Education is essential to learning life skills for intricate careers and ways to succeed in life. In 2020, people who have obtained a bachelor’s degree make an average of twenty to twenty-five thousand more dollars a year than those who just have their high school diploma. There are plenty of benefits that come from a college degree. Education is the backbone of the world’s future, but should it be forced on people who can find great success in other fields that don’t necessarily need a college degree?

Athletes should not be forced to attend college:

While education is definitely something that should be prioritized in life, college education isn’t absolutely necessary for every career path. We know this to be true, considering we see many actors, musicians, and artists make exceptional livings in their respective fields without a college degree. Competing in the world of sports is similar to these careers in two aspects: fame and money. If someone like Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t have to attend college to become one of the world biggest stars, how come “The GOAT”, Tom Brady needed to attend a 4 year university just to compete in the National Football League?

“Again, the importance of education should never be questioned. But if other “entertainers” can dropout of high school to pursue a dream career, why then are football and basketball players forced to attend college, just to be eligible for the NFL and NBA.”

Blake Miller: Miami’s Community Newspapers

Often, successful college athletes end up earning scholarships to attend a college and participate in the NCAA, but they’re coerced into a competitive, time consuming system. In the NFL and NBA, athletes are forced to attend schools and play on those teams until colleges show an interest in them. Instead of playing sports professionally where athletes get paid for their performance, athletes are forced into a system where they do not get paid, cannot make money through promotions and marketing, and cannot even work an outside job to provide for themselves. There are many athletes who play professional sports who played sports at a collegiate level who don’t succeed in school. Not all athletes are interested in a college degree and many athletes who go on to play professional sports don’t end up earning their degree after 4-5 years of schooling. Now, college is important in 2020 more than it ever has been before, but it’s not the organization’s decision to demand all athletes go to college just so they can be noticed. Athletes should be able to attend professional combines or training camps without being looked over and dropped when the coaching staff finds out they never played in college.

I feel as if this requirement the NFL and NBA have for all college athletes to attend a college hints at other stereotypes that all athletes seem to be caught up in. The most popular athlete stereotype that is prevalent in all sporting industries is that all of them are jocks and not much else. These massive organizations seems to somewhat agree with this way outdated stereotype, considering they feel college can protect these athletes when they’re out of the sporting world. What many people may not understand is that in all schools, athletes need to maintain a certain GPA to be able to participate in their individual sports.

While there are clear issues that athletes should not need to face to live out their dreams, college importance should not be taken for granted. This being said, many athletes come from impoverished areas and want to make money to support their families or themselves on their own timeline. Athletes shouldn’t have to buy in to the stereotype and go to school if it’s unrealistic or unnecessary for them.  That’s why some believe we should start allowing athletes to forgo the ABCs if they simply wish to pursue a PDQ plan, pretty darn quick – and I agree.

Athletes should not be forced to attend college

Young athletes, a degree matters

Professional athletes are now allowed to participate in the Olympics. In basketball, the large salaries that are commonplace for NBA stars have had a dramatic effect on the way young hoopsters move from high school to the professional ranks. In the NBA and MLB and other sporting industries, professional teams have the ability to pluck students after high school. Many players still choose to enroll for the minimum amount of semesters to be eligible for the draft, where there can be a lot more opportunity for a blossoming athlete. Other athletes think that since they’ll be making the big bucks in the pros, how could they possibly need a college degree. What’s missing from this predicament is that a college diploma is more important now than it has ever been for athletes who intend on signing a large contract.

Athletes who are not educated in finance and basic money management cannot hold onto the fortunes they acquire in the big leagues. Athletes these days make so much money that they don’t always have the ability to manage and protect the enormous sums of money they receive. This is not a lack of intelligence on the athlete’s part, but often people who make smaller amounts of money have learned how to save and budget. Money management comes from previous knowledge and experience and athletes can take these skills for granted. For the average athlete, their life experience up until their professional careers hasn’t given them the abilities to handle their money and not blow it all once they leave the league.

“This has nothing to do with a lack of intelligence on the athletes’ part. For so many of them, the lack of experience with money is their Achilles’ heel.”

Kareem Abdul- Jabbar: ESPN College Sports

This is NOT the case for all athletes of course. Many athletes work in their sports industries after their athletic careers and venture off to totally different career paths and find success this way. There are many pathways to find success in the world. Of course, there have been athletes who get the concept with regard to money management. Former NBA star Dave Bing is presently the mayor of Detroit. Since his NBA career ended, he has had a successful business career as a producer of steel products and he went from that success to a political career that has given hope to his beloved Detroit. The hope is that young athletes can do a better job discovering who they are and can be without their sport. Taking advantage of a college education is a great start to doing so.

This need for college implemented by multiple sporting organizations doesn’t make an athlete feel as if they are self sufficient, yet they make absurd amounts of money. These feelings throughout the sporting world compares an athlete to a cheesy, reckless rockstar, who has no concept of money during their careers and after end up broke with no education and no job opportunities. This seems an unfair comparison, considering that many athletes go on to do big things off the field once their short careers come to an end.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8344785/young-athletes-degree-matters

According to the graphs above, these statistics prove that athletes cannot always manage their money after their careers. As statistics show, sixty percent of all athletes in the NBA go bankrupt within 5 years of leaving the league and seventy-eight percent of NFL players go bankrupt in only 2 years after leaving the game. This just goes to show that many players struggle to budget after leaving the league. This just goes to show that a college education can prove a valuable resource not only when athletes are signing large contracts but as well as after they leave the league.

These statistic emphasize the importance that Kareem Abdul- Jabbar discuss when he tells student-athletes that college is important no matter how much money a professional athlete makes during their career.

https://www.owpfn.com/athletes

Ted Talk: Not Enough Time in a Student Athlete’s Day

In this Ted Talk, high school student-athlete, Paul Baynes discusses the never ending issues that a student athlete faces on a daily basis. In the talk, Paul lays out his daily schedule, which consists of school, football practice, homework, studying game film, and of course consuming food and water. Paul wakes up at 6:45 AM and attends class, practices, and studies until 12:00 AM when he finally lays down in bed to prepare for “a good night’s sleep”. Considering Paul is in high school, where students have a lighter workload and practice schedule. In college, most athletes, specifically football players, have a heavy workload, an overwhelming practice schedule, and need to travel out of state every-other weekend.

He even goes in to discuss the statistics of grade improvement based on sleep schedules. He talks about different studies conducted by Stanford and the University of Wisconsin that students have on average 4 hours of homework every night and that only fifteen percent of students get more than seven hours of sleep per night. Another study done by the KU University in Belgium concluded that students who got an extra hour of sleep performed on average ten percent better on an exam than students who got less than seven hours of sleep. This issue is especially precedent for multi-sport athletes who never get a season off or who’s seasons may even overlap.

Citations:

Blake Miller, et al. “Athletes Should Not Be Forced to Attend College.” Miami’s Community News, 16 Mar. 2018, communitynewspapers.com/coral-gables-news/athletes-should-not-be-forced-to-attend-college/.

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem. “Young Athletes, a Degree Matters.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 6 Sept. 2012, http://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8344785/young-athletes-degree-matters.

“Athletes.” One Wealth Partners, http://www.owpfn.com/athletes.

Baynes, Paul. “Not Enough Time in a Student Athlete’s Day.” TED, http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_baynes_not_enough_time_in_a_student_athlete_s_day.