Should College Athletes Be Paid?

http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-ncaa-athletes-be-paid

Paying college athletes has become a huge debate and is something that should really be taken into consideration. As a biased person towards the opinion that college athletes should be paid, I will mostly explain my reasoning to why I believe this should be the case. But, if you disagree with me, as I know many people will, there are better explanations by people who know what they are talking about that may convince you to believe the same. In addition, I have also, read articles on both points of views so I am not making my case based off of articles focusing on why athletes should be paid, but instead, I have made my inference by looking at both points of views.

First off, college sports has become a business. Most people argue that athletes are going to college and getting a free education so they are receiving compensation. In reality though, MOST of these athletes are not going to college for a good education but instead an opportunity to go pro. Athletes if given the opportunity to go pro, will most likely choose that decision instead of getting a Bachelors degree. Plus, the main athletes who are generating money for the school don't even graduate! If you watch college sports, there are always those guys on the court or field that you watch for and enjoy seeing. If you like a certain team, this person may change from year to year. The point is, there is someone you are paying attention to that is off your interset. No one watches Boston College play basketball except students and alumni but when they handed Syracuse their first loss in basketball this year, it was all over the news.One does not just watch Boston College play basketball if they are not a fan or there is no player of interest playing. Thus this makes my point that people watch the big stars in the sport. Like I said before, these big stars usually don't even graduate! (Doug Mcdermott is an exception) Another thing to take note of is that college sports is not the same as it was many years ago. College sports has become very corrupt in the past couple of years with it taking advantage of players not being paid and taking all the money made as profit. For example, March Madness alone makes $6 billion dollars in just one year. This does not include the money that ESPN, or any other business involved with college athletics makes. Next, one thing that really upsets me is when events outside the control of a person can affect them in a very negative way. For example, if an athlete gets injured, he may potentially lose his whole scholarship. This is not something that is uncommon, for there are rules that one must obey buy in order to have their part of the deal. The same is true for even a high school. At Creighton Prep High School, if a student attending the school does not reach a certain GPA threshold, he loses his scholarship. This is the exact same in college except that we are discussing it involving athletics. Without the college athletes, March Madness, football bowl games, or anything involving athletics would not be as popular.

Being open, I decided to include articles that argue that we should not pay athletes. But their voices make evident the things I am trying to stress about the whole issue. The first article says that college athletes should not be paid but real scholarships need to be brought back. The man who wrote the article played football for Notre Dame way back with the dinosaurs in 1973. He said, when he went there, the NCAA changed its rules allowing one year renewable scholarships for athletes so that if an athlete failed to meet requirements, they could get their scholarship taken away. This is absurd! The scholarship should be for all four years if an athlete is dedicated in participating in the sport. He also believes that since athletes act like employee for their respective school, they have an argument to ask for money. But, another man touching on this says, if athletes were to really earn how much they deserve, the amount of money they would receive would be too much for a college student to be able to handle wisely. Although these men do not think that college athletes should be paid, they both agree on the fact that college sports has become a business. Business means employees, and employees means pay.

Feel free to leave your thoughts and let John Richter know that college athletes should be paid! I am always open to different points of views and would love to hear your comments.

Being Ambitious Sometimes Pernicious?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/twerking-middle-schooler-punished-public-shaming-article-1.1453510

The effect that many teen stars have on the young generations of America can be very shocking to people. Sometimes these effects can even cause teens to follow in their footsteps. One such example took place a couple months ago on September 12, 2013 in Bakersfield, California. According to Frances Hena, her daughter was caught twerking at a school dance. You may ask, what is the big deal about this? But, according to Mrs. Hena, she had specifically told her daughter, Jamie, not to twerk at the school dance. Jamie was then punished by her mother and had to hold a sign in public saying, "I was disrespecting my parents by twerking at my school dance." Mrs. Hena believes that Miley Cyrus's influence on our generation is very negative and that her daughter is only 11 and should not be doing things like this.

