It seems that everywhere a person looks these days for sports news the issue of whether or not NCAA Division I football and men’s basketball players should be paid for their services is constantly in the news. The calls to pay these players increase every time there is news of another scandal involving high profile NCAA programs.
For all Major League Baseball Fans, this week across the country many teams will celebrate the opening day of Major League Baseball with ceremonies featuring many different celebrities throwing the first pitch out to open the season. With all of the fanfare and hoopla that surrounds opening day and first week celebrations we can’t forget the fact that for many MLB fans the start of the season has little meaning due to the continued weakness of the economy and the fact that many fans remain unemployed with little prospect of finding permanent employment. Financially many fans are questioning their own futures. Major League Baseball as an industry is doing the same.
Every year at this time American sport fans look forward to the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Division I basketball Final 4s. Beginning Saturday millions will watch and listen to the games and millions will, legally and illegally, bet huge sums of money on the games.
Over the last few years there has been a significant increase in genetic testing. Several companies are now offering genetic tests for a few hundred dollars claiming that they can help identify your child’s preferred sport. While this concept seems logical, there are many problems with using genetic tests to determine the sports in which your child is more likely to excel.
In the pursuit of excellence within the sport performance arena, there are coaches and parents who push young athletes with a desire for them to become “bigger, stronger, faster”. Our young athletes are training harder than ever before and their bodies are paying the price. Because of this aggressive pursuit of excellence in sport performance at a younger age; our young athletes are being beaten to exhaustion, over-trained to sickness, and fractured into pieces. Dr. Letha Y. Griffin, an Atlanta-based team orthopedist at Georgia State University, and a staff physician for Peachtree Orthopaedic Clinic, suggests that “We are dealing with dedicated young athletes who are being coached to constantly improve their performance levels by coaches and parents. This can cause the athlete to sometimes overdo it.”
For generations, baseball was considered to be America’s favorite pastime. In spite of the recent dispute between the owners and the NFLPA, professional football has become the most popular sport in the United States and the gap in popularity between the NFL and the other professional leagues is widening. What makes football such a fan favorite in America and is there anything the other leagues can do to compete?
Virginia lawmakers recently passed legislation requiring schools to schedule 150 minutes of physical education (PE) each week. They hope that the increased amount of activity will derail the obesity juggernaut threatening to make our current generation of children the first in over 200 years to have shorter lifespans than their parents. Will mandating more PE make our children fitter? Or does this legislation merely highlight the difference between what PE really is, and what the popular conception of it is?
No other American college sport has more international players than tennis. But with tens of millions of dollars in scholarships going to foreign-born players each year, critics argue that the use of non-American athletes has got to be reined in for the good of home-grown students. Because US tax dollars are involved, it can be aggravating for American parents. Interestingly, private schools do not get tax dollars up front; however, they do in grants written.
The question of whether college student-athletes should be paid above and beyond what they currently receive under their NCAA defined athletic scholarships remains a hot topic in any discussion of the role of sport in our society.