It’s Time for College Athletes to Be Students Too

In the bright lights of college athletics there are national TV deals, coaches signing millions of dollars in contracts, and student-athletes are expected to make millions, fly around the world, put on a show for spectators while also maintaining academic standards. College sports have become big businesses, but the athletes have to set aside their most important asset, their education.
Collegiate athletics were meant to make students physically push themselves to the limits while academically challenging themselves at a prestigious university. But since then sports have completely flipped on their heads.
In today’s collegiate world athletes are worried about sports performance and social life while education and out-of-sports life is left to die. Hundreds of athletes yearly are suffering from commitments made before their professional careers even began. Athletes and collegiate coaches focus on athletes eventually playing at a higher level and the team’s current success instead of education and a future outside of sports.
According to Sports Illustrated an estimate of 78% of NFL players face financial trouble within two years of leaving the game. This is not only a problem in football, but also one in basketball. According to Sports Illustrated 60% of NBA players are in financial trouble within five years of retirement. These struggles are not coming from lack of ability, but lack of education. In both football and basketball, players often face criticism from professional scouts if they choose to go pro after their senior year in football and before their junior year in basketball. NCAA rules allow basketball players to enter the NBA after just their freshman year, and football players to enter the NFL after they have been out of high school for three years, giving them little incentives to stay in college and pursue a degree. However, the opposite happens in women’s basketball where layers are forced to play until the end of their senior year. This allows them the ability to study and learn in school and earn a degree from whichever high quality university they are attending and actually be able to have a career outside of sports.
Not only are collegiate athletes only learning for one year but the quality of learning during that one year is often not at the level of non-athletes at the same universities. Most student athletes miss weeks of time in the classroom by going to tournaments and road trips for their teams. For example the Duke men’s basketball team for the month of March have been in Kentucky for two weeks playing in the ACC tournament then for the next two weeks they were in Raleigh, NC for March Madness and the next week they were in San Antonio for the Final Four. Athletes need to be able to learn skills and classroom tools that they can use outside of sports for their careers and lives after sport.
As Piedmont students move on to college we currently have 9 student athletes going on to the next level from Piedmont to the collegiate level. It is vital that students know the importance of education and it’s crucial that the NCAA addresses the issue and can fix this to help all athletes throughout their lives.
I firmly believe that the NCAA needs to create a new rule that either addresses roadtrips and properly allows students to complete school and succeed at school, or the NBA, NFL and other professional leagues need to create a new rule forcing students to complete 4 years before going professional so that students can achieve a degree. The last resolution that could solve this issue would be for leagues like the NBA and NFL to work with the NCAA to invest and create programs that could have former players teach current and upcoming players about topics like financial literacy and the importance of a degree and having plans outside of sports that can help support them and their families.