Division I college athletes are not like the typical college student. They are expected to be similar to professional athletes on the field and deans list scholars off the field. This mix would be hard for the most mature adults to accomplish, but to ask 18 to 22 year olds to do this is as improbable as it is unlikely. The argument of why college athletes deserve to be paid is intriguing because it directly attacks "the elephant in the room" of the NCAA. The personal experience I have had in my life regarding this that makes me qualified to write about this topic is that it was hard enough to maintain a 4.0 GPA and play three varsity sports in high school, so to imagine what it would be like to maintain a good GPA while basically having a 24/7, 365 day job seems impossible. Along with personal experience, the research I have preformed has effected my values on this situation because until I did it I truly did not understand how much money the NCAA is exploiting out of these athletes, while giving them little to nothing in return. In any other business it would break all ethical code and would not be tolerated, so to think it's tolerable in this situation is blasphemy. College athletes should be paid because NCAA Division I sports are a business.

The first source that I found to back up my research question is "Why College Athletes Should Be Paid", by Tyson Hartnett of The Huffington Post. In this article it looks at the ideas of the counter argument and proves why they are invalid, and then illustrates three primary positions that make large sums of money off these athletes while the athletes themselves see none of it. The author does a good job in this article of dismissing the claim that college athletes should not be paid because they are already receiving a scholarship. He points out while they may receive on average a 25,000 dollar scholarship a year, most athletes do not last the entire four years of the scholarship to see it pan out and also that money only covers the basis needs for school like books and supplies, while it does not allow for any free spending money. This is wrong because college athletes basically already have two jobs most do not have time to take up another job to make spending money they could use to buy food or to do stuff with friends. The author then points out that three major parties are making large sums of revenue off these basically free labor athletes; the coaches, the NCAA, and the athletic programs. According to the article, many coaches earn at least 100,000 a year, the NCAA, a 'non-profit' organization, is a billion dollar company, and the athletic departments receive most of the revenue made off games and donations from fans and use that money to build state of the art facilities to attract other recruits. What makes Tyson Hartnett credible to write about this topic is that he is a former professional and colligate basketball player who has first hand lived through the struggles of being a college athlete. The source is credible because the Huffington Post is a well-known and respected news organization.

The next source I discovered to back up my claim is titled, "Petition seeks slice of college TV money", from espn.go.com. The central claim of this source is that college athletes, particularly men's football and basketball players, want their well earned cuts of the enormous TV contract that the NCAA have signed at an estimated worth of 775 million dollars. The idea would be to place the money in an 'educational lock box' so players could tap funds to help cover educational costs while still in school and to later received the rest of the money owed to them with no strings attached after they graduate. Some of the other benefits that college athletes are asking for from the NCAA are the extra costs that are not covered by scholarship to be covered and for permanently injured players to not lose their scholarships. These ideas all center around the concept that college athletes want to be rewarded for the revenue they bring into their schools and to the NCAA, and that they want to be insured so that if they are injured while preforming their job for their university. Players are tired of feeling like they will be discarded and abandoned if they receive an injury playing their respective sport. The athletes are the center of the NCAA stakeholders map and they are now demanded that they be treated as such. This article is a credible source because even though the author is unnamed, the source is ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports, which could be inferred that it is a valid source for college athletics.

The third and final source I have found to uphold my claim, is titled, "What Do D1 Athletes Do That Don't Go Pro", by Abigail Cone. The main concept of this article is that the perception of the number of Division I players that go pro and the reality of the ones who actually do is a staggeringly enormous gap. This misconception leads to many college athletes sacrificing their school work for the slim chance of actually making it to the professional leagues, but in the end being left with no real education and direction of where next to go in life. Most Division I athletes, according to the source, never truly learn how to live without their sport and because of pressure put on them to preform at the highest level by their coaches, most of them put the actual reason that they are at college, school work, on the backburner. This article highlights the major value that most of the time is forgotten in major Division I sports, schoolwork should come first. It's all too often that big name Division I players who should be a lock for the pros, pick up a career ending injury and then are left with no other path in life, expect being a coach of their sport or something along those lines. Obviously, these are still good jobs but these athletes should be aiming for more, but because of the incredible time commitment they have to put into their sport, most of them can not. The author of this piece is qualified to write about this topic because she was a college athlete at the Division III level, so she realizes how school and family should always come before sport, and she works for a respectable and well-known news organization.

I would have to say that my research question allows for a very compelling argument. The debate of paying Division I college athletes is the essential elephant in the room of the NCAA. Many people truly believe that these athletes should be paid for the job they preform, but the unwillingness to evolve from old norms is stopping the process from happening. My first two sources agreed that college athletes should be paid, while my third source hinted at the fact that they should but then stayed with the more educational based approach. The different perspectives of my sources just strengthen my preciously conceived notion that these athletes deserved to see some compensation for their work. I may need to revise my research question to make my point more direct and not as broad as it is right now.

