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Introduction
Colleges in the United States usually set out a number of vacancies for individuals who may not be academically gifted but are talented when it comes to sports (Mauro 10). The practice started in the 1870s as college sports and tournaments gained popularity. At the time colleges gave financial support and other incentives to non-students to have them play in their teams. Later, in a bid to regulate the administration of college sports, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was set up.
The NCAA came up with a set of rules which were shaped around the fact that for individuals to play for college team, they must be registered students. It is this rule that drove colleges to start embracing the idea of offering scholarships to individuals who were average academically but played well in particular sports. This essay argues that athletic scholarships should be done away with. To this end, the discussion shall provide all reasons in support of the scholarships before contrasting them with reasons against the sponsorships.
Reasons for maintaining sports scholarships
With college leagues and tournaments gaining popularity, there has been a need to maintain professionalism. This has for a long time been attained by drafting sports men and women into college teams, using scholarships as incentives.
The idea is noble to a certain extent because it helps individuals who may not be strong academically get good platforms to showcase their sporting talent. With scouts for professional clubs and national teams attending the college games seeking fresh talent, sports scholarships by extension help create a good resource pool for professional sports persons (Medic et al. 303).
In addition, there are some individuals who join college on sports scholarships but ended up taking a keen interest in academics and eventually graduate with distinctions. These are individuals who would not have made the cut had they depended on their academic strengths from high school but end up appreciating the need for academic work once they enter the institutions of higher learning (Johnson and Acquaviva 13).
Finally, colleges that have flourishing sports departments usually get grants and other forms of financial support from corporate entities. These grants, when received, can be used to support some of the students who joined the institutions on academic merit but do not have the financial capability to sustain their stay in school. In this way, there is a mutually-beneficial relationship between individuals who are talented in sports and those who are strong academically.
Reasons against sports scholarships
Colleges are institutions of learning and their primary purpose of existence is to equip individuals with the necessary academic knowledge to help them serve in different professional capacities once they graduate. Entry into these facilities of higher learning should be on academic merit only because this encourages students in high school and junior academic levels to concentrate on their studies (Pitts and Rezek 1).
Providing athletic scholarships tends to give some students the reason not to study hard believing that they would get an easy pass into colleges. Unfortunately for some of them, their talent may turn out not to be good enough or they may pick a permanent injury before getting the scholarship (Mitchel 1). This ends up leaving them with nothing to fall back on. Offering scholarships to sports-gifted individuals ultimately ends up professionalizing the college tournaments and events providing a bigger allure to students than academics.
The best way to ensure that colleges continue to be centers of academic excellence and still act as a hub for the maturation of sporting talent is to scrap off all forms of athletic scholarships, and have students compete for college entry by academic merit. While in college students can showcase their ability in tournaments and those who are lucky can join professional clubs if given the chance.
This arrangement will help give the students whose talent cannot be absorbed into professional sports a good landing ground. In addition, the cancellation of sports scholarships releases the funds for academic scholarships. The primary reason as to why the number of academic documents being published has gone down over time is because of lack of funding for research. By channeling funds from sports to research, the world stands to gain more than it would have from the entertainment value of sports.
Conclusion
This essay had set out to show that sports-scholarships are negatively influencing the academic purposes that colleges were set up for. For this purpose, the first section of the essay provided an explanation of the benefits that sports scholarships bring to colleges. It has been indicated that athletics scholarships help give individuals who are not very gifted academically a chance to attend college. This is in addition to the fact that sports departments attract grants which can be used to support academic objectives.
The essay then progressed to give the reasons for banning of sports scholarships. It has been indicated that these scholarships lower the bar for admission to college, while discouraging high-school students from putting in the necessary effort needed to qualify for college. In addition, it has been shown that banning sports scholarships also helps free financial resources for academic research. The weight of the points raised above clearly shows that there is more to be gained from cancelling athletic scholarships than retaining them.
Works Cited
Johnson, Dennis and John Acquaviva. “Point/Counterpoint: Paying College Athletes.” The Sport Journal. 15.1 (2012):13-15. TSJournals. Web.
Mauro, Bob. College athletics scholarships: a complete guide. USA: McFarland & Company Incorporated Pub, 1988. Print.
Medic, Nikola, Diane Mack, Philip Wilson & Janet Starkes. “The effect of athletic scholarships on motivation in sport.” Journal of Sport Behavior. 11.2 (2007):292-303. Selfdeterminationtheory. Web.
Mitchel, Heidi. “Competing for Scholarships on the Field and Online.” Wall Street Journal 7 August 2012: 1. WSJ. Web.17 Apr. 2013.
Pitts, Joshua and John Rezek. “Athletic scholarships in intercollegiate football.” Journal of Sports Economics. 13.5 (2012):515-535. SAGE Journals. Web.
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