I have been a long time fan of collegiate sports, and have seen the game drastically change over the past decade. The skill level of collegiate athletes has greatly improved because of a rise in younger talent, and teams are building much nicer facilities in order to impress recruits. This change in the intensity of collegiate sports interests me because I want to see the affect that the players have on the school's decisions to broaden programs and whether or not collegiate athletes should be paid based on the revenue that the players themselves bring in. This topic does somewhat affect me because I am a college student that has to pay my way through college, while most student athletes are going to school for free or very close to it. At first, I personally do not think that athletes should be paid because I know that I am spending a ton of money on going to school because I was not good enough to play at the major collegiate level, but after some research my opinion is beginning to sway. However, I do feel that I am qualified to write on this topic because because I have been a long time fan of college sports, and many of my good friends play collegiate sports at a collegiate level, and they can provide me with opinions of athletes.

Allen Sack writes an article about the discussion of whether or not college athletes should be paid or not. He believes that situation should be very black and white: either full amateur status or give the athletes professional benefits. Amateur status would be giving them nothing, but he did not take it that far he just thinks that a player should be guaranteed a four-year scholarship, and professional benefits would be things like worker's comp and agents for financial reasons. Allen Sack is a very credible source for this topic. He is a professor at the University of New Haven, and he has also has written a book on the topic. Along with being scholarly on the topic he also played football for Notre Dame in the sixty's including the 1966 national championship team. 

The next article comes from Michael Wilbon. Wilbon understands that paying athletes out of individual departments is borderline impossible because most departments around the country run deficits, even big time football programs. However, he does feel that athletes should be paid, but not all athletes. He thinks that big time programs that bring in a lot of revenue should pay their players but not smaller sports like lacrosse, or field hockey teams. This may not seem fair to some people but Wilbon says "You know what that's called? Capitalism." Wilbon is a very credible source because he works for ESPN, the largest sports network in the world. He also has his own show that airs everyday on ESPN2 where he co-hosts Pardon the Interruption with Tony Kornheiser. 

The last article is simply called "Should College Athletes be Paid?" and John Brill, the author, explains that the revenue that athletes bring in should allow them to be paid. He just wanted to get the facts out there and let the people reading his article know his opinion about the topic. He presents counterarguments in his article and does a very good job of refuting them. Afterwards, he was very clear in stating that no he does not have a master plan to allow the players to be awarded money for their talents, but he is very clear in stating that yes he does think that something should be done to allow them to be compensated. This article seemed credible because there was a works cited page that listed about ten sources that Brill used. 

Whether or not college athletes should be paid is a very arguable topic because sports and especially college in general are big parts of a lot of people's lives. People are trying to figure out whether or not college athletes have reached the level of professionalism while still in college, some believe yes they have others say no. Some sources I have found say that college sports are still at an amateur level which does not qualify the athlete to be paid to play. These same people say that athletes are being paid by receiving a free education because of scholarships. However, others say that the elite level of play recently in college athletics makes them no longer amateurs but somewhere in between, and that players now are so wrapped up in the sport that classes are now made easier for athletes, so the paying for education thing does not apply anymore. After reading all of these articles I believe my opinion is now leaning more towards allowing athletes to be paid rather than keeping it the way it is now. 

