actice and game schedules to quite harmful ones, such as helping athletes cheat to retain minimum GPA status. At UCLA, college athletes receive quite a few special considerations that the university is willing to admit, “In order to accommodate their schedules, UCLA provides a long list of perks, including priority enrollment, priority parking, their own department in college tutorials and a separate book line where their books are prepackaged and prepared for pick-up” (Ward 1). Anyone who’s ever attended UCLA and stood in line to purchase books would attest to why the latter perk is a major one. However, school officials contend these perks are necessary to accommodate schedule and athletic participation demands. For example, athletes don’t pay for their books, but they have to return them when they are done with the course. Time on the road, time spent practicing, and time training are all reasons given for special accommodations like these. While it disgruntles many students who face parking, book line, and scheduling frustrations, one can see a valid need for privileges of this variety.
However, there is another variety of privilege that is much more hidden and much more pernicious at work in college athletics. It is the recruitment of virtually illiterate students merely because they are talented athletes. It is the condoning of a variety of forms of cheating in order to ensure those athletes stay eligible to play. It is the cover-up of a variety of deviant behaviors, from drug and alcohol use to rape, in order to keep a talented athlete on the field. These and other practices go on all the time in college sports, and many of them have come to light in recent years. College sports is continually plagued by scandals based on athletes receiving these kinds of privileges. The c0ollege minimum GPA is 2.0 to remain eligible to play sports. However, there is a good deal of leeway on this rule, for example athlet...