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Annotated Bibliography

Unfair Treatment of College Athletes

Brendan Barrett

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

March 16, 2017

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Cooper, Kenneth J. "Should College Athletes Be Paid to Play?" Diverse: Issues in Higher

education 28.10 (2011): 12-13. ERIC. Web. 16 Mar. 2017.

This scholarly article is about the claim by Michigan State University law professors Amy and

Robert McCormick that under the conditions that college athletes are held to, they are employees

and should be able to negotiate wages. Their view is that under the strict guidelines the athletes

are held to at the University, they are technically laborers due to physical demands while they are

still required to go to school. The article isnt entirely about their claim, as other people chime in

their thoughts on the couples statements. Donald Remy, the NCAAs general counsel and vice

president for legal affairs, states that student athletes arent considered workers because tax laws

and court precedents consider the athletes to be students. Other lawyers chime in with the same

opinion, distaste for the couples comments. Two former athletes, Tommy Amaker and Willie

Hicks Jr., had similar opinions. Amaker played at Duke and takes pride in being a former student

athlete, he said that he never felt like it was job and was just pleased that he had his education

paid for. Hicks Jr. played for Boston College and says it felt like a job but was also happy to have

his education paid for. The author, Kenneth J. Cooper, works for the Institute of Politics at

Harvard and is also a Pulitzer Prize winner. He is not biased in any way, shape, or form

throughout this article. He just states information for both sides; one being the McCormicks, the

other being lawyers and athletes themselves. The purpose of this article is just to inform people

on both sides of the argument for paying college athletes. Its extremely reliable and I found it on

the UNCC library database. It is most likely my most reliable source in this bibliography. This

source was helpful because it helped me to better understand both sides of the argument. Im not

sure if this will appear in my project yet, because it may turn into an argumentative paper but as

of right now I am planning on it being in there!

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New, Jake. "College athletes greatly overestimate their chances of playing

professionally." College athletes greatly overestimate their chances of playing professionally.

Inside Higher Education, 27 Jan. 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.

This reliable website writes about the small percentage that college athletes have of becoming a

professional. It starts by telling the story of Ramogi Huma, founder of the National College

Players Association and former UCLA football player, he believed that he could become an NFL

player just like 52 percent of Division I football players do but had a career ending hip injury and

joined the 98 percent that never make it to the NFL. It continues by explaining the different

percentages of players that believe they will go professional, and the real amount that do. With

numbers pulled of the NCAA website this includes Mens and Womens basketball, football,

baseball, Mens soccer, and Mens ice hockey. A lot of college athletes overestimate their

chances of playing professionally, but theyre not necessarily to blame. College programs often

boast of their number of players that went professional, and won gold medals. This provides an

unrealistic expectation for incoming athletes, leading to a delusional hope to make it

professionally instead of focusing on the real reason theyre in college: their education. This

article wasnt very biased, but more informational on the real number of athletes that make it

professionally. This article is about athletes false expectations of making a career out of a sport

when it is a very slim chance that they will. The author, Jake New, is a former writer for the

Chronicle of Higher Education and has been published on many different news sources. This

article is objective and has reliable information due to its numbers coming from the NCAA. The

purpose of this article is to bring awareness to athletes that their dreams are probably bigger than

their reality, this source is the most statistical out of all sources Ive used for this assignment. It

was extremely helpful by assisting me in shaping my argument by providing real statistics on

how many make it to the next level, and will help to side with paying college athletes because
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not all will go professional. This source will likely appear in my project, because it has the best

statistics.

Thelin, John. "Here's Why We Shouldn't Pay College Athletes | Money." Time. Time, 01 Mar.

2016. Web. 15 Mar. 2017.

This popular article is biased on why college athletes should not be paid, hence the articles title.

The beginning of the article acknowledges the debate of whether college athletes should be paid

in the two biggest sports being mens basketball and football. The author gives a scenario where

an athlete would hypothetically be paid 100,000. He continues by explaining how much a

scholarship is worth at some big-name schools, and then compares the scholarship to the

100,000-dollar contract. He then goes on to explain the different taxes this athlete would end up

paying and as it turns out, the athletes wage would just be enough to pay for the cost of school

leaving almost no spending money. This shows that, paying a student-athlete a salary instead of

scholarship would just end up costing the athletic department a lot of money instead of

benefitting the student-athlete more. The end of the article states that athletes use the NFL and

NBA contracts to compare to how much money theyre making, when in fact a lot of these

athletes will never make it to that level. They get more value out of a scholarship then what they

would make at this level of competition. The articles main argument is that a scholarship is more

valuable than the pay that these athletes are sought out for. The author, John Thelin, is a

professor at the University of Kentucky and it credible for information regarding this topic. His

opinion is objective because he uses numbers to determine his reasoning on why college athletes

shouldnt be paid, not opinion. The purpose of this article is to inform readers on the reality of

what would occur if college athletes were compensated instead of given scholarships. This
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source was helpful and will help to argue the side in favor of not paying college athletes. I will

likely use this in my project.

Peebles, Maurice. "7 Common Sense Reasons Why College Athletes Should Be Paid

(According to Jay Bilas)." Complex. Complex, 20 Oct. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.

This popular article source is an interview with one of the Sports Worlds finest, Jay Bilas. He is

known to be a strong advocate for compensating college athletes, and a great source for

information regarding this topic. The article starts off by talking about the subject most prevalent

to the interviewee, college basketball. It talks about the ridiculous amount of money that was

involved with the 2015 NCAA final four, and how the players didnt see a single cent. The

question is then asked, Why Should College Athletes be Paid?. Jay Bilas breaks it down into 7

great reasons. First, its a billion-dollar business where athletes are the only people that go

unpaid. Second, in all other jobs this would be unacceptable. A couple of examples were child

actors, and musicians in the schools band. Third, he negates the counter argument about ruining

the brilliance of college sports. Explaining that the coaches are paid, TV stations are paid,

Tickets are paid for, etc. Bilas also used examples such as the reserve clause in baseball that

eventually turned into free agency, and professionals being allowed to participate in the

Olympics. Fourth, he negates the idea that other athletes will stop participating if some sports are

paid and others are not. Fifth, he explains that setting up a system to pay college athletes based

on contracts and offers ideas to set up binding rules with said contracts. Sixth, the notorious

powerhouse teams would still be the threat that they are now. Seventh, there would be a lot less

one and dones. The top players wouldnt be so tempted to leave as early because theyre

receiving not only compensation but also an education. Bilas answer to the overhauling

question, Why Should College Athletes be Paid? was about as biased as can be. He was a great
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college athlete, and knows the same struggle that these athletes are going through. In fact, his

bias has a lot more fuel now since athletes are missing a lot more money than he did himself.

This is thanks to television, advertising, the internet, etc. The information provided was reliable

because Jay Bilas is an extremely notable person in the college sports world. The intended

audience of this article was sports fans, and the purpose of this article was to persuade readers to

side with college athletes. This source was extremely helpful, and will help to better argue the

case for why college athletes should be paid. It has changed my perception on the argument by

giving me more fuel for the side of paying college athletes. This source will likely appear in my

project because Jay Bilas is a very prominent figure in the sports world, and college athletics.