Most of the United States young kids play sports and aspire to become world famous athletes. When life is young you play for enjoyment of the game and your guardians like to see the smile on your face. Having fun and getting tired enough for the parents to put you to bed early. As you age, sports start to become more serious, competitive, and if you’re talented enough, you might just have a chance of making it a career. Teenagers get recruited to play that specific sport to make the school better as a team and to make the school look better as a whole. Would you say teachers are the same? Don’t they get hired to make the students better by the classes and the school look better as a whole? So why don’t student athletes get worker’s compensation like all other college employees do.

The term student athlete is defined as being a participant in an organized competitive sport sponsored by the educational institution in which he or she is enrolled. That is the general definition of the word student athlete. If that is the case and the student is representing the school that they participate for, why can’t the school cover them if they are hurt in the process? I can tell you exactly why. It is called money. Money in our age today controls everything but especially in college sports. Once a sports player is hurt, usually that player is cut and most of the time stripped of their scholarship. Proof? A close friend of mine got recruited to play soccer at Anna Maria College. My friend did not really have the money to go to this school but he received a generous amount of money to go there. He became the captain his sophomore year but it was unfortunately cut short by a back injury. This injury required a large amount of school time missed and high hospital expenses. You would think the school would help right? No, they did not. He had to pay for everything on his own and instead of support from the school, the school cut his scholarship. As unfair as it might seem that’s just how it works. He is just another player on the conveyer belt that gets replaced straight away once something bad happens. Hearing him tell me this made me think why couldn’t they support him? Why couldn’t they at least help out the people that represent them? Again they do not want to lose the money for something they can use anymore. Seems a little unfair. Another incident was a football player called Kent Waldrep from TCU that was got injured in a game. Kent became paralyzed and school failed to cover him because they claimed that the student athlete tag prohibited them from giving him benefits. Some of you might also say, the school might not have money. Well look at the graph below. Coaches make on average 3 times as much as the School President. Why can’t the schools even it out a little bit and have a little extra money to cover the students that get injured pretty much “working” for them. An athlete getting paid is a whole other ball game. They could use it for absolutely anything they want and once one team gets paid, then you have to think about all the other school activities that represent the school. Recently the schools has taken a small step in helping the college athletes by giving them more meals at school but how far are the students going to go. Getting a similar situation to workers compensation cannot be misused or taken advantage of by both sides. The players do not want to get hurt and the schools do not want to pay unnecessary money but to help the students they have too. For my argument I want you to just consider the students getting covered by the school if they get injured representing the school.

Ya ya, I know what you are about to say. Well those student athletes get paid enough through scholarships and money for school supplies but that is not what I am trying to convince you. I am just trying to convince you that the college athletes that get season ending or even career ending injuries should have some kind of compensation like workers do. If it is money or even just having some kind of contract that prevents school from stripping the scholarships of student athletes that get hurt during their specific performance. Also, I do not want people to think that I am just fighting for sports but even for the same regulations to apply to theater, dance and other classes that could possibly cause injury within the work. As long as they are working to give the school a better reputation, why shouldn’t the school return the favor and cover them if they get hurt in the process. Everyone has their different points of view and always will, no matter how hard or clear you try to prove a point.