"An athlete's situation is even more precarious, because playing careers are brief and can be ended by injury at any time" (Eskin). From first hand experience, I know that being an athlete is very demanding on the body. Day in and day out something hurts that didn"t hurt the day before. According to Sports Attorney David Jackson, ". the risk of injury should legitimize the amount of money athletes make" (Clemons 49). The career of a professional athlete can be over in a wink of an eye when something goes wrong. "Any guy who has the guts to stand in front of a 90 mph fastball should be compensated. Also, consider that most football players will walk away from their careers with prominently disabling injuries" (Clemons 49). When an athlete suffers a career ending injury, he has to make the best of what he has left, if anything. The professional sports world is a business and owners are in it for the money. "Managers and so-called friends will dump them in a split second. Owners will not keep injury prone players around because of history or reputation" (Brane). An often quoted term in sports, "It's not what you did for me, it's what you can do for me now." This even further supports why athletes should get all the money they can while they"re still able to perform at their peak level.
Why is it that athletes are always the ones who catch all the criticism for the amount of money they make? A well-trained athlete is no different from a doctor or a lawyer. "While athletes put in an enormous amount of time to participate in college athletics and pursue a college degree, pre-medical students work just as hard to become doctors.yet athletes get all the criticism" (Brane). Rarely are doctors or lawyers criticized because of the type of salary they pull in. These professions require a certain skill that these individuals were born with and they"re using that talent to the best of their ability to make the most amount of money they can.
