athletes, including proper medical care for student-athletes from a younger age (Frye & Gregory,
2015) and concussion symptoms with relation to age, gender, and sport practiced (Mayhan, Van
Valkenburg, Nittoli, Shunk, & Jensen, 2018). Rubin and Moses (2017) sought to understand the
concept of athletic subcultures, by examining the difference in the lives of student-athletes and
regular students on campus. Dee (2014) and Riciputi and Erdal (2017) studied the stereotypes
intrinsic with being an athlete at the collegiate level, both concluding that stereotyping may
hinder student-athletes in the classroom.
Currently, much of the literature on student-athletes centers on one of two sides of the
debate on whether there should be financial compensation for student-athletes (Bilas; 2017;
Byers & Hammer, 1995; Davis, 2017; Labaton, 2017; Osborne, 2014; Peebles, 2017; Swanson,
2017; Thompson & Burnett, 2017). Most of the news articles cited on this topic throughout this
study are opinion-pieces by journalists and analysts seen on national news sources, such as
ESPN, The Washington Post, The Denver Post, etc., who favor either side of said debate - with
the overwhelming majority in favor of paying student-athletes. However, Osborne’s (2014) essay
is an example of the other side of the debate. The author calls the exploitation of student-athletes
a “myth”, and the last lines of her essay are revealing of her point-of-view: “These are the rules.
If you don’t like the rules, don’t play!” (Osborne, 2014, p. 151). While the student-athlete topic
has been hotly discussed for decades, it is clear that a more academic look at the paradoxical
tensions present in the NCAA is necessary.
Currently, no published work has examined the student-athlete issue from the perspective
of paradoxical tensions and contradictions, despite a few publications with titles similar to that of
this research study (Hamilton, 2005; Lapchick & Malekoff, 1987). Hamilton’s 2005 article
“Putting the ‘Student’ back in Student-Athlete” presents an overview of new NCAA regulations