FBS football coach salaries

The average FBS football coach makes $1.75 million dollars before bonuses. While the coaches are very good at their jobs, they do not deserve that much money. Not when they are making it off of their players who aren't compensated at all. The classic rebuttle to this line of thought is "THEY'RE GETTING AN EDUCATION. YOU CAN'T PUT A PRICE ON THAT". However anyone who propagates this notion is oblivious to what really goes on. For major college sports like football and basketball, the term "student athlete" can be a misnomer. Three years ago UNC admitted that they had been giving their basketball players grades for classes they were not attending. That means that NCAA runs a multimillion dollar industry and the students are only compensated with a room and 3 meals a day. There is no easy fix to this problem but if the schools are not going to give the students any money, the students should be allowed to make money off of themselves. Johnny Manziel should not get in trouble for selling autographs. 

Story of 6 Hours

It really is bizzare that in 2014, the police would just assume that someone was someone because of their name.  There are about 30 people in the U.S. named Justin Priest, and the police just assumed it was one.  Not only did the other Justin have a different birthday, and different age, but he even had a different middle name.  The parents must have been very distraught, and it is unlikely that they aren't going to be very upset with the police department.  They probably could even sue for the emotional distress that this cost them.  It's also uncanny how similar this story is to "Story of an Hour."

Collegiate Football Salaries

Paying collegiate athletes is unnecessary due to the fact that a league exist where football players are already paid. In this article it addresses compensation within the world of college football, specifically highlighting the salaries and incentives of top coaches, the money made in television rights and how the athletes themselves are not paid. However, the article fails to mention the fact that these football players are in college, that there is another league where the players are paid based on their success. If these players are good enough to believe they should be paid, they should go into the NFL.  These players should not play because the basis for collegiate sports is the fact that they don’t get paid. Paying these college football players would basically create an additional professional league. An additional football league is unnecessary due to the fact that one already exists, one that these players could join, removing the necessity to pay collegiate athletes.

Color Brave

Talk of race is often put on the back burner. Even Choate students have expressed their thoughts on how they think diversity day is "unnecessary", when really we need more of these types of events. The modern problem with race is that most of it is subtle or subconscious. We don't notice all the micro aggressions said or all of the uneducated remarks we make about race. The worst part is that we probably had good intentions, but being color brave will help fix that. Creating more diverse tables at tables in the dining hall would be a small change at Choate, but would have a vast impact on the atmosphere of school’s community. Creating more diversity in schools and organizing more days similar to Diversity Day across America can help teach people how to be color brave. In general, we need to be more educated and aware of each other. Putting yourself out there and being color brave is just one way to do that. Similar to what Mellody Hobson said during her Choate talk, we want to get to a place where diversity is not a surprise. We need a place where the normality is not a board of white males running all the companies in America. The world needs to be color brave and diverse.

“Football Coach Salaries”

  It is an absolutely terrible idea to give student athletes salaries. In the article, the author compares the players to the coach, but there are no similarities between the two. The athletes are playing for free for multiple reasons. The student may have already gotten an athletic scholarship worth thousands of dollars to come and play for the school, the player is given the opportunity to play for the team, which allows him to be scouted by the NFL, where he would potentially make millions a year, or/and he has a love for the game and is playing, because it is what he enjoys more than anything. There is no reason to compensate an athlete, because that student has already gotten an incredible amount from the program. The coach however, does deserve fair compensation. The coach has a particular skill set, which he uses to get a job and salary just like any other occupation. The coach could just as easily go to the NFL, so the colleges must make their team more attractive by having luxurious benefits and enormous salaries. A skilled coach means a better football program, which in turn makes the school more attractive to potential athletic recruits who could boost the team revenue by helping the school win games.It is more than fair to compensate the coaches as they currently are, but the idea to compensate students is honestly proposterous.  

