1. write a hasty generalization about student athletes, college sports or the NCAA. Then briefly (in 5 sentences or less) explain the faulty reasoning.
*Even if your answer to #1 was incorrect, you can still earn points here, depending on your example (4 pts) and explanation (4 pts).
2.Refer to this passage from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:
How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.
Identify a syllogism in this passage:
Major premise:
Minor premise:
Conclusion:
3.Read this excerpt from Jeff Miller’s 2015 article for the OC Register, “Stop Invoking Slavery in Debates about How Athletes Are Treated and Paid”:
I’m not sure why, as a reference point, the practice of slavery remains such an easy place to end up, particularly in sports. Historically speaking, slavery isn’t exactly a flippant topic.
Yet, Mary Willingham, a highly regarded and principled former academic advisor at North Carolina, famously called the NCAA “a plantation.”
Ex-Oklahoma running back Spencer Tillman, as authoritative as nearly any sports commentator, once said the NCAA “is set up like a sophisticated form of slavery covered by niceties and complexities.”
The NCAA system is many things, including unfair, outdated and helplessly broken. Any endeavor that insists on trying to group football and men’s basketball with cross country and field hockey is doomed at its core.
I’m on record as saying athletes in the revenue-producing sports should be paid. When the defensive coordinator at Virginia Tech is making $1.3 million for a single season, there simply is too much money available for the players not to receive a share.
But the NCAA as a plantation? The strong safety as a slave? That’s too much for me, a little excessive in terms of dramatics and a lot lacking in terms of accountability. But it sure sounds profound, doesn’t it?
Sorry, but the distance between being underpaid and insufficiently represented to being a slave isn’t one that can be covered that quickly or conveniently. It certainly isn’t one that should be covered that glibly.
Which fallacy does Miller address in this passage?
appeal to authority
equivocation
false analogy
post hoc ergo propter hoc
Define the fallacy. Remember that if you use someone else’s definition, you should quote and credit your source. (4 pts)
Explain the selected term’s significance to this passage: what is Miller arguing and why? (4 pts)
4.Refer to the following section of Taylor Branch’s “The Shame of College Sports”:
Slavery analogies should be used carefully. College athletes are not slaves. Yet to survey the scene—corporations and universities enriching themselves on the backs of uncompensated young men, whose status as “student-athletes” deprives them of the right to due process guaranteed by the Constitution—is to catch an unmistakable whiff of the plantation. Perhaps a more apt metaphor is colonialism: college sports, as overseen by the NCAA, is a system imposed by well-meaning paternalists and rationalized with hoary sentiments about caring for the well-being of the colonized. But it is, nonetheless, unjust. The NCAA, in its zealous defense of bogus principles, sometimes destroys the dreams of innocent young athletes.
Identify two underlying assumptions of this passage:
5.Read this passage from the testimony of Rebecca Blank, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, at the September 2020 Senate hearing on “Compensating College Athletes”:
But all of these benefits are dwarfed by what they receive from their college education. I’m an economist by training and know the extensive literature on the returns to a college education. By any measure, college graduates outperform their peers who have only completed their high school degree. For example, the average college graduate is 24 percent more likely to be employed than a high‐school graduate and average earnings among college graduates averages $1 million higher over a lifetime. When looking at the benefits received by student‐athletes, for the vast majority, the value of their college degree will be the biggest benefit they receive from their college experience.
Add the scholarship benefits to the other assistance available to student‐athletes and then add in the return to their college education. This is a generous package of benefits – more than is received by any other students on our campus. Their college‐athlete experience also builds a network of friends and experiences that shape them for a lifetime. Their education has the power to change the trajectory of entire families, particularly among first‐generation college students or those who but for their athletic ability may not have the opportunity to attend college at all.
The business model for college athletics is greatly misunderstood by the public. The American collegiate model is focused on offering athletic opportunities to a broad base of student‐ athletes in a wide range of sports, regardless of their revenue potential. If college sports followed the business model used by private companies, we would compete in the sports that generate positive cash flow and eliminate all others. That’s not the model any university follows. For instance, at the University of Wisconsin, only football and men’s basketball are revenue‐generating sports. Our other 21 sports cost more money than they generate – and that is true almost everywhere, with very few exceptions.
But we’re not running college sports primarily to make money. We are offering training and competitive experiences to a large number of students with diverse athletic skills. That fits into our educational model, where our goal is to help students develop their skills, their self‐ discipline, their self‐knowledge and self‐confidence over the college years. If we had to spend all of our revenue only within our two revenue‐producing sports, there would be no Olympic sport opportunities and a relatively small number of student‐athletes. Under these circumstances, I’m not sure we would choose to run an athletic program at UW‐Madison. Our 800 athletes across 23 sports are all part of the fabric of our institution. I’m proud of all of them.
Find and briefly explain an example of each appeal (4 pts each):
Logos:
Pathos:
Ethos:
Last Completed Projects
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