The Conflict Between Student and Athlete

In today’s american culture, sports is at the top of numerous popularity surveys lists. With the all the aggression, entertainment, and fun, sports bring to us it’s hard to disagree why sports is so popular. But at times we often tend to put winning in sports over education and equality in schools. For years now schools in the United States have been looking past the word student in student athlete. By changing grades, SATs, and paying them to play. While non-student athletes students receive no where near the same treatment. I believe that football and basketball student-athletes should not have extra benefits, also shouldn’t change grades and SAT scores so they could play, and should be treated as non student-athletes.
From high school to college, athletes are told to recognize the word student in student athlete. The term “student-athletes” implies that all enrolled students who play college sports are engaged in secondary (“extracurricular”) activities that enhance their education. But at some schools in america, being a student comes second to the playing fields. At a few top Division 1 schools their athletes have scored 200 points lower than rest of the student body on the SAT.   According to the Journal Constitution, the University of Florida football team averaged 346 points lower than their peers on the SAT. Also UCLA a distinguished athletic and educational school had the biggest gap between all athletics and the student body in the nation with 247 points on the SAT.
Schools have went as far changing SAT scores and grades to allow athletes to play for the teams. On a report by ESPN, Derrick Rose a former University of Memphis point guard and current NBA all star of the chicago bulls, was reported for cheating on the SAT to be able to pass the standards of the University of Memphis admission so he can play. The university surveyed over this situation and no discipline to the player occured. There has also been a report by ESPN saying that Auburn...