College football Coaches Pay

College football coaches are currently making more money than they did five years ago. College football has recently signed multibillion dollar television contracts and the coaches are seeking the benefits. Players are not allowed to be paid in college sports. Players are only attracted to schools based on coaches, reputations, and facilities. A single coach such as Nick Saban at Alabama can completely transform a football program. A better football program sells more tickets and jerseys and brings it a bigger total revenue. The chancellor at Alabama said, "Coach Nick Saban is one of the best investments The University of Alabama has ever made." Not all college football coaches are worth the millions of dollars they make, but many of them certainly deserve every penny.

Staying Positive

Keeping a positive mindset throughout life is an important thing that many people struggle to do. It is a normal part of life to be sad, mad, angry, or just have negative feelings, and being able to control those emotions is vital to leading a successful, happy life, according to Nadia Goodman, in the article entitled, “How to train your brain to stay positive”. Teenagers in particular experience fluctuating emotions and feelings of positivity and negativity. As stated by Goodman, people have a general bias towards negative aspects of life, as opposed to focussing more on the positive parts of it. Although accepting failures and setbacks is vital to development, revolving solely around negativity ultimately is a detriment to improvement. Also mentioned in the article, most if not all of the time, there is more good that occurs in life than bad, and being grateful for those good occurrences is one strategy to a positively oriented life. Secondly, developing self confidence in one’s abilities and reaffirming those claims is also crucial to being positive. Lastly, as Goodman puts it, “challenging negative thoughts” and opposing otherwise self deprecating or self loathing comments or ideas is the final strategy to ensure a positive outlook on life.

http://zite.to/1reOVK6

Discomfort

In her Ted Talk, Melody Hobson perfectly describes how, the U.S. in paticular, can move even further away from racism. Her main point regards color blindness, and how we are taught to ignore the problem of racism instead of fixing it. No one is born with the mindset that one race is better than another; it is a learned way of thinking. Hobson supports her claim with statistics such as, "Even though white men make up only 30% of the population,they hold 70% of corporate borad seats." There are too many statistics like Hobson's example for them to be ruled out as coincidence. Hobson also very briefly mentions being uncomfortable around people from different places. Many people do not have the ability to travel to exotic places whenever they please and may not encounter many people outside of where they are from. This makes them unfamiliar with foreign cultures and people, and unfamiliarity can lead to discomfort. Discomfort connects back to color blindness because discomfort is the reason we ignore racism and don't want to talk about it. But if people of all different races and backgrounds can step out of thier comfort zones to handle the problem of racism and discrimination, then extensive amounts of progress could be made on the issue.

Don't Pull All Nighters

The author makes a strong point backed by scientific research, but lumping everyone's brains into one category seems slightly unrealistic. How a person chooses to study and prepare is up to the comfort and ability of that individual. Study breaks are helpful to clear the mind and take a brief lapse in brain exertion, but many students can easily get off task and distracted. Once kids have stopped doing something mentally strenuous, it can be difficult for them to start up again after a break. Approaching the task at hand in bits and pieces and one step at a time can help reduce the stress caused by studying. Sleep is an essential component in excelling in academics. Pulling an 'all nighter' to cram before an important assessment hurts rather than helps a student. The brain struggles to function after lack of sleep and focus then wanders during a quiz or test. Not every person approaches learning the same way. 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/better-ways-to-learn/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

The Regressiveness of Color Blindness

The purposeful disregard of race, otherwise known as color blindness, is neither effective nor progressive. As TED Talk speaker and chairwoman Mellody Hobson succinctly put it, “Color blindness doesn’t mean there’s no discrimination...it means we’re ignoring the problem.” The censorship of race signifies the end of the active acknowledgment of racial discrimination, but not the erasure of institutionalized racial prejudices. These prejudices, as well as perceptions of race, are rooted in history, and will continue to exist in the societal worldview due to the acumulative nature of perception vs. history. Color blindness promotes apologist beliefs on racially motivated atrocities throughout history ranging from slavery and genocide, to more contemporary concerns such as racial profiling and violent hate crimes. As Hobson stated, racism is often treated as the “conversational equivalent of touching the third rail.” Although discussions over race can be uncomfortable, it bears repeating unawareness of racial differences is not an enterprising solution to racism, and that acceptance of its existence is crucial for equality to someday be realistically attained.