr. Mark Edmundson in an article of his that was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Literature surrounding athletic participation and its impact on the college experience is well documented (LaForge & Hodge, 2011). Many scholars purport that athletic participation enhances the academic experience, while others argue that it creates a divide between colleges’ missions and student-athletes lived campus experiences. To support this claim, Lawrence, Henedricks & Ott (2007) found in their study that nearly one-third of faculty who responded to their survey indicated that they believed that academic standards are lowered to achieve success in the sports of football and basketball. One question that is often posed by

The NCAA believes “that a student-athlete is a student first and athlete second.” Student-athletes benefit more than from playing a sport that they love. The graduation rate is higher among the student athletes than the general student body. “NCAA studies show that student-athletes enjoy high levels of engagement in academics, athletics and community: have positive feeling about their overall athletics and academic experiences: attribute invaluable life skills to being a student-athlete: and are more likely to earn similar or higher wages after college than non-student athletes.”

To many educational institutions, it is controversial whether or not sports are beneficial to scholastic success. Offering athletic programs is said to supply students with an enhanced learning experience, as well as adding amusement to a rather dull school year. Therefore, sports should be provided in all schools to reduce stress, improve academic performance, and develop teamwork skills and equal opportunity in school.

They view participation in sport as an aspect that goes along with one’s studies. This mindset is symbolic of collegiate authorities from the late 19th century who strongly worked towards maintaining the academic integrity of the institution that they were a part of. One of the things that makes this topic so special is the fact that millions of dollars are made every second off of collegiate competitions and days continue to pass where a solution is not found to make this fair for everyone.

The argument of sports in our high schools will not go away, as kids go to high school and experience the American obsession with high school sports. High schools are supposed to be a place of learning, so we must ask ourselves what are they really? As posed by Ripley, “If sports were not central to the mission of American high schools, then what would be?” (1). I feel that the focus of our high schools should be academics, not how good you are at a sport, because we come to high school for learning and

The college athlete should not get paid because the school pays for the them to go to school (Joe Smith). The teenagers are getting a free education that many people can’t pay to earn. They go to school for free and get to play their favorite sport. The social cost of college sports are high (Porto, Brian L.).

Throughout these articles, the main ideas were athletics taking precedence over academics, transitions from high school to college, why athletes cheat, fairness of regulations, and reform of NCAA policy. While all of these are very different concepts, they come together to help audiences understand all facets of college athletics and the relationship with academics. Although these topics are common through all of the articles, not all authors shared the same views on issues, nor did they all regard them with the same level of

As a student, I have intimate knowledge of the subject as I engage with education frequently. I experience how athletics affect students’ lives and what the alternative to athletic participation results

When it comes to the topic of college sports, most of us will readily agree that attending college will benefit the students and players lives in the future. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of whether college sports should be supported or apart of the college experience. Whereas some are convinced that college sports benefit universities in many aspects, others maintain that college universities were built for students to succeed in academics. Although colleges were built for academics and not sports, college sports should be included in universities.

Everything in the world cost money, but everyone makes sure that what they enjoy doing gets the most priority of money spent towards it. The average cost of a high school sport per athlete is on average $400 (Granata). This does not include any extra sporting gear for the athlete, hotel money, traveling out of town, or anything else that is not base price. Many parents and other sport spectators use money as a reason that sports should be taken out of high school because they see it as too expensive for just a little bit of fame. There has been a tremendous amount of solutions for funding high school sports. Many coaches around the entire country have come up with ways to start fundraising to make sure that their sport does not get cut because of funding. A wrestling coach started a program where the community could “rent a wrestler” and the wrestling team would get the benefits, and a football coach at Wilsonville came up with a fundraiser “chicken and bean bowl” which would generate $7,000 in donations and raffles (Daschel). There are many coaches that have gone through the extreme to get money for their sport which shows that there are ways to fund any sport. Most sports are very expensive, but it should not mean that a high school student’s dream should be taken away.

Sports and the general physical activities have been associated with a plethora of benefits. Not so much in correlation with education though. The debate on sports and academic performance relates as to whether sports affect academic performance positively or negatively. Mostly, academics, especially in high school and colleges, require an enormous time commitment. In the same way, sports demand time commitment. Apparently, academics and sports run linearly and either would consume the time of the other. Such would be the argument put forth by the claimants of the negative effects of sports on academic performance. The opponents to the positive correlation of sports and academic performance ground their arguments largely on the time commitment that the two require claiming that sports would consume a student’s time for study hence affecting their academic performance. Proponents of a positive correlation between sports and academic performance summon an extensive range of evidence showing that students who participate in sports perform well in academics. The proponents’ arguments are fetched from the proven benefits of exercise which improve a student’s overall well-being and motivate their academic performance. Opponents would, however, argue that the studies that find athletes and sports persons good at academics do not show how such correlations occur in that other factors could be the actual causes of the correlation and not sports in themselves. Regardless, opponents to the claim that sports affect academic performance positively cannot deny that sports affect the overall well being of any human being. As such, there is no denying that sports affect academic performance positively where a balance among the two is maintained.