First, as noted in a March 26, 2001, NCAA educational column, the definition of "staff member" is very broad and includes students and volunteers (Brown & McCaw, 2012). Specifically, "a staff member includes any individual who performs work for the institution or the athletics department, even if the individual is a student at the institution (e.g., student manager, student trainer) and/or does not receive compensation from the institution for performing such services (e.g., volunteer coaches, undergraduate assistant coaches and graduate assistant coaches)” (Brown & McCaw, 2012). Second, any involvement by a staff member in academic misconduct must be reported to the NCAA as academic fraud. The fact that a student-athlete completed most of the work on an assignment or already knew the subject material of a test for which he or she was provided the answers does not excuse a staff member 's involvement or eliminate the reporting requirement. A recent case provides an example, the NCAA Committee found that academic fraud occurred when a student-athlete used an outline and other material provided by a tutor to write a paper. Similarly, the Committee has found academic fraud when a student-athlete submitted a rough draft of a paper written by a staff member, even though the student-athlete …show more content…
The only way to achieve this is by treating all student-athletes as well as non-athlete students alike. Athletes know what they are getting themselves into when they decide to play sports at the college level. They should not be treated nor given special treatment that is not available to other students. All students deserve the same chance to succeed and when others are given more opportunities because they play some sort of sport then that is morally