Ethical Dilemmas For Student Athletes

College Sports

College sports is an industry. It not only provides a way for athletes to get an education, but brings money into schools, builds school spirit, and entertains many people across the nation. With thousands of student athletes across the country competing in a vast number of sports, it is sometimes more interesting to watch how they deal with ethical dilemmas.

Student athletes are on their own for the first time. High school coaches, mom, dad, best friends who have known them their entire life, are no longer there as mentors or sounding boards. Many times the student athlete sees themselves as alone.

Most of the student athlete’s life is simple, they go to classes, train, compete, and must keep up their GPA to continue competing. But what happens to the high school star if they are not succeeding in their chosen sport? While more training seems the logical answer, shortcuts are sometimes thrown in, such as sport enhancing drugs. Decisions are made on the spot without clearly thinking about the consequences of their actions.

And the consequences can be quite severe in college sports. Being banned for all sports in any colleges, expulsion from college, sometimes even jail time for the student athlete, these are all real possibilities for the athlete for violation of college sports ethics.

Many times the student athlete convinces themselves that they won’t get caught, or they will do it only this one time. But the problem is, everyone eventually gets caught. Whether it is the person who provides the drugs, the college administration, or just someone who knows what you did – the truth will come out and with it, all the ramifications of violating college sports ethics.

Colleges are very serious about sports ethics. They have to be. There is always that one superstar that everyone wants to the colleges to be lenient with. But if they are, if they allow the unethical behavior to be deemed as ‘OK’ by one, then they open up a tidal wave of unethical behavior down the road.

Rating: 5.0/5. From 1 vote.
Please wait...