Athletes with disabilities within NCAA and different divisions and how they manage their disability and are supported by their Colleges and Universities

Abstract

The majority of research shows that athletes with disabilities have it harder and have more rules and exceptions than the athlete who isn’t disabled does. Athletes who are disabled have it a lot harder than the “normal” student athlete because in addition to schoolwork and their responsibility to their sport, they also need to worry about having different rules as far as their health condition or disability is concerned. Oftentimes, they are compared to the student athlete who doesn’t have a disability and how they are performing in their sport. I will show the difference between NCAA Div I, Div II, Div III and JUCO’ rules and regulations within college athletic departments.This study seeks to answer the following questions: 1) How are athletes with disabilities treated as far as their disability and are accommodations made for a student athlete with a disability? 2) How is the student athlete that is disabled compared to the non-disabled student athlete? 3) How do athletes that suffer with mental health issues get treated at each division level and how serious do the athletic departments take athletes when they say they are struggling mentally? Through content analysis, I am going to find TikTok social media articles about athletes with disabilities to answer the above questions and to showcase how much athletes with disabilities truly take on that they shouldn’t have to in order to participate in the sport that they love.