Friday, December 14, 2007

Intercollegiate athletics and ethics?

What? How can intercollegiate athletics having anything do with professional ethics? Well its simple. According to William May and his book titled Ethics and Higher Education, Athletics can find college administrators contemplating multiple ethical issues. One of the biggest ethical issues pertaining to intercollegiate athletics is the concern that intercollegiate athletics is loosing its amature nature to it, and becoming so competitive and commercialized that it is becoming or already is "quasi-professional". With the needed of competition and commercializing increasing every year, the college is looking to make more money and more of a profit off of athletics.
I am college athlete at the Division III level, where commericalism isn't a major problem like it is at the Division I and in some cases the Division II level, but it still is a problem when you start to get into the Division III schools with extremely competitive teams that look for sponsorships from retailers and name brands.
Some would like to believe that the best route to go is to eliminate all intercollegiate athletics, and just have intramurals, but in doing that you would eliminate the feeder system for the professional leagues, and you would lose the competitive nature that so many athletes carry. However, competition can also be an ethical issue in some people's eyes, because it is a way of gaining victory, for your own pleasure at the expense of someone else. But the way I see it, that is what life is all about in today's society.... who can I beat out to get what I want.

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