Getting One's Just Compensation

English 300-8:00 am             Argumentative Essay             11 June, 2012             M. Aaron Miller

Getting One’s Just Compensation

            As a society, we believe that companies should be fair in their dealings with employees; all workers should receive just compensation for their work.  Some companies will pay its workers as little as they can get away with.  However, most of the time if a company does this for a prolonged period of time one of two things will happen, the company will lose quality employees to higher paying firms or those employees come together and demand better from the employer.  What-if the majority of a corporation’s workers did not have to be paid; what-if there were rules and regulations in place that protected a business from having to pay qualified and eligible individuals.  This is happening all around the United States and some of these companies can pay supervisors and motivators exorbitant amounts.  Is it right or is it an injustice?  Since I am referring to the student-athlete, our society has accepted this reality.  However, the question emerges: should we continue to exploit the talents and hard work of young men and women for nothing more than an opportunity; a chance that if all goes well, if that young person is lucky, they can turn either turn their talents into a career or trade them for an education?  The answer is no; I believe that in fairness to student-athletes, society should consider paying these athletes for their contributions.  The first step will be opening the lines of communication and working together to make this idea a reality.

            In an effort to squelch the topic before becoming a legitimate discussion, many people jump to the hasty conclusion that student-athletes receive scholarships and that is their compensation.  With this argument, I cannot completely disagree; however, not all student-athletes receive scholarships or even a “full-ride”.  Although for the students that do receive a full scholarship, the time commitment of playing collegiate sports often prevents the opportunity that many other college students have.  Which is to seek gainful employment; this includes those individuals that receive academic scholarships.  Therefore, I believe scholarship athletes should not be the reason we dismiss the discussion, but simply a situation among student-athletes we must keep in mind when having this discussion.

            Another generalization we should avoid is visualizing athletes as football, baseball, and men’s basketball.  I know for me, I grew up on a baseball diamond and I love to watch football and men’s basketball; however, I realize these are not the only athletes that go to college.  We should consider a student-athlete as anyone that plays a university sponsored sport under the authority of an athletic department.  Therefore, I suggest we must also consider those athletes that participate in volleyball, golf, swimming, cheerleading, and etc.  Any payment to athletes should avoid preferential treatment for the sport in which that athlete plays.

            One thing that I do not want to see if we were to start paying athletes is a change in the dynamic of the sport.  I think a difference in pay scales among universities has the potential to do this.  It would be detrimental if only the best athletes went to the best paying universities.  Not all of athletes are utilized and it would be a shame if some of the nation’s best did not get playing minutes or sat the bench for four years, simply because their teams were “too deep”.  If this were to happen, it would leave other teams with less talent than they have now and it would no longer be competitive between these teams.

I admit that I do not have some big plan; I do not know that anyone currently has a plan for the idea of paying athletes to work “across the board”.  I do, however, believe it is definitely in societies’ best interest to give the issue consideration; to attempt to understand the various perspectives and prepare a plan that will work. I leave you with this, my hope that we, as a society give this topic some serious consideration; I say this as someone that loves sports and as an individual that could have benefited, both academically and socially, had the opportunity of being a paid athlete existed.  How many more individuals are out there that could benefit from the experience of playing collegiate athletics, but cannot afford to stop working?  We do not only need to talk about this for the athletes being paid, we need to discuss this for the students that were not permitted to reach for their potential.