The document discusses the debate around whether college athletes should be paid. It summarizes the arguments on both sides, including that athletes bring in revenue for their schools but are considered amateurs. The document also analyzes a Newsday article by Michael Dobie arguing that NCAA athletes deserve salaries. However, the document finds Dobie's source lacks credibility as a columnist for an opinion-based newspaper without expertise in sports. While some of Dobie's claims can be supported by other scholarly sources, the document concludes his article alone is not a credible source due to biases.

1. Alena Mendoza
FYS 109
17 Sept. 2014
Should College Athletes Get Paid?
A topic that has recently been big in the news is whether college athletes deserve salaries
for playing for the NCAA. There are some opinions as that yes these student athletes should get
paid because they are bringing large amounts of money to the university, unlawful capping
scholarships, and exploitation. On the other side of this argument is that student athletes should
not get paid for one because becoming a college athlete is voluntary, they are amateurs, and they
are getting compensated with scholarships. Both sides seem very logical, but it is to find out
which opinion can be turned into the truth.
Michael Dobie, member of the editorial board of Newsday newspaper, wrote an article on
how there will be change coming for all college athletes receiving salaries for playing for the
NCAA. He also states that some sports that are not as successful as football and men’s basketball
actually have fair compensation with scholarships, but the sports that produce high revenue
deserve more than scholarships. Another statement from Dobie is that coaches are actually
earning promotional contracts and bonuses for the athletes’ achievements such as, “Florida
men’s basketball coach Billy Donovan just got a new $3.7 million-a-year contract. Ohio State
athletic director Gene Smith just received an $18,000 bonus – because one of his school’s
wrestlers won an NCAA title.” He also goes on to say that the NCAA does not primarily care for
the academic side of the athletes, as long as they are strong athletes that help earn money for
them rather. The last subject Dobie discusses is scholarships. College athletes can lose their
scholarships by a number of things which is not fair, the scholarships should last all four years.

2. The NCAA is capping scholarships on the athletes who bring most of the profit to their
organization. He believes that this whole ordeal of college athletes getting stipends would have
never happened had the NCAA had fair compensation and had no right to take it away.
While Dobie’s claims seem accurate, they are only his opinion because the newspaper he
is affiliated with, Newsday, is an opinion-based newspaper. Another thing is that Michael Dobie
is a columnist for Newsday. A columnist is a person who contributes to a newspaper regularly
with his or her opinions, usually to get higher ratings. In order to get higher ratings, the
columnist may be told what to write about and how to write about it. Columnist usually write
what the readers want to read or an opinion. So either way, this source loses credibility because
of the persuasion or opinion-based writing styles. Also looking at his other articles on Newsday,
a reader will realize that he ranges from a variety of topics. Realizing this means that he does
have a specialty in any field so he loses more credibility (“Michael Dobie.”).
One of the claims that Dobie makes, capping scholarships is unfair, can be backed-up
with a scholarly article by Stephanie Mosca. Mosca goes on to say that a former West Virginia
University football player filed a law suit against the NCAA stating that placing a cap on athletic
scholarship violates antitrust laws. Mosca also goes on to say that the former mountaineer will
represent other FBS scholarship football players who played in the five major conferences. With
one athlete trying to make a difference for himself, it turned into a group trying to protect their
rights rather than in individual. College athletes have always realized they were assets to their
universities but now they are fighting back. All the attention this has brought to NCAA, they are
still not allowing stipends for the athletes, but there is talk of extra benefits for the athletes
(Mosca).

3. Kathryn Young also supports one of Dobie’s claims which is the NCAA exploiting the
athletes and making profit off of this exploitation. “The number 15 in Gainesville, Florida signals
the Gators' much-debated former quarterback, Tim Tebow. No. 15 jerseys are a top seller,
bringing in $ 77,000 in sales in 2008 (Young).” All of this profit must go somewhere, and most
of it goes to the NCAA organization. So many other athletes brought and still bring billions of
dollars to the university or NCAA with jerseys. Some other popular jerseys besides Tebow
include Michael Jordan, number twenty-three for North Carolina Tar Heels, Tyler Hansbrough,
number fifty for the North Carolina Tar Heels as well, a high priced jersey is number fourteen at
University of Oklahoma, and another high priced jersey is number twelve at University of Texas.
It’s believed that these jerseys belonged to Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy because they had
successful seasons in these jerseys (Young).
An article by Mark Brilliant supports the claim that the NCAA does not make the
athletes’ grades a primary focus. “Even at UC Berkeley, rightly esteemed for its academics,
graduation rates for football players and men's basketball players during the last decade hovered
near the bottom of the entire NCAA (Brilliant).” Berkeley is a university well known for the high
grade point averages from students and high graduation rates, if even this school has athletes that
have lower grades other schools have the same problems with their student-athletes (Brilliant).
Aditi Kinkhabwala backs up the claim of university coaches earning bonuses and
contracts is indeed true. “The new deal will incrementally raise his salary from $250,000 in 2006
to $350,000 in 2012 and, combined with additional guaranteed income (from sources such as
sponsorships and ticket sales), he'll earn $875,000 next year and $1.1 million by contract's end in
2012 (Kinkhabwala).” The Rutgers gave Schiano, the coach talked about in the previous quote, a
bigger reward because his team had made it to a bowl. Yes the coach had to train the athletes and

