College football is one of America's greatest pastimes. But there is a growing epidemic among college football players. Concussions are the most common head injury to a football player and are taken lightly on the football field by players and coaches. 4.8% of college football athletes reported a concussion during the 2012-2013 season as well as other head injuries including subdural and epidural hematomas (Guskiewicz, 1). The National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA exists for the purpose of developing guidelines to protect student-athletes when participating in collegiate sports. But is the NCAA actually protecting student-athletes with these guidelines and is it ethical about it? In college football, head injuries are not treated as seriously as they should be and players are constantly reminded of them. This is concerning because the recent statistics presented above could be largely inaccurate. At one college, players remember Wally Pip, who played baseball and decided not to play because of a headache. Wally's replacement was Lou Gehrig who later took Wally Pip's starting position. The purpose of this story and the reason it is told to college football players is to tell them to fight through whatever injuries they may have suffered and not to miss practice or a game . So, if a football player gets injured, he is supposed to shake it off and continue playing, regardless of the degree of his injury. The player may also not know what to report about their injury, as it would take them away from the game they love to play. So why shouldn't athletes just fight through a head injury to keep playing? Let's start by defining the different types of head injuries. The first and most important... middle of paper ...... o pay players who actually put lives at risk so the NCAA makes a profit. As we've shown previously, concussions can really affect someone later in life, shouldn't athletes receive some sort of compensation for that? The NCAA has more than enough money to do this and if they provided compensation for the game and required colleges to use these new technologies for concussions, the rate of concussions would decrease significantly. And there won't be as many attempts to sue the NCAA for failing to properly protect the student-athlete. If that happens, everyone benefits except the NCAA's profit. But when they make more than $740 million a year from players putting their lives on the line for the enjoyment of others, it seems unethical that they don't receive compensation. But is the NCAA the only part of college football that acts unethically ??