Introduction
Ben Roethlisberger gets in trouble for rape while intoxicated! Every day there are problems
involving athletes? Many topics are thought about when you hear someone say College Athletics. Such
as gender equity, staying academically eligible to play, and also things like alcohol and substance abuse.
Many people have generated stereotypes of college athletes like they are more aggressive, anxious,
dominant in society, extraverted, self-confident, and some people could even go on a ledge and say they
are just all around less intelligent. I know by experience that all these stereotypes are just stereotypes. I
have several friend that are college athletes one of which is my best friend. He is one of the smartest
person I know. All these things have become major issues in our world today. I believe that through all
these problems and stereotypes centered on college athletes have built a sense of community for the
student athletes. There are four major topics I am going to be talking about in my research, how athletes
handle school and sports, title IX, alcohol and substance abuse, and finally their social status outside of
their community.
How this is a community?
What is community? A community is a group of people that have a set of characteristics in
common. Is this not College Athletes. I could have wrote this paper on college students but I believe it is
a community inside of a community. Although you could say that college students and college athletes
have a lot in common, I am going to shed light on some of the many differences between the two. Just
walking around campus you can tell there are plenty of organizations clumped together. Even walking to
classes you can see who belongs to which organization by which side of the side walk they are on. If you
ever see a huge group of football players together, you will see what I am talking about. The group will be
obnoxious, extraverted, and even try to show dominant characteristics towards each other. This isnt
because they are bad people or animals, its just the sense of community and brotherhood that they have
Methodology
Observations of communities
The first thing I am going to talk about are my observations of the college athlete community. In
the student center at The University of Kentucky I realized that a lot of the football players gather there
almost on a daily basis. I went to the student center the Monday after UK played South Carolina. I choose
to do this so I could get a real sense of their ego. I was only there for about thirty minutes but I learned a
lot in those thirty minutes. I could see that almost all the people in the group were what you would call
full of themselves. I thought it was just a stereotype but after exploring through observation I can
understand why they have this stereotype. I also learned that they all seem to spend a lot of time together
outside of football. They help each other with homework, help each other with the playbook, and they
even just spend time together for fun. This tells me that it really is a community. The fact that they spend
time together outside of football tells me that they look at themselves as family.
Interviews performed
The second thing that I did for research were my interviews. The first interview I performed was
with Kahnan Leslie, cornerback for The University of Cumberlands. He does not start but he is in pretty
good social status with the team. I performed this interview in the Nicholasville library. I decided to do
this here because I wanted him to feel comfortable and not out of place. I know Kahnan from playing high
Thematic Analysis
Now, the final thing I used for this paper was my internet research. Here are the main topic I
looked for in my research, how they handle their grades, alcohol and drug abuse, their social status, title
ix, and how they view themselves as a person or their self-ego. Although I really couldnt find anything
on self-ego or how they handle their grades, I found most of that out in my interviews. The first topic I
will talk about is their overall social status from being a college athlete. Allen Sack said, It is widely held
belief that college football has been an effective avenue for social mobility. (College Football and Social
Mobility). What he means when he says this is that by playing football these players have become well
known in their community or even bigger in the country, like lets say RGIII was when he played for
Baylor. Many of these athletes, if they do not go to the NFL, will have more doors of opportunities given
to them because of the social status given to them from the sport. After they acquire a degree and go to
apply for a competitive job, the fact that they were a college football star could be the reason the beat
someone else out for the job. Allen sack includes in his paper that, Sage and Webb provide evidence that
college athletes are less successful academically (College Football and Social Mobility). I believe this
has become a problem. Judging by personal experience my friends dad did not get a job because someone
who played basketball for Indiana University got the job instead. Both went to the same university. The
only difference between the two were he had a better GPA but the other guy was a college athlete. How
this is ok I will never know.
The next thing I will be talking about is title IX. This is something that is said by Lee Sigelman to
be, heated controversial over (Gender proportionality in intercollegiate athletics pg. 519). Title IX states
that no one person in the united states shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be
denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination, under any education program or activity receiving
Reference Page
Wechster, H. (2010). Binge Drinking, Tobacco, and Illicit Drug use and Involvement in College Athletics.
Journal of American College Health, 45(5), 195-200. Retrieved October 15, 2014.
Sigelmen, L., & Wahlbeck, P. (n.d.). Gender Proportionality in intercollegiate athletics: The mathematics
of Title IX compliance. Social Science Quarterly, 518-538. Retrieved October 13, 2014.
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Purdy, Dean A., D. Stanley Eitzen, and Rick Hufnagel. "Are athletes also students? The educational
attainment of college athletes." Social Problems(1982): 439-448.
Purdy, Dean A., D. Stanley Eitzen, and Rick Hufnagel. "Are athletes also students? The
educational attainment of college athletes." Social Problems(1982): 439-448.
Sack, Allen L., and Robert Thiel. "College football and social mobility: A case study of
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