Senior Collegiate Athletic Association : Sport Scandals

In mid-1999, a student by the name of B.J. Durham transferred schools as a result of his mother’s divorce and financial struggles. B.J. was a cross-country/track star at his previous school, Park Tudor Private High School, and was rumored to be moving for athletically-motivated reasons. Because of the hearsay, B.J. was not granted full-eligibility by the IHSAA but partial. B.J., the plaintiff in this case, was also denied access to the Hardship Exception which would’ve granted him athletic eligibility in full. B.J. and his family took their case to court. The court issued a permanent injunction against the IHSAA’s decision, to which the IHSAA later appealed. The court stood on their decision,

People ask all the time, “Why does the NCAA put sanctions on football programs?” When I was young, my favorite football player was Eric Dickerson. I never understood why people criticized him about his college playing days, so I asked my dad about it. He said that Dickerson’s college was given the “Death Penalty”. The Original “Death Penalty” was put into effect at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

The NCAA has been around and evolved since the beginning of college sports. This organization is a non-profitable organization, but ironically makes more than millions of profit per year. Branch states “that money comes from a combination of ticket sales, concession sales, merchandise, licensing fees, and other sources—but the great bulk of it comes from television contract”(pg. 228). Meanwhile, the student-athletes do not receive any of this money. This is the start of an unsubstantial business between universities built around amateurism.

Student athletes at division I schools, where an immense amount of revenue is generated at games and events, are not being paid for their work. This is immoral because the NCAA uses the athlete’s likeness and then the athletes get no direct (monetary) compensation. We should approach evaluating the morality of student athletes using the normative theory of Utilitarianism that supports the claim that student athletes are exploited in their work and on the other hand, Kant Ethics that claims the results of the athletes do not matter, because consequences do not matter.

In 1995, several years after he stepped down as the NCAA’s executive director of 36 years, Walter Byers published Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes. The title didn’t belie the book’s content. Among Byers’ confessions was the deception he sought in coining the well-worn phrase “student-athlete” to describe college athletes.

Student athletes face a major problem that the NCAA holds them accountable. If any student athlete commits what is held as an NCAA violation they are forced to miss playing time or other consequences as well. NCAA violations have become a chronic problem in collegiate sports. When students violate the NCAA rules it can jeopardize their future career in whatever sport they are playing. Some of the rules don’t even make sense they are just useless. These rules need to be dealt with in order for the students to just be able to go along with their lives.

The NCAA is a money-generating monster that disregards college athletes’ financial well being. How can we stand back and let the NCAA steal money from the hard working athletes that provide it? Take this for example: Philip is a landscaper that works hard day in and day out mowing yards. He is not always perfect, and makes the occasional mistake. Even though he make mistakes, he is good at what he does. Now imagine if Philip earned a very small amount of the total money made. The rest of the money goes straight to his advisor who sits around and does nothing all day. This is what collegiate sports have come to. Collegiate athletes are working hard by earning money for the NCAA. The NCAA is

I do believe that had college football leadership been less uniform and remembered the fact that the lives affected by these scandals were more important than the game of football, there may have been less victims, and the resulting consequences would have been far less severe. The majority of historical scandals involving college football involve paying football players, cheating, and in some cases more severe allegations of sexual misconduct like those of Penn State and Nebraska. Nebraska had allegations of multiple players playing watch out while another player raped multiple victims. Many colleges have been caught in scandal only to repeat the same scandal over and over until the NCAA drops the ball on them. Coaches are known to have the attitude that wins are more important than anything else. Perhaps this culture comes from the high turnover level of coaches who fail to present a winning team. It is not only the coaches but teammates as well who feel they need to keep quiet in difficult situations. In the NFL, other examples like Tom Brady’s deflate gate, Adrian Peterson’s child abuse case, and Ray Rice’s domestic violence case, are all examples of teammates and team staff knowing about certain situations and either not caring or pushing things under the rug only to win games. It only takes one whistleblower to report incidents that are criminal in nature and protect innocent victims from terrible

