Are professional athletes overpaid?

Yesterday an extremely large number of Americans watched the biggest football event of the year: the Super Bowl XLV. This annual game gets a great many people involved in various ways. Whether a person watches as an active participant - yelling, cheering, commenting to the athletes through the television screen - or merely put up with the game in between the stream of million-dollar commercials, the evening of the Super Bowl is typically a night to eat food and gather with friends with the television blaring.

As big of an event as it is however, is it really logical that each player gets paid a million dollars (or some such amount) to play? For me personally, I know that I chose to participate in sports in high school either because I enjoyed the results of physical activity or simply because I liked the feeling of being a part of a team. In short, there was something fun about running or skiing or whatever it may be, which drew me to participating in the sport. Now I know that things are a little different on a professional level. However, I would assume that the majority of the players who have made a career of being a professional athlete got to that point because, as a child, they enjoyed the sport to which they have now dedicated their lives. So is it unreasonable of me to have the opinion that professional athletes (like football stars in this case) are being paid an incredible salary to have fun playing a game that they love?

Forgive me if my outlook is naive, I will readily admit that I know very little about football. I understand that training and living a football lifestyle may be a taxing job, albeit a very different and specific line of work. And since football is the player's life, it most certainly deserves to be a paid position - even a well-paid position! It just seems a bit unfair to have the role of quarterback be a million-dollar position when people who have jobs that require more knowledge and a wider range of skill are paid significantly less.

Granted, many people are sports fanatics and know every score of every game their particular team has played, I would not list professional athlete as a particularly useful occupation. It certainly provides some level of entertainment...at least for as long as the season lasts, but a game does not typically work to better the community of help advance and change the world in which we live. I would say that a doctor or teacher would have a more personal and lasting effect on the lives with which they interact and work to change for the better.

I have one final thought to support  my opinion. As a dancer and member of a family that shows a relatively low interest in professional sports (with the slight exception of horse racing), I have grown up with the concept that "if dance were any easier, it would be football." And since dance rarely gets as much attention as an event such as the Super Bowl, I conclude that professional athletes, specifically football players, are indeed overpaid.

Hannah, winner of this honorary award in 2011, is a freshman at Ithaca College. She is currently studying to be an English Education major with the high hopes of one day becoming an elementary school teacher. Her on-campus hobbies include tap dancing, acting and singing as a member of Standing Room Only Performing Arts Company, actively participating in the Protestant and Catholic communities, and learning the art of performing sign language. When she is not running around between classes during the day and extracurricular activities in the evening, you are likely to find Hannah running red faced on the treadmill or dancing in her dorm by the light of the disco ball given to her for her birthday.

Hannah comes from a tiny town in New Hampshire, indeed she lives very nearly in the middle of nowhere on a farm with a variety of misfit, though dearly loved animals. Her parents are both veterinarians, an occupation that Hannah has pretty firmly decided is not for her. She shall be leaving that line of work leaving her younger sister, her best friend in the whole world, to take over the practice in the future.
She attended school in the next town over due to the simple fact that there are no schools within her own town. She feels that despite the drawbacks of living in a rural environment, she has benefited greatly from growing up in a close-knit community. The close friends and intimate family relationships have really shaped Hannah's friendly and faith-based personality.

Should you have the privilege of knowing Hannah personally, it is needless to say that she is a family-orientated person. As she will readily admit, leaving home to go to college was a bit of a struggle for her. Although she is proud to say that she adjusted quite well to the college living environment she still, on occasion, has a difficult time being seven hours away from home. But overall, Hannah has enjoyed this new and challenging experience.