Today, everyone either receives or exerts some kind of social expectation towards someone else in the community. Women expect their long time boyfriends to propose, parents expect their children to live a happy life, children expect Santa Clause to bring them their most desired toys etc. Regardless of the situation, however everyone is experiencing or has experienced some kind of social expectation at least once. Even though people may experience different types of social expectations, the one thing everyone can agree upon is the fact that the higher someone is in the social stratification latter the higher those social expectations will be. In universities, for example, athletes are perhaps depicted as one of the higher members of the social strata by students and thereby are expected to behave in a certain manner and act a certain way. However, by creating these social expectations most athletes get taken away the right to express their selves and do what they desire.

Statistics depict that 27% of all High School Athletes “come out” and that only 2% of all University Athletes “come out” (Frankel, 2014). The question of why this matter occurs remains unanswered, however many speculate that the number reflected in these statistics are the causes of fear towards social expectations. For example, On April 2014 Rutgers University Basketball Coach, Mike Rice, was fired after a video aired on ESPN show First Take in which images showed Coach Rice verbally and physically abusing the basketball team during practices by calling them names, such as “fags”, and hitting them with the basketball every time a play did not go as planned (ESPN, 2012). The video that leaked to the press caused major controversy not just because physically hurting students is an illegal act by any university staff in the United States, but also because the verbal insults told by Rice were meant to humiliate and degrade the team members (ESPN, 2012). As former NBA player, John Amaechi stated in an interview with Barbara Frankel “college sports are a space where homophobic slurs, physical and psychological abuse are not only accepted, but are also considered normal (Frankel, 2014).” As Amaechi goes on to explain, he decided to come out as gay after he concluded his career because of the “real problem with sports…[is that] they maintain separate behaviors for sports that we would never deem acceptable anywhere else. (Frankel, 2014).”

Link to ESPN Coach Mike Rice Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkeUCZ3qzK0

 Nevertheless, today numerous university athletes appear to be stating their sexuality preferences and are beginning to receive, for the most part, positive responses from their teammates. University of Notre Dame tennis player Matthew Dolley, for example, explained in an interview with HuffPost College what it was like to openly announce his sexuality preference in a team meeting (Brekke, 2014). Dolley states that his teammates responded with understanding and expressed their sympathy and acceptance towards the topic (Brekke, 2014). In fact, Dolley states that one of his teammates went as far as to saying thank you as an act of gratitude in reaction to Dolley’s courage, and that afterwards practice proceeded the team meeting like normal (Brekke, 2014). Another example of such is Fred Hartville, a University of Illinois Gymnast, who told Outsports in an interview that he was originally nervous and scared of thinking he was gay since his family always made reference to his friend, Steve Grand, as “that gay boy. (Buzinski, 2015)” Nevertheless, Hartville goes on to stress on how he began to see himself more in Steve Grand’s character, until one day he decide to hold a meeting with his team and announce that he was, indeed, gay (buzinski, 2015). According to Hartville his teammates and coaches displayed no problem or hate towards Hartville “coming out” decision (Buzinski, 2015). In fact, Hartville told Outsports that his openness strengthen relationship between his teammates and himself. Hartville also told Outsports that the manner in which his teammates carried themselves out in front of him did not change either, in fact, Hatville states that the only change that occurred within his team was the lack of use of the word “gay” and “fag”, which he considers to be positive (Buzinski, 2015).

There is no definite explanation as to why some university athletes experience different situations with their teammates in accordance with their sexual preference. Even though some university athletes experience a positive experience in which their team relationship strengthens and others believe that their sexual preference might repudiate them as an athlete, the basic ground in sports should be an athlete’s sportsmanship, not their sexual preference. The decision to feel attracted towards a certain gender should not determine how you will potentially be treated by your colleagues, and thereby the number of openly gay athletes should be higher than what statistics depict.

Work Cited:

Brekke, Kira. “Openly Gay College Athletes Explain What It’s like To Come Out To Their Team.” Huff Post College. April 17, 2014. www.huffingtonpost.com. April 8, 2015.

Buzinski, Jim. “Gay University of Illinois gymnast inspired by Steve Grand’s ‘All-American Boy.” Outsports. February 26, 2015. Www.outsports.com. April 8,2015

Frankel, Barbara. “Why Are Gay College Athetes in the Closet?”DiversityInc. 2014. www.diversityinc.com. April 8, 2025

Most college all-star athletes reach a point in their career in which they must face an important decision, whether to stay in college and then enter the draft, or leave college and either be part of the draft as a free agent or sign an offer with a professional team. Regardless of the college or the sport, everyday college all-stars are facing offers of teams, which at times seem more promising than a college diploma that could impact the fate of their educational career. College Athletes, however, sometimes enter Universities with a professional career in mind, like Andrew Wiggens from Kansas University who publically announced he would be leaving to the NBA after completing one year of college. Others, like Tim T-Bow from University of Florida, completed his college career, regardless of the numerous offers he had from professional football teams, and proceeded later on to sign with the Denver Broncos as the number one draft pick.

Logically, as many would think, receiving a college diploma and later on entering the professional athlete life seems like a “smart choice” since a college diploma may serve as a safety net if the professional athlete life fails. However, the monetary background most of these careers promise are tempting since the typical rookie contract usually offers an athlete millions of dollars for a four year contract. In other words, most college all-starts that enter the professional athlete lottery obtain an outrageous amount of money that could last the average American citizen a comfortable life style. Even though to many this life style must seem promising, it seems even most to college al-star athletes who tend to come from a poor academic rigor background or a poor socio-economical class. In the other side of the spectrum, many teenagers today decide to not attend college in order to play in minor leagues, like the single “A” and the double “A” in baseball, with hopes of escalating the latter until they reach the professional life. As Paul Taugh states in his book “How Children Succeed: Rethinking Character and Intelligence”, today children are being educationally unprepared, which has lead to the highest American school dropout rate (Foca TV).

