Paying Student Athletes

This piece of static visual rhetoric is a chart showing the difference in the amount of money in the salary of a head football coach vs. the total amount of scholarship money for that team, revenue from NCAA March Madness (3 weeks) vs. NBA annual revenue (6 months), and salary of college basketball coach vs. salary of same coach when he was in NBA as a president and head coach. The amount of money immediately stands out and you have to look closer to see what they money figures actually represent.  The purpose of this image is to show just how much is involved with collegiate sports and to show that there is a good reason to pay college athletes. If college athletes in the NCAA March Madness tournament bring in $770 million in a three week time span and professional athletes in the NBA bring in $930 million in an entire 6 month season, don’t you think they deserved to be paid? This also show how much these college athletes are being exploited. They are doing all the hard work yet coaches and universities are the one's benefiting by making millions off of them. 

Paying College Athletes

The research topic I have chosen to do my research paper over is I believe that NCAA student athletes have the right to make money off of themselves by selling memorabilia or accepting donations from willing fans. I don’t believe that they should be paid by the university. A scholarly article I have located is found at this website. The process I went through in order to determine that this is a scholarly article is I first noticed that there was an abstract to start off the article. There are two authors of this article and one of them has a Ph.D while the other has an Ed.D. This shows that the authors aren't just random sports fans, but they are very intelligent people. Throughout the article there aren't any pictures to be found and the article ends with a list of references. With all of this evidence, I determined that this is a scholarly article. The article begins with an introduction on why the athletes should not be paid and then goes on to give five points about why they shouldn't be paid. Then the article introduces the idea that athletes should be paid and gives 3 reasons why and proposes some different plans on how to pay the players. The five points against paying the athletes are education is money, there are problems with the payment, the university offers more than an education, the athletic department has its role, and athletes know the deal. The three points for paying players are athletic scholarships provide a “free education” is not correct, athletes don’t know the “real” deal, and the university offer more than education – it’s possible – but not probable. The article also included four proposals on methods to pay the players such as giving them a base pay, paying them based off of time played, hiring them as athletes, and giving them revenue from TV networks. The article concludes by stating that if college sports continue to go the way they are going, then paying athletes is something that needs to strongly be considered. Overall, the article conveys a successful rhetorical message by appealing to ethos. The article states both sides of the story so it is very easy to trust the authors. 

Father's

A harsh reality of our culture in America today is that father's seem to not be present or have somehow abused their children. This reality is a devastating reality. The effects of a child not having a father are tremendous and can haunt a person for the rest of their lives. According to fatherhood.about.com, children who are fatherless make up 63% of suicides, 85% of behavioral disorders, 71% of high school drop outs, and 70% of the population in juvenile detention centers. These are staggering statistics and something needs to be done about this. If the men of this generation stood up and became the father’s that they should be then there would not nearly be enough problems and evil that we see in our society today. An encounter I had with this came from this summer when I worked at Sky Ranch Christian Camps this summer. We had a week where they brought in inner city kids from Dallas and allowed them to come for free. The last night there we had a campfire and allowed the kids to share what they had learned that week. The next hour or so I saw some of the most broken kids I have ever seen in my life and it was one of the saddest experiences I have seen in my life. I was devastated to see how hurt these kids were and probably 90% of their hurt came from not having a father figure in their life. Dads are so important to young kids and our culture has them watching sports and working late hours everyday which is not what they are created to do. Men need to rise up and be there for their children. Another negative effect of not having a good father figure in your life is that it gives someone a false  perception of God as their Father. Knowing the Father heart of God can completely change someones life. When you come to know that God is your heavenly father who loves you with an unconditional love and who can only give good gifts to His children, it will change your life forever. Coming into that revelation is so sweet and knowing the identity as a son of the Most High King is amazing! God is a good father who is a far better than even the best of dads out there.