It is the NCAA’s policy that no student athlete shall receive any special benefits or compensation in regard to their status as an athlete of a university. This basically means that no player can accept gifts or services with any special benefits from school or athletic personnel, or receive any benefits for outside entrepreneurship for reasons regarding their play. For example, a student athlete cannot sign a jersey with their number on it and exchange it for any type of compensation. However, over the past few years, many scandalous conspiracies of soliciting services to athletes for their commitment and play have surfaced. Due to the NCAA’s stance on this issue many of these violations have left athletics programs with sanctions that in reality are very unnecessary and hardly ever punish those who initially violated the rules. The fact is that the college athletics generates on average 10.5 billion dollars of revenue annually, and the NCAA organization alone, about 720 million annually. Of that 720 million that the NCAA accounts for, only 60 percent of that is returned to the Division I universities whose athletics accounted for almost all of it. The rest is dispersed into other funds such as championship games and the national office services, with a small amount being paid to division II and III schools. However, of that 60 percent paid back to the Division I schools, which amounts to approximately 430 million dollars, the majority is spent by the University on

In the area of collegiate sports, there have been numerous heated debates about the integrity of many things concerning the NCAA and how it handles legal and ethical issues. Two well renowned scholars tackle this issue in their co-authored book entitled

Negative publicity by external aspects (later articulated) provided a constant reminder of the negative reputation that the scandal brought about. Replacement of staff members to fill voids, receipt of grants and tuition sources, and academic support, were victim to short term and long term effects including a lack of overall general expectation for advancement and achievement. Although the NCAA banned Penn State for the postseason for four years and reduced football scholarships from 25 to 15 for a total of 4 years, its initial sanction brought forth negative public perception, further affecting potential students and employees from joining the university (Pickle, 2017 & Murphy,

Secondly, there are many different NCAA recruiting infractions that can lead to severe punishment. These punishments are not only for the coaches but for the illegally recruited players as well. There are certain criteria that decide what is and is not illegal, but some might not seem as severe as one might think. For example, the NCAA defines illegal contact as any face-to-face meeting between a coach and athlete as anything more than saying “hello” (Disalvo 69). Although this may seem to be a bit drastic, it makes it obvious to the players and coaches exactly what rules and guidelines to follow. Also, even though young athletes may not know at the time, their eligibility is put in jeopardy when the colleges that recruit them are not following NCAA rules (60). This, in some players’ eyes, is as unfair as because they may feel that they should not be penalized for something that they did not know about. However, it is the player’s responsibility to understand and comply with all NCAA rules and regulations, therefore it is their fault. Overall, cheating in NCAA athletics includes actions that violate regulations of sport governing organizations, such as those dealing with recruiting and eligibility (Shulman). With everything in the

Colleges will cheat the system in order for school profit to be consistent. Not only are colleges cheating the system, but are cheating the rest of the students going to the college as well. CNN, the Cable News Network, is a basic American news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. The article ‘How College Sports Cheat Student-Athletes’ was written by Sally Kohn, an activist, columnist, and television commentator who goes on to explain the sneaky workings some colleges have recently been caught for:

Whether it be baseball, football, soccer, or basketball, sports are appreciated not only in America, but all over the world. One of these sports that is particularly popular in America is Football. The immense crowds of people who sit at a stadium or on the couch to watch a game never fail to recognize every single play on the field; however, many fans pay little to no attention to one of the most important components of the game, the player-association relationship. When signing a contract with an NFL team an NFL player is effectively dedicating his life to his new organization. His duty is to play for his team in order to make the organization money, and money they make. In the NFL last year “each team received $226.4 million” (Brady 1).

Federal and state governments should stay on the bench when it comes to funding professional and collegiate sports. The costs of becoming a player in the game would greatly outweigh any benefits government involvement would bring. Furthermore, using federal or state money to subsidize and incentivize sports would not stop at giving teams additional capital; such funding opens the door for government involvement in the sports themselves. Imagine the government wanting a say in important decisions like rule changes or coach and player signings. Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals would certainly not get the $500 million-dollar payday he is expected to be receive if the government had any say!