As discussed in First Take, a sport centered debate show hosted on ESPN, many believe that the amount of college athletes that decide to leave school in order to strive a professional athletes career would diminish if college athletes were allowed to obtain sponsorship or if they could have a guarantee that any possible offer would be held until after graduation. In other words, if there was an initial money flow entering to college students through companies, rather than entering to the school’s program, or if professional contracts held some type of guarantee like, like a bank loan. However, as obvious as it may seem, providing athletes with this opportunity would hurt any University or College athletics program and it could also affect the college career of any athlete by either inflating their college career, decreasing the value of their college career or even creating some sort of competitiveness among a sports team.

As silly or outrageous as it might sound, the decision of many college students of ending an educational career in order to initiate an athletic career is usually surrounded by money flow. However, at times, the decision to drop out of college and initiate a professional career is surrounded by a dream that to most all-star college athletes seem possible due to the increasing offers they receive, yet cannot benefit from unless they provide the team with a solid positive response. Then, if college all-star athletes tend to attended colleges that offers them athletic scholarships and later on leave the educational institution in order to pursue a professional career, why do colleges waste so much money in providing athletic scholarships if they run the risk of loosing their all-star after one, or two years, depending on the sport? Perhaps the way organizations like the NCAA should revise the rules and sanctions that restrain athletes from receiving more “sportsmanship freedom” in order to ensure most, if not all, athletes to obtain a college degree that will guarantee athletes an educational safety net.

***All of the Information provided above was obtained from First Take Show that aired on March 17, 2015 on ESPN and from Foca TV’s show titled US Must Focus on ‘Schocking’ Collge Dropout Rate***

Universities are always criticized under the notion that college athletes take easier classes, or major in easier subjects in order to keep a scholarship-eligibility business venture. In fact, this subject has caused so much controversy that it has motivated scholars to preform studies on college athlete majors, and has also forced sports organizations, like the NCAA, to pass new laws that ensure higher graduating rates and higher GPA expectations over athletes (USATODAY, 2008). Nevertheless, as this argument continues to expand many researches have found that perhaps the problem with the university – athlete feud is not the standards that the university implies on college athletes, rather than the small range of major choices that the university offers (Time, 2012). As David Pargman, a psychologist professor at the Florida State University, states on his article “End The Charade: Let Athletes Major in Sport”:

“Why do we impose upon young, talented and serious-minded high school seniors the imperative selection an academic major that is, more often than not, completely irrelevant, to at least inconsistent with their heartfelt desires and true career objective: to be professional athletes?” (David Pargman, Florida State University)

As Pargman goes to argue, perusing a degree on sports should be no different than perusing a degree in an art related field, such as film, music or dance. After all, in today’s society getting a job as an engineer is as competitive as getting a job as a dancer. Regardless of the degree you obtain, the likelihood of landing the job you desire is decreasing and therefore the likelihood of obtaining a job in a similar field of your specialty is increasing. Therefore, if statistics provide evidence that after graduation you will enter a job-seeking-lottery regardless of your degree, why shouldn’t Universities allow athletes to peruse a career in their main field of choice rather than an erroneous major such as fishery studies? For example, Luke Stocker (a former college football player from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville) majored in leisure studies in order to maintain his sportsmanship eligibility (WSJ, 2010). From a more professional perspective, world famous basketball player Michael Jordan majored in geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while taking classes such as tennis and elementary geography. As Syracuse University student Dylan Malagrin stated to USATODAY: “coaches and academic administrators in the athletic department might be strongly encouraging students to take easier majors or to chose an easy major.”

A study preformed by David Biderman to 1,104 college football players all over the country showed that the most popular major among athletes were found upon the college of Liberal Arts, mainly the majors that are relation to sociology. Also, as expected, most of the college athletes chose to major in a sport or health related majors, which only further proves David Pargman argument (USATODAY, 2008). Overall, the study showed expected distributed numbers among colleges of liberal arts. However the most sticking finding of this study was the fact that out of 1,104 college athletes across the nation only one Vanderbilt Student, Chris Marve, was perusing more than one major. At the time of the study, Marve was triple majoring in human & organization development, sociology and special education (USATODAY,2008). Then, if studies provide evidence that today the educational system is failing to stretch common grounds to athletes, why is it that they are not treating them as they treat art majors?

Currently, Universities across the nation grant students credits by completing physical education activities, like the tennis class Michael Jordan took at UNC, and require students to complete a General Education Health Requirement that can be fulfilled through physical actives. Today, Universities acknowledge the importance of physical activities and health related knowledge. Thereby, if the educational system is aware of such, the educational system should also be aware of the importance of allowing students to expand their passion over sports by allowing students, specifically college athletes, to major in sports the same way they allow a theater enthusiast to major in theater performances. Perhaps, if the educational system granted students with the sports major opportunity, the university-athlete controversy would not exist, more and lager scholarships would be granted and all students would be guarantee to graduate with a degree about a subject they truly love.

Work cited:

Biderman, David. “Why Football Players Don’t Speak Spanish.” WSJ. Np. 16       September 2010. Web. 07 Feb 2015.

San, Gregory. “Should College Athletes Just Major in Sports.” Time. Np. November 27 2012. Web. 12 Feb 2015.

Upton, Jody & Kristen Novak. “College Atletes Cluster Majors at Most Schools.” USATODAY. Np. 19 November 2008. Web. 05 Feb 2015.