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studentathleteblog-blog · 8 years ago

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Multimodal Annotated Bibliography

· The Balancing and Benefits to Being a College Student Athlete. Retrieved from www.andgosports.com

Despite the cons of being a student athlete there are also many key benefits, research shows that more than 150,000 student athletes receive 2.7 billion dollars in athletic scholarships each year from NCAA member colleges and universities. These scholarships can be very beneficial to an athlete’s future because they are able to avoid their college expenses which can cause debt. Being involved in college athletics can also develop a strong support system for an athlete, coaching staff and team members provide a sturdy support system that non-athletes may not have. Being involved in college sports also builds skills in an athlete like being a good team member, time management and being an effective team leader. Athletes can use these skills to benefit them after they graduate, and can possibly even develop social networks from being involved in athletics.

· Comparing sources of stress in college student athletes and non-athletes. Retrieved from www.athleticinsight.com

The main goal of college has always been to get an education but some of these ideologies have shifted due to the popularity increase in college athletics. The high expectations for college athletes to deliver in their sports and their grades lead to more stress. College athletes are known to be an at risk group in the classroom and although obtaining athletic success and a good grade point average is not impossible, a students athlete’s time management has to be better than most non-athletes, due to hectic athletic schedules, daily practices and spending long periods of time travelling to events away from the university.

· Lisha, N (2010 January 04) Relationship of high school and college sports participation with alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use. Retrieved from www.sciencediect.com

High school and college athletes appear to enjoy positions of higher social status or privilege than most non-athletes. However, increased social standing does not come without challenges. Student athletes are expected to balance full course loads, practice, work outs, and social life. Suggested that the pressures associated with this multitude of obligations may be overwhelming; thus, at the collegiate level athletes are often subject to developmental, emotional, and psychological problems.

· Putukian, M. (2017 July 11) Mind, Body and Sport: How being injured affects mental health. Retrieved from www.ncaa.org

Being a college athlete might not just increase your stress and affect your grades but it can also be very physically demanding and can lead to injury which contributes to a new set of worries. In college sports the level of physicality is high and the risk of getting an injury comes with it, oftentimes a physical injury can trigger a lot of emotional stress. An emotional reaction to an injury isn’t out of the ordinary, a predominant reaction to an injury is depression, in student athletes this is a major response to injury and can set back the athlete’s recovery process.

· Rheenen, D Exploitation in sports: Race, revenue, and educational reward. Retrieved from irs.sagepub.com

More and more, the American public acknowledges that amateurism in college sports, particularly among Division I football and men’s basket- ball, is more principle than reality. As Michael Lewis argues, “the principle, as stated by the NCAA, is that college sports should never be commercialized. But it’s too late for that. College football is already commercialized, for everyone except the people who play it.”

Saffici, C et al.(2016 October,12)Intercollegiate Athletics vs. Academics: The Student Athlete or the Athlete Student. Retrieved from thesportjournal.org

Many schools across the country have put the importance of having strong athletic programs over having strong academics at their schools. Athletic programs were initially formed at universities and colleges in order to build character through participation in sports, provide students, staff and spectators with entertainment while also spreading school spirit. The rise in athletics at institutions has caused athletic programs to become something bigger than the school itself. There are positives and perks to being a student athlete and many athletes benefit greatly from their relationships with the athletic department and stakeholders. However, the negative side of this is that it can be argued that athletic departments are wrongly exploiting and overworking athletes in order to continue to grow their multimillion dollar corporations.

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studentathleteblog-blog · 8 years ago

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What are the affects of being a student athlete?

Ashley Lyons

CWP 102- Argumentation and research

Being a student-athlete can be a very special experience and can leave you with many lessons and friends that will last you a lifetime, becoming a student-athlete is almost always seen as a positive thing but it is not always an easy lifestyle to balance. Being a student-athlete automatically brings high expectations from more people like your family, friends, teammates, coaches and professors. With the pressures to succeed in your sport and in the classroom while also maintaining a social life, negative effects can develop from being a student that is also involved in athletics.

