The Pros And Cons Of Multisport Athletes In Sports

For many students, the college experience is measured by the success of their NCAA-sanctioned athletic programs. Without the experience and athletic performance the student athlete brings, most colleges would not reap the benefit of these significant revenue-generating activities. At best, current NCAA regulations need to be revisited to ensure all avenues are addressed to enable the success of athletic students both in the classroom and on the field or court of play. As stated previously, even though students receive full and partial scholarships determined by their athletic performance, in both instances

Sometimes college coaches are not able to watch an athlete play a certain sport, so they will have to go watch them play a different sport and evaluate them on that sport. In Scott Wright’s article “Football recruiting: Urban Meyer isn't the only one who prefers multi-sport athletes” published in the Oklahoman’s News Room, former Oklahoma State football coach Pat Jones stated, “So that might have to be another sport. In states where you didn’t have spring football, you’d have to go watch a kid play baseball or run track” (Wright 1). In the same article Jones was quoted saying, “And it helps a kid to stay on his toes and keep on edge from a competitive standpoint year-round” (Wright 1). Published on ThePostGame.com by ThePostGame Staff, the article “Wanna Play Football For The Ohio State Buckeyes? Pick Up A Second Sport” states “A review of coach Urban Meyer's recruiting patterns reveals that the vast majority -- almost 90 percent -- of football scholarships have gone to multi-sport high school athletes” (ThePostGame Staff 1). College coaches recruit one sport athletes, but it is obvious that if athletes play more than one sport, they have a better chance of playing for a division one

To be a college coach you have to be very dedicated and love the sport you are coaching. Being a college coach is very time consuming and a very hard job to land in the sports world. The competition that one faces when trying to get into the job field is fierce. This means that the job as a coach in the collegiate athletic career field is limited to a small percentage of the people that end up applying. These people need to be able to fulfill a variety of duties for their universities, and because of this it is important that anyone who is thinking of applying knows the difficulty that comes with the job (Greenwald, 2010).

Meaning 0.03% High School Men Basketball players make it a pro-league. As far as Women High School Basketball players 3.1% will make it to college, and only 1.0% from college to pro, meaning 0.02% Women High School Basketball players will make it to a pro-league. 5.8% High School football players will make it to college. Of that 5.8% 2.0% will make it pro. Meaning only 0.09% of High School Football players will make it to a pro-league. (Grant and Scholarship Resources.”)

A 2016 study by the NCAA revealed that there are nearly eight million students who participate in high school athletics in the United States, yet only 480,000 of them will compete at NCAA schools ("Probability of Competing Beyond High School"). Of that approximate 16% who become a student-athlete, an even smaller percent will graduate and become professional athletes. For example, data from the 2015 NFL Draft demonstrates that there is less than a 2% chance of playing in the NFL. During the 2015 Draft, there were 72,788 NCAA football participants, only 16,175 of those were draft eligible for the 256 slots which equates to a 1.6% chance of being drafted to the NFL. According to the NCAA, of the 256 NCAA players selected in the 2015 NFL draft 236 were from Division I FBS institutions, 17 were from Division I FCS programs, two were from Division II programs, and only one was from a Division III program. Student-athletes from the power five conferences accounted for for 200 of the 256 draft picks (SEC=54, ACC=47, Pac-12=39, Big Ten=35, Big 12=25) ("Probability of Competing Beyond High School", 2016). With there being a small percentage of playing professional sports after college, the importance of a college degree has become a priority for many student-athletes.

To figure out the likelihood of a high school football player’s success in college over 100 high school head football coaches were surveyed about their views on qualities high school football players need to move to the next level. The surveys were mailed, emailed, and followed by several phone calls if no response was received within four to six weeks. All coaches surveyed were members of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) and have had high school football players recruited by division one colleges within the last five years. The survey questions sought the following details about the football players: (1) Academic ability; (2) Athletic ability; (3) Self-determination; (4) Character; (5) History of overcoming adversities. Lastly, the end goal after the surveys have been collected and evaluated is to offer high school football players valuable information about what is needed to be considered for a four-year college scholarship.