Apparently Jamie was peer pressured by her friends to perform the dance and disobey her mother's direct order not to twerk. Ambition is a key part of Jamie's act and according to dictionary.com, ambition is the desire to achieve popularity or a goal with the willingness to strive for it. In this example, Jamie wanted to fit in so badly that she decided to twerk despite the consequences. To many, peer pressure creates massive amounts of ambition for people trying to fit in. This is extremely relevant today with how some teens are so ambitious enough to fit in, that they will use drugs and alcohol to satisfy this need. One doesn't have to be an adult to see the consequences of ambition. It is extremely visible in our generation. Many times we hear about politicians or important people who become too ambitious and which causes their downfall. For example, Adolf Hitler was too ambitious and he invaded the Soviet Union which eventually resulted in his demise. Obviously a girl twerking at a dance is nothing compared to the things Hitler did, but the roots of their actions can be traced back to ambition. So, although I do not agree with her being punished for twerking, I believe that since she directly disobeyed her mother, her punishment was justifiable. I for one on the other hand, do believe that ambition can sometimes be very bad when it comes to peer pressure. But, unfortunately it is not a problem that can be fixed very easily.

The Legend of Don Quixote

My name is Don Raphael Nguyen. I was born in Chicago, Illinois as the son of two Vietnamese parents. Yes, I'm Asian. Because of my asian heritage, I am good at math, english, driving, math, ping pong, instruments, kung fu, life and math. At the end of the 1st grade, my parents told me that we were moving to Omaha. At the time I was devastated because I had no idea how to explain to my two girlfriends, Grace and Kelly, what was happening. They took it pretty hard crying for hours and hours and their tears ended up flowing north to form what many call today as "Lake Michigan". In the 2nd grade I attended the school, Saint Vincent de Paul, in which I went on to dominate in every possible activity for my school to create a name known to all in the Archdiocese. I played soccer, averaging 8 goals and 3 assists per game, with an impressive record of 84-0-0 in which in 8th grade I earned a spot on the All-American soccer team for U14. Unfortunately I had to decline the offer because I was so busy with my research on finding the cure for cancer. Math is a huge strength of mine. In MATHCOUNTS, I got 10th place in Omaha in 6th grade, later improving to 1st in 7th. Sadly, I was too busy volunteering, helping lost puppies the day before the 8th grade competition and I ended up getting 2nd. On the bright side, I got 2nd in State to earn me the spot on the National team. Math and Soccer weren't the only things I did. I also played basketball in which I was nicknamed "Jeremy Lin". When I drive to the basket, some people like Isaac Newton call me an unstoppable force, but I prefer to be called the "rain maker". I was what one calls a Tri-athlete. My third sport was track. I ran track for my school and earned myself nicknames like the "blazin' asian" in which I was so blazin' fast that people were absolutely stunned by my impressive speed. Albert Einstein has compared me to light itself although I like to think of it as light's speed is compared to me. I ran a sub 4 minute mile in the 8th grade and was a junior Olympian. Unfortunately, I had to get surgery over the summer for my legs because I had injured them trying to squat the Earth in a competition with the Titan, Atlas. Now my mile time is at around 4:45. At the end of my amazing career, Creighton Prep sent prospects to recruit me. I had to make a decision between Gross, which offered me a full ride along with paying me $100,000 a year to attend the school, Skutt which offered my a 4 year contract worth $450,000, and Roncalli which offered to rename their school after me. I ended up going to Prep because Class A baby. Freshman year, I ran Cross Country for Father Tillman and played Soccer under Luigi Catalano. My athletic career went down a severe path because of my surgery, but I can still run. I plan on running for the rest of my high school career and possibly in college. My music interests vary greatly from Gangnam style to music made by PSY. I helped create the video Gangnam Style which became the first YouTube video to reach 1 billion views. I also developed the game Flappy Bird in which was not only just a game for fun, but a lifestyle. But, the Illuminati tried to take control of my game by planting viruses in the IP addresses all over the world so I was forced to take it off the market. On a happier note, I love everything about Chicago.The Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks, Bears, I am all a fan of. Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls is my man. No one compares to his beauty and elegance on the basketball court. I am single and not ready to mingle because I am an immature teenager that is not ready to respect women the way they should be treated.