4. teach them plays to run, but most of the success fell into the hands of how the athletes played.
This ridiculous bonus for a coach could have went to the athletes who put much more effort into
getting to the bowl game (Kinkhabwala).
For this topic, information that would build the author’s credibility would be the purpose
of the article which in this case actually makes Dobie lose credibility because it is a persuasive
article not factual or informational. The type of journal it is from also builds the credibility, but
again with Dobie loses his credibility because Newsday is a popular newspaper which is not
reviewed by experts in the field pertaining to the subject. Organization also constructs credibility
and Dobie seemed to have everything organized and did not jump around with the content. The
major part of building credibility is the author himself. Dobie talking about this topic does not
make the source very credible because he has no experience in sports and he is mostly writing
out of his opinion because he is a columnist for Newsday. Overall, this source was not credible
but once looking around on MULibraries, one can find that many of his arguments can be
supported with scholarly articles.
In this case, for Dobie to have been reliable source he may have should have had a degree
in sports management or sports law because the article pertains to money and sports. Another
aspect of Dobie’s career makes him an unreliable source which is him being an employee of
Newsday because this newspaper is an opinion-based newspaper. Dobie also never earned any
awards or honors for his writings so he is also not credible for this reason. The audience he is
writing to also tells if it is a credible source. In this case he is not credible because he is writing
to anyone who will read it instead of scholars or specialists in a profession. He also could have
quoted scholarly articles to back up his arguments and written in an informational style rather
than persuasion. Along with the scholarly articles he could have quoted, a bibliography is always

5. a way to search for credibility. If the source has a bibliography of the author doing interviews it
is most likely not credible because he could have interviewed himself and made it seem as
though he interviewed someone else. The bibliography can be credible if the sources in the
bibliography are scholarly sources though. Also if his article had been published from a more
educational magazine or newspaper rather than a popular newspaper. He also could have gave
his opposing side a tip of the hat so the readers could understand both sides of the argument
rather than just one side. Another way of telling if the source is credible is the date of
publication. For this topic I would want to find more recent articles because there are events
happening right now that are majorly different than the ones that occurred ten years ago.
Misinformation can be powered by all the readers believing that it is true and passing it
on to the next person which will keep the misinformation flowing around. It can also be fueled
by big organizations stating something and because it is an organization people think that it is
true. A way to keep misinformation from being spread even more than it is now is one not to
spread anything you are not sure about first off, and secondly to check the credibility of the
source. Say I am looking for a college to attend and I want to look up crimes that are associated
with or around the school area. If I am looking this information up on the universities web page
then I will most likely find nothing and think that the university I chose has no violence, when in
fact the university just keeps the bad information associated with the school a secret or does not
share that with the public. To prevent misinformation, always check your source’s credibility.

6. Works Cited
Brilliant, Mark. "In free agency we trust; It's time for a college athletic system that spreads the
wealth and hikes graduation rates...” Los Angeles Times. (April 8, 2014 Tuesday): 816
words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 2014/09/16.
Kinkhabwala, Aditi. "Rutgers rewards winning coach; Gives him 7 years, big bucks." The
Record (Bergen County, NJ). (December 23, 2005 Friday): 790 words. LexisNexis
Academic. Web. 2014/09/16.
"Michael Dobie." Newsday. Newsday, 2014. Web. 15 Sept. 2014.
Mosca, Stephanie. “NCAA faces lawsuit for capping athletic scholarships.” Inside Counsel.
(March 2014): 360 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 2014/09/14.
Young, Kathryn. “Deconstructing the Facade of Amateurism: Antitrust and Intellectual Property
Arguments in Favor of Compensating Athletes.” Virginia Sports & Entertainment Law
Journal. (Spring, 2013): 11060 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 2014/09/15.