Hello Heisman! Kieth Jackson's famous call from the 1991 game between Ohio State and Michigan. Bryce Drew's game-winning shot for Valparaiso and Doug Flutie's hailmary to beat Miami. These are some of the lasting images that will forever be embedded into the culture of college sports. Its a place where legends like Emmit Smith, Bo Jackson, and Deion Sanders made their marks before attaining greatness in the NFL. College sports provide incredible atmospheres where people from all over the country come to cheer on their teams. The teams represent more than just themselves, but more importantly reflect their fans and university. Although, these aspects make college sports great the issue of whether or not the athletes should be paid is always on the table. Why change what has always been? I personally like college sports better than the pros because of the fact they are not paid. Obviously, these players goals are to reach the professional level at some point, but for now I like to see players who play for the fun and tradition and not for the money. An author named Jim Wynn wrote an article that said "if we pay athletes we corrupt the system." Players would go towards the money and not for the sport.
One example of why players should not be paid is the situation with Maurice Clarett. Clarett was an Ohio State running back that had all the potential in the world. After winning the National Championship as a freshman he was poised to be a Heisman candidate the next year. According to Tom Friend, an ESPN THE Magazine writer Clarett accepted money from a family friend and lied about it to the NCAA. As a college athlete you cannot accept any money from anyone and Clarett was ruled ineligible for his sophomore season. As a result he dropped out of high school and challenged the rule to turn pro. Clarett challenged the rule and ultimately lost. Clarett never returned to school and has never been able to get his life and career on track. In August of 2006 Clarett was picked up by police and they found he had an assault rifle and three handguns in his car near the home of a witness who was to testify against him in a prior robbery conviction. Was this coincidence? I think not, Clarett has become a troubled man with no direction. He listened to the media and negative influences around him that told him he was ready to be paid. Now he is nowhere to be found, a washed up phenom that took money and paid for it. I think that college athletics should focus on their sport and leave the money in the pros. We should keep college sports the same to prevent this from ever happening again. Are these the future images of college sports. If it is then I don't want to be a part of it.
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I could not agree more with you connor college athletes should not be paid. The main prase of college athletes is student-athletes which means that they don't get paid because they are not pros yet. That has caused a few issues with players who think that there are ready to go to the next level before they are a loud to like Mike Willams from USC who left after is sophmore year to go pro, fought the NFL rule that you had to be 3 years removed from high school football. He lost and could not go back to USC so he was out of football for a year, but the next he was in the NFL draft got drafted and is now making millions. He is one of the lucky ones that stilled made it to the next level ,other ones that have tried the same thing had it back fire. So college athletes should take the free college education and wait to go pro and get paid.
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