Big-time sports in college has become one of the most impactful experience for the college’s fans and students. In the past two decades the boom of college sports such as football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball have grown exponentially. Some the reason why this has happened is the scholarship sanctions the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) put into effect a few years ago; what the sanctions established were that the “big” schools such as the University of Florida, University of Texas, University of Alabama among other school similar to them couldn’t offer all of their scholarships to the top athlete coming out of High School, making all the smaller schools more competitive on the national level.

Despite the disadvantages that colored women faced, African American males had more opportunities to partake in sports and have their athletic abilities recognized. Detectable through the Sports Illustrated covers, colored males were pretty dominant in many of the magazine covers. At least half of the issues within a year, they contained colored males either individually, or with other players to make it diverse. In Douglas Hartmann’s “Rethinking the Relationships Between Sport and Race in American Culture: Golden Ghettos and Contested Terrain,” he conducted a statistical research to discover that “African Americans, while representing only 12% of the population, comprise 80% of the players in professional basketball, 67% in football, and 18%

1.3% of college football and men’s basketball players go pro. That means, every year out of around 92,000 athletes, about 90,500 athletes do not play beyond college (NCAA.org). Every athlete that does not make it to the next level, must find another way to support himself and build his life. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is responsible for more than 460,000 athletes in about 1,000 institutions (NCAA.org). However, the NCAA does not take its responsibility seriously.

The abuse of power to exploit and dominate women within sporting bodies is not a new concept to society and may seem complex however, to gain insight on this topic one may observe the role of masculinity in sports. Sport has been a masculine domain where men are able to assert their dominance, strength, and bravery. Directly addressed by the three I’s: inferiority, injury, and immorality in Authors Eileen McDonagh’s and Laura Pappano’s article Playing With the Boys: Why Separate Is Not Equal In Sports women have been marked as physically inferior to men (McDonagh and Pappano, 2008, pp.181-187). Additionally, society feared that if women were allowed to compete in masculine sports it would promote damage to their vital organs, homosexual affiliations,

That’s not all. Those who go to college for football have about a 1.6% chance to go to the NFL, for training camp. Men’s basketball is at 1.2%, .9% for women’s basketball, 8.6% for baseball, 6.8% for ice hockey, and 1.4% for Men’s soccer. This is all according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

For many years, academics and athletics at the NCAA Division 1 level have been guided by different priorities, admitting college athletes who are unqualified for an education of that level just because of their ability to perform on the playing field. Now more than ever, professional teams are scouting student athletes well into their high school days. In a lot of cases, these athletes need to spend anywhere from one to three years in college before they can be drafted. This has caused many to wonder what kind of an education colleges are really providing these student-athletes. In many cases, students are given special classes with less work, so that they can pass. There needs to be steps to fix the problem. But first, we must see why

Every high school student planning on going to college hopes for a scholarship. However, it is not guaranteed that anyone will receive a scholarship, including athletes. In fact, Division III athletes never receive athletic scholarships and

When most students think of the weekend, they think about sleeping in until noon and relaxing all day whether it be at the beach or just at home. Being an athlete, however, weekends are the exact opposite of sleeping in and having leisure time. Weekends for me usually start by being jolted awake by the sound of my alarm clock at five-thirty in the morning so I can begin packing my backpack with the things necessary for spending the entire day at a sports park. This may seem unpleasant and difficult to do, but when you simply love what you're doing, you learn focus on the positives rather than the negatives. Although I’ve been a multiple sport athlete from a young age, I didn't pick up on this positive mentality until my junior year in high

There has been amplified debate on the treatment, education, training of the college athlete. To avoid exploitation of athletes, “The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), formed in 1905, set bylaws requiring college student-athletes to be amateurs in order to be eligible for intercollegiate athletics competition” (Schneider n.p.). Intercollegiate athletics have dramatically changed over the last several decades. Currently, intercollegiate athletics generate tremendous amounts of revenue, remarkably in football and basketball. College sports in America is a