This subject interests me for a few reasons. First, I enjoy playing sports like basketball, badminton, etc. even though I haven't played for a team before. Therefore I am also interested in the state of sports in college. Also, I used to live in Oklahoma where the main two things people would know about the state are tornados and the OKC bombing in 1995 which left 168 dead. Then in 2008 a professional NBA team, the Thunder, was moved to OKC and for the first time people recognized the state for a good thing and not tragedies. The team helped Oklahoma's economy improve and help unite divided people. Thus overall I recognize the fact that sports are an important aspect in life and college is no different. I am a person who wants as much aspects in life to be as fair as possible. Right now student athletes are not allowed to get paid through any means but other students can earn money in their respective fields. I don't agree with this current decision on athletes because it isn't fair. I personally do not have experience in this exact field because I haven't played for a team before and consequently I am not the most qualified to write about the subject. However, this research question isn't based on experience alone and trying to find out as much information will help make the argument valid. 

The principal claim of the article is that college athletes should not be paid for playing and if they do get paid, it's a "grave mistake". The author uses evidence from another online article that shows the exploitation of college athletes in order to seem to understand the opposing side but the author uses mainly logic and moral values to support his/her argument.

The article has some interests at stake because once people read the headline that college athletes shouldn't get paid, they might automatically judge the article without even reading it and that will affect its value. ESPN, the world's largest sports website, even has an article in which they state that college athletes should be paid so going against the trend might be a negative impact for the article. 

Because the author is a professor at Cardozo School of Law, it might appear that he/she is credible because they are teaching the law so supposedly they know the right legal decisions to be made. However the law is not always moral and in a case where socio-economic factors play a big role in deciding whether college athletes should be paid, the author might be on the wrong "moral side." As for the source itself, it's not clear whether it's reliable or not as quite a few of their articles cite other sources and spin it into their version of events. 

The central claim of this article is that if college athletes go all amateur then they don't need to be paid; otherwise they do. The most important piece of evidence is the author using himself as an example because he played football in 1960s. That was around the time where the change from amateur to professionalism in college sports began. 

The article's value is sturdy because it was published in 2008 before the mass discussion of paying college athletes came about so this offered a new insight into how college sports work and this article might have been one of a few speaking about the issue back then. And now since it seems the majority of common people want the athletes to be paid, the value has stayed strong as people have cited this article. 

The author seems credible because he played for a college football team in the past so he isn't speaking theoretically. That also might make him seem biased because he could be more on the player's side then on the administration side. The source is named "The Christian Science Monitor" so they might have some bias in their articles based on the name. But they are a relatively big news group so they might be a bit credible considering they have more to lose than gain if they aren't credible. 

The chief assertion of the article is that the driving force behind the opposition of paying college athletes is racism. The claim is mainly that black people want the athletes to be paid whereas white people don't want them to be paid. The article uses evidence from multiple polls and studies, another article, and even a survey they conducted themselves.  

The interests of the article is very much at stake because it is discussing a sensitive issue and this issue has deeply divided many communities. If what the article asserts doesn't go well with the majority of the public, then the value of the article is degraded a lot. But the same can be said for the opposite outcome, if the public likes the article's stance, then its interests are protected. This is the problem when discussing a delicate subject. 

Out of the three authors of this article, two are associate professors and one is an assistant professors. The fact that none of these people are just immediately one step below from being a full professor gives either gives them some credibility for them almost being a professor or takes away their credibility for not quite being a professor yet. It seemed the authors were biased against a certain group of people but it is an opinion piece after all. The source is seen as a "liberal" news outlet so whatever the common notion is about liberals, the source has a liberal bias. 

This research question is arguable because right now the current rule is that college athletes are prohibited from earning any type of money through the sport they play. However the mainstream media almost collectively delivers the message that these students should be paid and allowed to earn money in other mediums. Surprisingly, the sources do not have any direct agreements with each other. One of the sources directly approves of the athletes getting compensated whereas another source simply stated a reason why the athletes are not getting paid and didn't have a call for action. The other (1st) source disagrees with the other two because it makes the straightforward case on why the rule should stay the way it is. These different perspectives give me a more diplomatic view on the issue instead of a black and white one because there are always two sides to a story. As a result, I might need to revise the question more to be as far away as black and white and more debatable.  