The main goal of college has always been to get an education but some of these ideologies have shifted due to an increase in college athletics popularity. Many schools across the country have put the importance of having strong athletic program over having a strong academics program at their schools. Initially athletic programs were first formed at universities and colleges in order to build character in the students through participation in sports, provide students, staff and spectators with entertainment and spread school spirit around campus. But these are no longer just the only values, with college and universities athletics turning into a very lucrative business these values have shifted and the rise in athletics at institutions has caused certain athletic programs to become something bigger than the school itself. The high expectations for college athletes to deliver in their sports and their grades leads to an overwhelming amount of stress. For several past year’s college athletes were known to be an at risk group in the classroom due to lower grade point average’s compared to non-student athletes, although obtaining athletic success and a good grade point average is not impossible, a student athlete’s time management has to be better than most non-athletes, due to hectic athletic schedules, daily practices and spending long periods of time travelling to events away from the university(“Comparing sources of stress in college student athletes and non-athletes”). The lack of extra free time can make time management a very important skill to possess but this can also be a very challenging skill to master especially for freshman year student-athletes that are still trying to get comfortable with taking on so much responsibility for the first time. Research shows that one of the main obstacles for student athletes was “time” with more than 40 percent of male athletes and more than half of male athletes factors related to “time” were the most serious causes of stress. Statistics show that there are a lot of student athletes that put athletics over academics or see themselves as being more of an “athlete- student” rather than being a “student-athlete”, this level of priority showed in their grades and once the student-athlete grade point average and graduation rates began to decrease at a higher rate the NCAA decided to make several academic reforms, fortunately this has led to a very positive outcome and turnaround in many colleges and universities in the result on the highest student athlete graduation rate in the past fifteen years.

Being a student athlete can be very physically demanding and can lead to injury, an injury can be a huge negative to being a student athlete because it can develop into a mental as well as physical struggle and having a sport-related injury can have a substantial impact on the long term health of student athletes. In college sports the level of physicality is high and the risk of getting an injury comes with it, oftentimes a physical injury can trigger a lot of emotional stress. An emotional reaction to an injury isn’t out of the ordinary, a predominant reaction to becoming injured as a student athlete is depression, in athlete’s this is a major response to injury and can set back the athlete’s recovery process which can end up causing a whole new set of worries (“Putukian, Mind, Body and Sport: How being injured affects mental health, www.ncaa.org”). Concussions have become a very popular and debatable topic among sports, especially due to the long lasting effects that this injury can cause such as Alzheimer’s and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. According to the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh, those participating in contact sports have a 19% or higher chance to sustain a concussion (Weiland, Student Athlete’s Perceptions of Concussions through Media Consumption, www.omicsonline.org”). Concussions are brain injuries that should be taken very serious and can include symptoms of sleep dysregulation, amnesia, emotional symptoms and many more present symptoms after their injury, this can affect student athletes in the classroom because recovering students may not be able to attend their regular class schedule for a time span that can stretch for months, and homework most likely won’t be able to be completed until their symptoms have cleared.

Stress is common in college students but statistics show that student athletes have higher stress levels and 10-15% of college athletes are in danger of developing mental health issues because of increased stress and anxiety of participating in a college sport. Although, research shows that being a part of a college sport can also serve as a defense against stress, participation can also be a main additional cause of stress due to the pressures of having to balance multiple obligations like full course loads, practice, work outs, and social life college athletes may turn to illicit drugs and alcohol in order to cope with their stress (“Lisha, Relationship of high school and college sports participation with alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use”). Even though the results of athletes that take illicit drugs are low research shows that illicit drugs are related to participation in college athletics but alcohol is not and athletes only had slightly higher reports of drinking than non-athletes although they did have higher rates of binge drinking. An explanation for unexpected alcohol intake in college athletes is that certain athletes use these substances as coping mechanisms and as a way to escape all the stress and pressures from school and sports participation, alcohol can be easily obtained by underage drinkers and leaves the body’s system fairly quickly so younger student athletes expect to be able to avoid the negative results of drinking. Another reason for higher increase of binge drinking in athletes is due to peer pressure from teammates or other athletes or social drinking with team members as a form of celebration or team bonding.

