Boxing- Should it be Banned

Boxing is a brutal sport in nature and it has two men going at each other. Boxing is a sport of the past. It was very popular through the early 20th century and has slowly died down to what it is today. Boxing created such legends as Muhhamed Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, and they are great athletes, but when it comes down to it, the whole purpose is to beat someone up. It has become a sport that is dying as more and more information comes out about head injuries and concussions it will lead to discussions and investigations into whether we need to have a sport still going on that is causing diabilites and problems in the future. Muhhammed Ali with age has evident problems from his boxing past. These boxers are developing brain problems that are dibilitating to them as they get older. Getting knocked is not good and that is the whole puropose of the sport. As younger people are more aware of the risks that face them when they box, they might be skeptical about participating in the sport. Personally I do not think that fighting is a sport, it almost is childish to me that we have sports like boxing, wrestling, mixed martial arts, because you are putting a humans life on the line more so than any other sport by far.

Are College Sports Undervalued

I understand that college sports does have its problems that can make people skeptical of college athletes and of the programs that are recruiting the athletes that are getting paid, but college sports are good. The amount of players getting paid is very little when you look up how many athletes there are playing sports, so many people are judging the different sports on just a few individuals. There are many athletes who go unknown and use sports as a way to continue their passion along with getting the oppurtunity to get a college education. My sister was a rower and I can see that she throuroghly enjoyed continuing the sport at Texas and I believe that it was vital in her doing well in school. College sports are a great thing and to say that it is completly corrupt and is only their for the pure amusment of the fans is wrong. Ask all the rowers, bikers, swimmers, and all the other sports if the athletes did this for money. If anything these athletes should get some type of college credit for what they do because playing sports can teach a person more than most classes can.

Are We Fit Enough

The United States as a whole is a very fat country in relation to every other country in the world. In the Kraus- Weber tests it showed that the overall fitness of the children in the US is a lot lower than those of European countrie. To fix this problem, it seems that there needs to be more education of the youth of the country to teach them how to eat healthy along with getting daily exercise. People in our country promote the big athletes that compete in pro sports, but they do not really focus on making a system to teach the basics and have more funding towards equal oppurtunity for athletes. People in Europe have more oppurtunities to continue excercising by participating in sports, but in the US it is harder to continue to play a club sport because the oppurtunities are just not there. Obesity is a huge problem that we desperatley need to fix.

Head Injuries

Head injuries is a huge issue in football. This problem could be the sole reason that football is shutdown forever or changed so much that we would not be able to recognize it in the future. Head injuries are ten times worse than any other injury because for the most part a broken bone or pulled hamstring will not kill you. Head injuries could cause you to become paralyzed or even death. If it is not one specific moment that is bad it can be the fact that a football players hurts his brain little by little by playing for a long period of time. They can develop CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy which can cause memory problems or many other worse things. Football is a dangerous sport and if it wants to continue to thrive and be successfull they need to come up with theories to make it less dangerous without taking out the hitting because people like to see that. Whether it is to remove the facemask so the player is not so brave to go head first or trying to make head first hits illegal. As more and more information comes out about head injuries the closer football is to going down a windy path to failure.

Early African American Athletes

Early African American athletes suffered through much discrimination from the very beginning. They were paid, treated, or though of as equal athletes when they were competing. Some sports were required to have there only leagues such as the Negro baseball league. They were discriminated in the worst way they were advertised as animals and portray as animals such as a gorilla. Images that would disgust anyone that lives today. They were always thought of as athletes who could not and would never be able to compete with white athletes. They were also made to be very non-vocal or cocky if they were good athletes or they were hated by many of the white people, which would essentially ruin or finish his carreer. For example Jack Johnson was a great boxer and even beat many white boxers, but because he was so flashy and like white women people did anything to ruin him like putting him in jail for no reason at all. Any black athlete that wanted to succeed in the early part of the 19th century kept there mouths shut so that they could make a living. That is why Jackie Robinson was told to be quiet his first few years until he proved that he was a superior athlete and that black people could hang with white people. It was a long and difficult road for athletes but people like Jack Johnson or Jackie Robinson were the pioneers for athletes such as Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan, or any succesfull athlete now.

Are Football and Dog Fighting Related?

This statement was pointed out and it is an interesting thought because of how they can be related. I think that they can be similar in some ways but for the most part they are not related that much. They are the same only in the fact that they are both very violent sports, which in drastic cases can lead to death in both. Dog fighting is different though because the dogs do not really have a choice whether they want to take part in what is going on, and are manipulated to by the owners to fight so that they can please them. Football is unlike that because they players do have their own choices and if they do not want to play or hit anymore they can quit. Sometimes players will continue to play through injury to not let down their teamates or the fans but players have been known to quit because of injury. For example Troy Aikman had to many concussions, and more recently Tre Newton retired from college football because of to many concussions. Both sports are very violent but cannot be compared in that the athletes are treated as gladiators who are fighting to the death to please the fans.                   
     

Are College Athletes Professionals?

