The debate over whether college athletes should be paid interests me because I am a college sports fan that does not want to see the game hurt by paying athletes.  If I was a college athlete being paid I know for a fact that it would only promote me making poor decisions.  There were several athletes at my high school that made it to college solely because of their athletic abilities.  The opportunities scholarships offer those who may not have made it to college do to financial issues shows the true value in college sports.  If kids were able to go from severely poor lifestyles to being handed money it would be a recipe for disaster.  Being a student at the University at South Carolina gives me the vantage point to see that offering athletes solely a free education is the perfect balance the rewards the players for their hard work.  Being from Cary, North Carolina I am paying out of state tuition to attend the University of South Carolina.  If I continue to pay out of state tuition the rest of my time here at the University of South Carolina my Dad will end up paying close to $200,000 between my tuition, food, and living expenses.  College- athletes do not have to deal with many of these costs due to the free tuition and pensions they receive.  This ensures that they will have the opportunity to earn their degree without being in any debt once they graduate.  

In this Huffpost Sports article Andrew Zimbalist supports his claim for why college athletes should not receive salaries.  His first paragraph consists of several points which include, "Advocates of paying college athletes need to explain (a) how the labor market for players would function, (b) how the Division I colleges could afford this expense when the median DI athletics program loses $11 million a year on an operating basis and much more when capital and indirect costs are included, (c) how the new system would impact college culture, and (d) what would happen to the branding of intercollegiate athletics that tens of millions of fans have come to love"(Zimbalist).  He expands on this by bringing up the fact that only twenty departments actually profit out of the 350 in Division I sports.  He discusses how he thinks athletes receiving salaries would also be disruptive to academic culture.  Zimbalist's strongest point is that salaries would ruin team spirit because of how things would get when one player is being paid substantially more than one of their teammates.  This article is promoting the academic culture for colleges all over the country.  Zimbalist attempts to create a situation in which the interests of all parties may be satisfied.  Andrew Zimbalist is the author of 'Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and World Cup'.  This well read book makes him a credible source when it comes to financial issues in sports.  Zimbalist brings up supporting facts for those who are in favor of athletes being paid and provides evidence on why that would not be optimal.  He also speaks of a compromise in a new "benefits package" consisting of year-round health insurance, lifetime health insurance for injuries related to playing their sport, disability insurance that covers lost income, and due process rights for accused violations.

My second source is written by Ekow Yankah and also speaks against paying college-athletes.  He argues that a connection to a University's values will be lost if athletes begin to get paid.  Yankah elaborates on this when he says, " If a high-school football prodigy reported that he chose Michigan not for its academic quality, tradition, or beautiful campus but because it outbid all other suitors, a connection to the university's values would be lost" (Yankah).  Yankah brings up the UNC academic scandal, Cam Newton's case, and the Chris Weber scandal that still bothers Michigan fans.  He uses these examples to show what happens when college sports are turned into a market.  The main interest in this article is to preserve the current life that student-athletes live.  Yankah believes that an imbalance will occur in their lives if athletes receive money. Ekow Yankah is a professor at the Cardozo School of Law, which shows that he has a background of knowledge in the grey areas of financial situations such as this.  Yankah is successful in bringing up counterarguments.  He talks about how Michigan's football program brings in more revenue than the Detroit Lions, and how he can see why this would cause people to believe in the college athletes being paid.  Yankah's use of counterarguments allows him to come back with new information that may change the audience's views. 

My third source is by Maurice Peeples.  This article discusses the beliefs that college basketball analyst Jay Bilas has.  Peeples discusses how the college basketball industry is a multi-billion dollar business that yields no profit to players.  He elaborates on this when he explains that, "CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting alone paid more than $10.8 billion to the NCAA back in 2010 for 14 years of rights to do this, which makes sense considering CBS and Turner sold $1.13 billion in ads during the 2015 tournament alone"(Peeples).  The fact that Jay Bilas is the person Peeples interviewed may make the argument biased.  Jay Bilas was a star college player at Duke University and has remained in the college basketball business ever since.  He has been around the game so long that he may be on the side of the players because of his strong ties to playing the game.  

The question of whether college basketball players should be paid is a debate that has been going on for several decades now.  My first two sources argued that they should not be paid because of how degrading it would be to the spirit of a college education.  My third source focused on the money that the players bring in, and how they should get a portion of this massive profit the NCAA is consuming.  After further researching this topic my opinion remains the same, which is that college players should not be paid a salary.  The free education and national spotlight is an experience that many dream of, but few attain.    

