Extra Credit: Paying College Athlete Deliberation

I attended this deliberation and in my opinion it was a very successful deliberation event. The one running the deliberation was a dark haired boy, who’s name I forget, who held conversation well and seemed to do it all on his own. He asked many questions which sometimes attracted a lot of responses and sometimes attracted many fewer comments. He was successful in explaining his three directions and possibilities of where he was taking his arguments, and while all very different his potential paths were defined. The only thing that I thought he could have done better is prepared a few questions that would have invoked more discussion for the potential paths that clearly were not going to have as much said about them. He mentioned one topic which was simply to pay all college athletes, but to pay them all the same amount or salary. This was obviously quickly rebutted by few who felt that the more beloved athletes whom bring more spectators should be paid more. On the other side there were those who believed that all should be paid the same… This was clearly the way this path was going to end up, but he had no further questions or assertions to deepen the conversation. It sort of just died out and ended with an awkward pause and silence, only to have him reopen his next idea. Overall he did a good job of promoting others to speak and speaking himself. He explained his paths well and discussed the benefits and rewards of them, however like I previously explained he could have done a slightly better job of asking questions and promoting discussion on the topics which were less heavily deliberated.

I attended this deliberation event in particular, partially because of the extra credit offered, but also because I felt I could contribute a lot to the conversation. I came to Penn State to be an athlete, in particular to play indoor volleyball. Therefore, I had input that others may not have had access to. I was able to explain things to the crowd regarding funding for different sports, and where the money comes from for sports that do not generate a solid revenue like say football or basketball does. I was also able to illustrate to those who did  not understand, the idea of walk on players and recruits who were given scholarships and those who were not. I was able to provide insight on some of the aspects of college sports that people had questions about. In this sense I feel that I helped move the deliberation forward and promoted deeper discussion than would have occurred with the uncertainties that I clarified for the audience.

Overall I thought that this deliberation was a success. In the end it appeared as though the path of choice was to try to pay college athletes, but a limited amount. The reason for the limited amount is because there would arise a lot of tension from teachers and others on the campus who feel they should be paid before the athletes. A strong movement made was to allow athletes to be paid for advertising and other such methods, as opposed to taking payment from the school as it would cause problems with the other staff on campus.

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