College sports have made the news due to frequent scandals and corruption. The main and most important issue is the structure of college sports, while student athletes generate billions of dollars for universities and private companies they earn nothing for themselves. It can be argued that athletic departments are wrongly exploiting and overworking athletes in order to continue to grow their multimillion dollar corporations (“Saffci, Intercollegiate Athletics vs. Academics, thesportjournal.org”). Especially in division one and colleges and universities where most of the players are there on a scholarship but can easily lose this scholarship if they get injured, don’t perform up to their potential or fall behind in classes. The colleges and the universities aren’t the only ones benefiting from the talent, hard work and dedication of some of these athletes some coaches make a lot of money off of coaching these players and even make more money than professors for example, Harvard’s first paid head coach Bill Reid’s starting salary was nearly twice that of what a full-time professor would make. It is becoming a pretty popular topic to the American public and they can acknowledge that amateurism in college sports, especially in division one men’s football and basketball is more principle than reality. As Michael Lewis argues “the principle, as stated by the NCAA, is that college sports should never be commercialized. But it’s too late for that. College football is already commercialized, for everyone except the people who play it” (“Rheenen, Exploration in sports: Race, revenue, and educational reward, irs.sagepub.com”). The major reason college athletes are not paid is because they are still considered amateurs and not professionals but I don’t think they should be payed based on their professional status but it should solely be based on the time they devote to their school’s athletics. College athletes not being payed can be seen as exploitation of athletes because while the ones who do the most work, the athletes get paid nothing. In order to fix this problem of exploitation of student athletes and balance everything out I feel that student-athletes should be payed especially at the division one collegiate level or if you have a very successful athletic program, especially since being a student-athlete can be considered as a full time job and definitely isn’t an easy title to uphold because you have to put in extra work compared to a non-athlete student.

There is also a lot of positives and perks to being a student athlete and many athlete’s benefit greatly from their relationships with the athletic department and its stakeholders. Although being a college athlete shouldn’t be focused just on material things like money, scholarships can be very beneficial to a student athlete and research shows that more than one hundred and fifty thousand student athletes receive 2.7 billion dollars in athletic scholarships each year from NCAA member colleges and universities (“The Balancing and Benefits to Being a College Student Athlete”). Scholarships can be very beneficial to a student athlete because it can help them to avoid future debt that they may have encountered without an athletic scholarship and it also provides them with financial opportunities that other students may not have. The process of giving college athletes a “free college education” in exchange for them to compete for a certain school goes all the way back to what is considered to be the first college competition, at a match between Harvard and Yale universities, there were even instances where during the 1900’s athletes were recruited and got money to play on a particular school’s team but the person that was playing for that school wasn’t even enrolled there as a student.

Being involved in college sports can also develop a strong support system for an athlete, coaching staff and team members provide a sturdy support system that non-athletes may not have, being a part of team provides you with an already set group of friends that have at least one interest in common with you and that the sport you’re all playing. When you’re a freshman and new to the school that you’re also playing a sport at you have the advantage of being able to easily make a group of friends that are oftentimes a very diverse group, made up of people that are from different parts of the country, have different social backgrounds and may not share the same religion or be the same race. The benefits of having teammates besides having people that will always have your back and your best interest in mind there is something that will leave you with lasting memories that you will all share whether they are good or bad and if you win or lose your teammates play a huge role in an athlete’s experience while in college and your teammates usually become the people on campus that you are most comfortable with and feel you can trust the most. Being involved in a team can also provide you with skills that an athlete can use later on in life, like learning how to work together with people and becoming a good team member and can also use being on a team to help develop effective team leadership skills. Athletes can use some of these key skills to benefit them after they graduate, and can possibly even develop social networks through coaches and teammates by being involved in athletics.

Being a student athlete is not trouble-free and although a lot of things associated with being a student athlete can seem superficial, it isn’t about the material things that it seems to be about. It can come off like money, popularity from fans and special treatment are the best things about it. Unfortunately, being a student athlete can cause physical injuries, stress, depression, lack of free time and grade complications, but it’s really about getting to participate in the sport you love at the collegiate level, having a good game that you’ll always remember and being able to experience this with a group of people that want to see you do well and succeed. You can have a healthy and worthwhile four years of college while being a student athlete with the right drive, passion and mindset it will be a very positive experience.

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