- What is a student athlete in your eyes?
Tyrone: To me the definition of a student athlete is someone who goes to a university for academics and also plays sports for the school at the same time.
2. Is being a student athlete hard?
Tyrone: Yes it is, being a student athlete is basically considered a 40 hour a week job along with your classes that is very tough to manage it all at the same time.
3. What do you do in a day of being a student athlete?
Tyrone: For one, the days start early, and for me playing football workouts begin at 5 am and my does not end until 10 pm because of workouts, mandatory meetings, film, going to class, homework, study sessions, and then practice. It is a very busy and long day every day of waking up as a student athlete.
4. Do you think you should be getting paid for being a student athlete?
Tyrone: Yeah, at least some sort of income because for me I play football and football is our biggest program and source of income from all the other sports that the school is getting from us. If it was up to me since the football players put in the work to make the money then how come we do not get to get what we earned?
5. Why do you think student athletes should be paid?
Tyrone: Because the athletes are the ones who are putting in the work to make the team and the school successful. Plus there is so many hours of being a student athlete that the typical worker does for their job and they are getting paid for it and we are not. That aint right man!
6. How much money should a student athlete make?
Tyrone: With this comes tricky now because you can not set the number equal to everyone playing different sports. If the football team makes the most revenue then those players should have the most income compared to the swim team nothing against them but because they do not earn more or as much revenue as us they can not make as much as us.
7. Do you think this will be bad for college athletes to have this money at such a young age?
Tyrone: It can go both ways, I know for me and the situation my family and I have been in and gone through so much. The goal is to play football to make money and to get my family out the struggle. By paying student athletes it can not only help my family and I get us out of the bad neighborhoods but also so many other families as well.
8. Would you recommend for every student athlete that is getting paid to take a financial planning class?
Tyrone: Yes, I would even go a step further and make it mandatory for every student athlete to take that class. So that way everyone has the proper steps on how to manage your money and to be smart with it instead of being dumb and using it on stupid stuff.
9. Do you think student athletes have it bad because they do not get paid?
Tyrone: Yes, I am sure if you ask anyone to work a 40 hour work week and then tell them to do it because they love it and also tell them that they will not get paid for doing it. I am sure everyone will want to get some money for all there hard work that they put in. Colleges just make a profit on all student athletes because they can it is not right and this has to change and I believe it will.
10. Do you think one day the NCAA will make it possible for student athletes to get paid?
Tyrone: Yes, I think with the help of Lebron James getting the state of California colleges to agree to do this in the start 2021 it is only the beginning before everyone in the nation does the same thing.