As a diehard college football fan, the question of whether college athletes should be paid or not has had a big impact on my view of college football and even college basketball over the last few years. This topic pertains to many sports fans and athletes across the United States. It debates whether or not a collegiate level athlete should be compensated for the large sums of money they help bring into each university or college. I have seen some of my favorite collegiate athletes become victims of autograph scandals and be suspended from competing. If a fan is willing to pay a collegiate athlete for his signature, he/she should be allowed to keep at least one penny of that money. I am more than a casual college football fan who enjoys turning the TV on every Saturday. I am more involved with the game and everyday news surrounding the entire college football atmosphere. Also, I enjoy traveling to different college football venues across the south.

The first source I want to look at is an article from Skip Bayless, a well-known ESPN analyst, who explains in the article "Unleash the Boosters" why he thinks college athletes should be paid. He raises several interesting points. However, his main focus is on how not paying collegiate athletes would be ruled illegal by a court if players joined together and sued the NCAA. His solution is to let each university handle compensation for athletes in their own way. He also suggests that boosters should be allowed to bid on high school athletes and offer them money to attend a certain university. He also talks about how the market would control itself and there would be no super teams controlled by multibillion dollar boosters. Bayless is a well-known analyst who stars in the TV show, ESPN First Take, with his famous co-host Stephen A. Smith. In this article, he definitively shows his support for paying collegiate athletes, but he also acknowledges the risks and controversy that could ensue and addresses those points. 

The second source is the most interesting one I have come across. The author, Taylor Branch, goes into immense detail about how the NCAA is unfair to its workers who are better known as "student-athletes" and how the athletes do not receive any portion of what they rightfully should. This source is particularly interesting to me because it was written in 2011 when I did not even realize the concept of paying athletes was such a huge debate. It uses examples of situations that I remember seeing on TV but not thinking anything about, such as the A.J. Green Scandal in 2010. The author Taylor Branch does not show much bias to this situation because he is not as invested in this topic as much as you would think by reading this article. He wrote a three volume history of the Civil Rights Movement and many other pieces not pertaining to this topic. He is a Pulitzer Prize and National Books Critics Circle Award winner. These awards show that he is a credible, well-known, and well-respected author.

The last source I looked at is on the opposition. Theodore Ross writes about not paying college athletes and how if they were paid it would not help anything. He says that college athletes should not be paid and that money should be out of the equation and everyone should go back to what they are used to, which is sports and school. His article is on the opposite side of where I stand on the issue. His article never swayed my decision and actually reaffirmed it. Ross tried to use statistics about colleges and universities involving revenue and I believe it actually weakened his case. His counter argument points were not strong enough for me to change my opinion in the slightest. This was one of the few articles where the author blatantly did not want college athletes to be paid and I now know that it is hard to back up that point and Ross's weakness made that clear. 

These sources help me form a valid and credible argument that answers the question should college athletes be paid. This research question is arguable because it involves a change that people support and some people do not support. It has been a highly debated topic in the past few years and has many people's attention. I agree with most of the sources I found. The second source is the most complete, and the first one does a good job of acknowledging both sides to the argument. The third one appears weak in its claims and lacks enough evidence supporting the claims. The different perspectives give me more to think about and allow me to see ideas and concepts I could be missing. My question could be a yes or no question it is a hard topic to phrase open ended. This question forces people to choose one side and leaves no room for the in between.

