Athletes for Valley College are often given a pass on more than just the fields they play on, an advantage over your average student.
The advantages range from financial aid paperwork being processed faster, access and first enrollment to certain “sports friendly” professors’ classes who will help players pass classes, and shorter waits in the lunch room. These, among other benefits, are not exclusive to men in sports, but sports in general. According to several reports done by the NCAA and an article by Sports Illustrated, favoritism seems to be consistent throughout colleges nationwide.
“As a former football coach I know personally of situations where players were given priority enrollment advantages where they had access to teachers who were favorable to athletes as well as favorable class times,” stated Professor Buchanan, a coach and gym instructor, who currently teaches Health 11.
Students often have to wait and sit in through up to four classes just to obtain an add slip or two hours trying to get financial aid. For us in the majority it’s ridiculous to watch athletes cruise through the process at an unfair advantage. This needs to be resolved.
When questioned about whether or not he believes that anything is currently being done by Valley to abstain from player favoritism Professor Buchanan stated, “The players and coaches believe they can contribute to winning is more important than the individual welfare of the student-athlete themselves, with exception of the head baseball coach. So the answer to this question is a resounding: NO”
The advantages that sports players are given can be audible anywhere on campus as their whoops and hollers can be heard throughout an otherwise silent library, study room, hallway or computer lab at any given time, all of which is seemingly ignored by faculty. Is this within reason? Some players believe so.
“We have a lot more going on than people know about, we have a lot of pressure and work really hard for this school, sometimes we don’t mean to be so loud or jump to the front of the line, we just have so much to worry about and spend so much time on campus and in practice that we need to just have the extra advantage,” stated Glen Whirley, defensive end for the Monarch football team.
Pressures, long hours and the need for the Monarchs to win aside, it would be nice if I too could yell out my frustrations and take classes that are writer friendly, which I’m guaranteed to pass. However the average student that I am forces me and thousands like me to be polite in library and hold my hollers to a minimum. Is this unfair? I think so.
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Athletes are supposed to eat two hours before any practice or game, but sometimes it's hard to follow this general rule because we may have classes from eight in the morning to one in the afternoon, followed by a game at two. When I get out of class at one I’m usually hungry. During game days, this becomes a problem because I only have an hour to eat before the game starts. I walk into the cafeteria room in a rush only to find a line full of, equally hungry, students. I decide to skip lunch sometimes because I don't have the "advantage" of not having to wait in line, and if I do have this advantage because I’m an athlete, why wasn't I ever informed of it? I do, too, feel like screaming in the middle of campus because of the, continues, stress athletes are under.
I'm a full time and straight "A" student, without having the professors give me "special" privileges to help me pass the class just because I’m an athlete. I'm a full time Monarch athlete, spending two hours, everyday, after class practicing in the one-hundred degree weather. I have to wait in line, like a regular student, at the cafeteria in order to get my lunch. I don't go screaming down the hallways, even though I want to sometimes. I don't have "sports friendly" professors for all my classes and I don't get first pick for my classes each semester. I love the schools newspaper, but this article has really amazed me in how misleading and untruthful it is. I just wish the writer had done more research by asking many other different, if not all, athletes on campus about these "advantages" before actually writing the article.
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