Austin Murray

Professor Kelleher
English 102-008
9 March 2018
Annotated Bibliography
NOCERA, JOE and BOB WILLIAMS. "Should College Athletes Be Paid?." Junior Scholastic,
vol. 119, no. 10, 13 Mar. 2017, p. 22. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=prh&AN=121561103&site=ehost-live.
This source involves two authors with different insight on the issue of if college athletes
should get paid. Joe Nocera, a graduate from Boston University and an Op-Ed columnist for the
New York Times, believes that college athletes deserve to get paid. Nocera argues that student
athletes should be paid because they make the school millions of dollars. He also states that these
student athletes must make sacrifices in their education because their sport requires so much of
their time. Bob Williams, who is the current Vice President
of Communications for the National Collegiate Athletic
Association, or NCAA for Short, believes that college
athletes do not need to get paid. Williams argues that
paying student athletes would shift their focus away from
academics and would turn them into employees of the
university. He also states that while athletes do not receive
paychecks, they still receive benefits like free tuition,
books, and housing.
I believe that this source is reliable given the background of both the authors. Nocera
graduated from a prestigious university and Williams holds a major position with the NCAA. It
will be beneficial to me in writing my research paper because it highlights the most important
factors for both sides of the issue. While the article does not go deep into either side of the issue,
it does give the most commonly used arguments from both sides. I can use this article to help
shape the paragraphs of my research paper, and hone what arguments I will focus on for each
side of the issue. It will also help me narrow down what other articles I need to look for when
finding other sources for my paper.
Cooper, Kenneth J. "Should College Athletes Be Paid to Play?." Diverse: Issues in Higher
Education, vol. 28, no. 10, 23 June 2011, pp. 12-13. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ931405&site=ehost-live.
Pulitzer prize winning columnist Kenneth J. Cooper, who has written for the Washington
Post and the Boston Globe, believes that college athletes should get paid. He looks at existing
labor laws to show that student athletes should be considered employees of the NCAA at their
universities. Two Michigan State University law professors present the argument that student
athletes should be classified as employees under the current federal labor laws. They believe that
because student athletes must put in so many hours in the way of practice and workouts that they
deserve a wage. This information is accompanied by counter argument from former student
athletes that the students are being compensated for their work as an athlete in the way of tuition,
books, housing, and meal plans.
This source will be helpful in writing my research paper because it provides information
on the legal side of the issue. This source is reliable because of the people on both sides of the
argument. The two who believe college athletes should be paid are professors of law at Michigan
State University, and the one who believes that athletes should not bet paid experienced what it
is like to be a college basketball player at Duke University, and has coached basketball at
Harvard, Seton Hall University, and University of Michigan. This source gives me a chance to
look at the issue from an angle that I have never thought of before, and that should be beneficial
to my research paper. There is more of an argument for paying college athletes, but I do not
believe that it is biased. I believe it is just presenting the information and making a case for
paying college athletes.
Majerol, Veronica. "Should college athletes be paid? two recent rulings may change the face of
college sports." New York Times Upfront, 15 Sept. 2014, p. 14+. General Reference
Center GOLD,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A383048730/GRGM?u=tusc49521&sid=GRGM&xid
=4a209c02. Accessed 9 Mar. 2018.
Veronica Majerol, who is currently the managing editor of digital for “The New York
Times Upfront”, believes college athletes should get paid. She references the Ed O’Bannon
lawsuit which was over EA Sports, a video game company, using current and former college
athlete’s likenesses in their video games without the athletes receiving payment for it. She also
references the amount of money that big programs, like Texas A&M when Johnny Manziel won
the Heisman Trophy, when a star player is there. She does acknowledge the arguments against
paying players, but believes that the most common one, amateurism, is out dated and is not a real
argument. She does not think it is fair for college coaches to receive payment, but college
athletes receive nothing.
This source is reliable because Majerol uses numbers and court cases to help her
argument rather than just her own opinion. Given this I also do not believe that this article is
biased. This source will benefit me in my paper because it gives information on multiple
instances of courts ruling in favor of paying college athletes like the Ed O’Bannon case and the
fact that the NCAA takes in over eight hundred million dollars per year from the “March
Madness” NCAA college basketball tournament. It does offer some counter arguments, like big
money sports (football and basketball) bring in money to support the programs that do not bring
in big money (soccer and lacrosse), but Majerol does not really go into much detail for them.
Overall, this source will help my research paper for the argument of paying college athletes, but
it does not offer much for the argument that they should not be paid.
Hurts, Jalen. Personal Interview. 26 February 2018.
 I asked Jalen Hurts a couple of questions regarding the payment of college athletes. I
asked him straight up if he thinks college athletes should get paid and he believes that they
should. He said that even though they get a stipend check, the amount of money they bring into
the university makes that stipend check look like nothing. He also said that he sees people
wearing gear that has his name and face on it, but
because of the rules the NCAA has in place, he cannot
receive any money from it. I also asked him if he
believed that college athletes should have a set wage or
if the money earned should be based on the amount that
the sports program brings to the school. He believed
that whoever brings in the most money should get the
most money. He also said that the pay scale should
follow that of the NFL. The most important positions
should make the most money, like quarterbacks in
football generally make more money than any other
position.
This source is a little different than the others I have given that I performed the interview
myself. I believe Jalen Hurts is as qualified as any to talk on this topic because he plays the most
important position on one of the best football teams in the nation. I do think that this source is
very biased because it is from a successful college athlete’s perspective, but I think that the bias
does not get in the way of the reliability of the source. He does bring up some very good points
about not being able to make money off the merchandise that is using his name and image.
Schoettle, Anthony. "Time to share the riches? Latest scandal rocking college basketball fuels
debate over compensating players." Indianapolis Business Journal, 9 Oct. 2017, p. 1A+.
General Reference Center GOLD,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511454742/GRGM?u=tusc49521&sid=GRGM&xid
=23efb07a. Accessed 9 Mar. 2018.
This source references the many different issues like the recent FBI probe into college
basketball programs paying top players like Collin Sexton for Alabama and DeAndre Ayton for
Arizona to play for their schools, and rule forty
which is and Olympic rule that states that athletes
cannot be represented from their sponsors right
before or during the Olympics if it conflicts with
the official sponsors of the Olympics. While it
does not really lean for or against the payment of
college athletes, it does give a lot of pros and cons
of paying them. One example is that many schools
do not make enough money to pay them because
they are not as well off financially as the mega
programs like Alabama and Ohio State.
 Schoettle is a writer for the Indianapolis Business Journal, and a graduate from Indiana
University. I believe that this article is reliable because he does not seem to feel the need to
interject his opinion. He refuses to let his possible bias get in the way of writing the article. He
focuses on the facts and statistics he has gathered to show the positives and negatives of paying
college athletes. He shows statistics about how schools like Indiana and Purdue do not have the
ability to pay their student athletes while also keeping all the programs going. Paying the student
athletes would force them to cut funding to one or more of the other programs on campus. He
also goes into the amount of money the NCAA makes off the college football playoff and March
Madness tournaments, and how it is mostly player driven.