BERKELEY, Calif.– You know the feeling. You’ve just walked from the bowels of Dwinelle all the way to Wheeler Hall in 10 minutes (quite a feat). You can’t help but wonder: “Why am I not getting paid for this? I mean, it’s not like the University pays actual student-athletes anyway, but I should at least get a scooter or something.”
The logic is simple. If someone is a hard-working, honest student who also manages to achieve incredible athletic feats daily (such as walking a hundred yards in 10 minutes), they should get a little pat on the back for it! Come to think of it, I should probably be considered a student-athlete. In a way, both me and the football players share the ability to walk to class and also to lose to Notre Dame. We’re the same, right?
If I were to start calling myself a student-athlete, the perks wouldn’t go unnoticed. It’s the perfect excuse to get out of things I don’t want to go to (like discussion sections) while providing me a fabulous way to center myself in every conversation. Yeah, collegiate sports are the equivalent of full-time jobs without any of the salary or benefits, but I personally believe that my extraordinary ability to complain about minor inconveniences parallels the athleticism of Cal’s athletes. Why should it matter if I’m not registered on any NCAA roster when I arrive to class slightly out of breath?
The arbitrary delineation between athletes and non-athletes on campus has gone too far. I as well as many other Berkeley students do many athletic activities every day. Yesterday, I used the stairs to walk up to the 3rd floor of Social Sciences–this time, impressively, without using my hands even once–even though the elevators weren’t broken.
This is all to say that I think that I should get all of the clout and attention of the student athletes. We share so many attributes like not being paid for our daily hardships (mine being my ten minute walk between classes, theirs being a silly little three-hour morning practice before a full day of classes). If my request is denied, I will take matters into my own hands (which, by the way, I did not use at all while walking up the stairs) and borrow my sister’s volleyball knee pads so it looks like I’m injured. I will then proceed to wear said knee brace over my jeans so that I can reasonably justify calling myself an Uber in between classes without feeling like I’m out of shape.