The topic for this debate is "School athletic scholarships bring worthy students to school and should be continued."

dreamlandmafia will be arguing for this proposition and will open the debate.
Jamuhn will argue against this proposition.

Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.

No post will be longer than 800 words and in the case of the closing statement no longer than 500 words. In the event of a debater posting more than the stated word limit then the excess words will be deleted by me from the bottom. Credits or references at the bottom do not count towards the word total.

Editing is Strictly forbidden. This means any editing, for any reason. Any edited posts will be completely deleted.

Excluding both the opening and closing statements only one image may be included in each post. No more than 5 references can be included at the bottom of each post. Opening and closing statements must not contain any images, and must have no more than 3 references.

Responses should be made within 24 hours, if people are late with their replies, they run the risk of forfeiting their reply and possibly the debate.

Judging will be done by an anonymous panel of 11 judges. After each debate is completed it will be locked and the judges will begin making their decision. Results will be posted by me as soon as a majority (6) is reached.

This debate is now open, good luck to both of you.

Jamuhn forfeits his turn, dreamlandmafia, please continue.

Schools are giving more and more Financial Aid every year to students, as can be seen in my reference in my last response. A small portion is going to Student Athletes that may not be able to afford to get into the college or university.

Too many colleges, sports are a big deal, and they want to stay on top. With the athletes playing in tournaments and being sponsored by big name companies, they can easily pay off their tuition that is given to them basically free, just by playing a few games of basketball, baseball, football, or whatever sport they are there to play for.

There are a lot more students than athletes, which is why there is such a great difference in the amount of scholarships given at most schools obviously. Plus, any athlete can be given a scholarship on the basis of their being a "scholar". Okafor, the "model student-athlete," could have received a scholarship based on scholar. That is the point of this debate isn't it, for you to say why athletes should be given scholarships based on their physical talents rather than their actual student affairs? My position is that athletes, to be given a scholarship, must meet the same criteria given to regular students who have scholarships.

I mean, if we are just going to pay people to play for a college, why make them students at all? How about we just find the best players in the country and pay them to play under the college colors? We can make college basketball a form of amateur league play. After all, that is what it is reduced to when you start paying people who do not represent the academic merits of the school.

Te are talking about schools here, a place of education, not a playground. If any student wants a free ride, they must show the reasons why based on their intellectual merit.

Id like to thank Jamuhn for a great debate, albeit long. He fought his predetermined case really well, if I were judge Id say better than me, much. I find it especially hard to debate for a topic where you feel the opposite on.

Without athletes at a school, there would not be very much school spirit. No games for the students to rally themselves and show support for their school and team.

What are schools without sports? Boring buildings where you go and get your head stuffed full of facts. The athletes get to come and play for that school, get a free tuition, room and board, and maybe pay it off by playing in games and gaining sponsorships. If a school wants to allow student athletes to get scholarships, they should, a school shouldnt just be about education, but also about social interaction and being with your peers.

I know its not much of a closing statement, but im totally out of ideas.

Thank you to you too Dreamlandmafia.

Schools are primarily a place of learning, preparing its students for the real world. Secondarily, the school is a place for growing, as a person. There are many facets of this second concept, athletics being one of them. I'd like to stress again, that noone is saying take away athletics. Scholarships, as they imply, should be given solely on the basis of "scholarly" pursuits. There is nothing preventing a basketball player from having a scholarship if he is a good student.

But, when we start passing up bright students, not only in admission, but in scholarship aid, in exchange for a good athlete, we are foregoing the primary function of the school for some other motive.

A consequence of this trend of granting athletes "scholar"-ships is that many highschool athletes are looking to pursue their athleticism rather than their academics, believing that they will have school paid for them if they become better as an athlete and, yet, remain mediocre as a student. We need to encourage students, especially the younger ones, the importance of academics now. Only a small fragment of athletes end up making a career out of it anyway. While athletics is a good outlet, their academic pursuits is what will count in the long run.

In the sense of this primary function of the schools, namely scholarly pursuits, athletic scholarships do not bring worthy students to the school on its own. What they bring are good athletes, but, generally, not good students. If a school is to preserve the academic spirit upon which it was founded, we need to reverse this trend and start granting students who are worthy, academically, these scholarships.

Very good debate guys...

Off the the judges we go!

Judges have spoken. (After being kicked out of bed in the middle of the night by frantic u2u's from me )

The winner of this debate is Jamuhn by a margin of 5-3. Well done to Jamuhn and best of luck dreamlandmafia in future tournaments.