played for the Uconn basketball team during his 4 year tenor. He also brought the school a
NCAA championship with his fantastic play in the finals game.
http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/04/07/3423798/uconn-star-college-athletes-have-
hungry-nights-that-we-dont-have-enough-money-to-get-food/
This topic reflects on my paper because it talks about howShabazz Napier was a star college athlete but did not always
have enough to eat. The cost of attendance to colleges is
often more than what student athletes get for their “full” ride
scholarships, leaving students without any money to buy
food. Leaving students without the financial means they need
to feed themselves seems cruel and is part of the reason why student athletes should get
compensated.
The NCAA makes billions of dollars from selling the rights to broadcast NCAA games. Per
year it equates to the NCAA bringing in north or 750 million dollars per year. All this revenue is
created from the college athletes playing in games. So without the college athletes, that the
NCAA is neglecting to pay, it is fair to assume that there would not be a 750 million dollar a year
contract for the NCAA. If the college athletes are the ones who are driving this massive revenue
stream, such as Shabazz Napier, then why are they not getting paid, or at least have enough to
eat? This article about Shabazz is not the first one that talks about college athletes having
“hungry nights” either. This is a reoccurring theme in college sports because the “full” ride does
not cover the full cost of attending a college. The picture below describes the massive contract
the NCAA has with Turner Broadcasting and CBS for the next 10 years. It aslo depicts the
average shortfall of scholarships which is $3,222. But what I find to be amazing is the ridiculous amount of money that college coaches are being paid compared to the total scholarship money coaches are getting huge checks. This topic is currently popular in the college sports world because of all of the recent news regarding the well-being of college athletes. There have also been many reports of college athletes taking money from boosters, which is not allowed per NCAA rules and results in theschools facing budget restrictions from the NCAA for scholarships.
To back track to the article about Shabazz Napier from the beginning of this post, the
Uconn head basketball coach received a $66,000 bonus for getting the team into the Final Four
while Shabazz Napier couldn’t afford a bite to eat. The NCAA needs to change its rules about
players getting paid and players being able to be compensated for their likeness. I believe that
all D1 college athletes should get a true full scholarship so that there is no shortfall between
cost of tuition and scholarship award.
Tony, your blog post shows that you are actually interested in the topic as you are well versed in the basketball world. What I liked the most about your blog post is that your argument is very clearly stated and proven. The statistics you provided as well as the pictures and graphs helped the reader visualize the idea you're trying to convey and understand the issue more. These facts will be very helpful in your research paper. However, I would recommend that you have an interesting and attention grabbing introduction because it seems here that you immediately started off with the subject without introducing it to the readers. Also, instead of having all your information as stated facts, you should have clear transitions between your ideas. Also, divide each paragraph based on the main topics or arguments of your essay. Furthermore, in your research paper, I would recommend that you include more examples and explanations for your arguments as well as some counterarguments that would make the research more interesting.
ReplyDeleteOverall, the topic is interesting and it shows that you like the topic. Good luck on your research paper.
Tony, your blog post does a great job in giving a good overview of the college player payment dilemma. Your provided some really good facts and numbers to support your claims, especially your graph. The vast amount of hard numbers really will be useful when your write your research paper. However, I felt sometimes you listed statistics without going into much analysis of them, and you did not have many evidence pieces outside of the numbers. Having all number arguments is not necessarily a bad thing, but you should try and use some evidence outside of that. Your transitions were not always clear, try and make sure they are clear when writing your essay. One other way to strengthen your argument is to address some counter arguments, maybe address the people who say Napier was exaggerating about "going hungry" some nights. Overall, you show a lot of passion for this topic, which is key, and you also have lots of great evidence to support your claims.
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