College sports is supposed to be the purest form of whatever sport that is being played. For example College basketball is meant to be where you go to school and on the side you are an athlete that represents your school just for the love of it. There should not be any agents or money involved to inspire an athlete to play at his highest level and should not be the reason that they choose a school. If they are good enough it will come later in life. While everyone in the general public wants it to be like that, the truth is that it cannot be any farther. Players are being paid large amounts and are being bought things of monetary value. For example in college football Reggie Bush, Cam Newton, and many others have been involved with agents or the school paying them money. College sports is a huge industry, specially football and basketball, and I do also understand that these athletes spend many hours in the gym practicing, but they should not be regarded or treated like they are professional athletes. That is what professional sports are for, to get paid for being an excellent athlete. It is becoming a problem that people are thinking of them as entertainers and athletes, but they are forgetting the reason that they are where they are is to get an education. If agents or whoever is paying these athletes is doing this, it will cause them to not care about school because they believe that there is no reason to go to class. If this happens they are making the school bad for bringing them to the institution. Money should stay in professional sports where it belongs.

Michael Jordan Breaks Marketing Barrier

Michael Jordan was not really an athlete who broke any kind of racial barriers but he did make become one of the most marketed black player ever of his time. Michael Jordan is regarded as one of the best baskeball players of all time. He won six MVPs and six NBA finals MVPs along with many other awards such as defensive player of the year. His accomplishments on the court are unquestioned, but his alliance with Nike and his brand became even bigger and regarded as one of the most successfull businesses in the world. Jordan brand shoes and apparel is all over the world and is bought by large amounts of people every year. Michael Jordan was able to become so successfull because he knew how to market himself. He never really spoke out against someone, also he never expressed his opinion about one way or the other about anything. Nike realized this and took advantage of the person he was, someone with superior talent and easily likable by almost everyone in the world. Micahel Jordan opened up the market for black athletes to become regareded as idols to many and become business men outside the world of sports. Michael Jordan is the first of his kind and many have followed in his footsteps, such as Lebron James or Kobe Bryant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abr_LU822rQ

This video shows how he was constanly used to market his brand in his commercials and also how Jordan brand is just blasted in everyones minds for the last 20 years

Jackie Robinson Breaks Barriers

Jackie Robinson broke the Baseball Barrier and changed baseball and a many other sports in general. Baseball is a big sport to break through in because, baseball is the American sport that everyone loves. Jackie had more courage than everyone else in his time period and is a huge part of what sports is today. When the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers came up to Jackie, he told him that even though he is going to be taunted and made fun of, that he should not react to the fans. He needs to stay calm and quiet for this whole thing to work. Jackie did all of this and more to satisfy his needs. He was constantly antagonized and was even given death threats all of the time. Other than the fact that he was instrumental in breaking the color barrie in sport and a leader in the civil rights movement, he was also an excellent baseball player. None of this would have worked if he was a terrible baseball player. He was selected to six all star teams and was an important part of the 1955 World Series team. Jackie Robinson is an American hero and an inspirational figure for everyone and will always be rembered as single handly desegregating baseball.

Is Football a Dying Sport?

Violence, which came up in lecture, is a key part of the game of football and it always has been. When you are growing up and learning to play football, you are taught to be violent and be tough. People love watching big hits too. People would rather see a huge hit sometimes more than anything else when they are watching football. They even have sections on sportscenter called jacked up where they go over all the big hits from the weekend. Its coming to the point though that violence is something that is becoming in issue in football. There is new evidence that having a career in football is like getting into a car crash almost every single game. That kind of impact on the head can lead to a much shorter life and many other problems concerning the brain. Now that we have learned all this information players are now told to hit and play differently than they have ever before. Players are becoming more and more protected, which leads to more flags and fines that players have become very disgruntled over. A helmet to helmet hit can lead to a 25,000 dollar fine. Football is becoming less and less physical and if you take that out of football how can it survive. People watch to see it and if it is turning into something like flag football, no one will watch that. It is a real question whether football in 25 years will look anything like what we have today. As doctors learn more and more about the brain and study football players brains they will see that playing football is dangerous to your health. Its going to come into question whether playing football is something that should be going on in our country because it is leading to shortened lives in many pro athletes.

Olympics through the Years

The olympics have been a way for a country to show its dominance over one another by competing in athletic events. Countries have used it as a way to unite a country or for propaganda purposes like what Hitler did when they olympics were in Germany. Whoever ends up with the most medals can say that they were the better country for the next two years. The implications of winning the olympics goes beyond being able to say that they have the better athletes. It unites the country together because the whole country is rooting for the same people to beat everyone else in the world. Olympics mean a whole lot when there is a war going on between two countries too. For example in when we beat the the soviet union in hockey, that win had a lot more to it than can be said. We had beaten the Soviet Union at there own game. Another example is when Hitler was trying to use the olympics as propoganda for Germany but the United States athlete Jesse Owens, an African American, stuck it to him and beat his prized German athletes.


Another aspect to the olympic games is that they can be used as a way to protest. Many countries will sit out olympics in certain countries because they disagree with what that country represents. It has been an effective way of reaching out to countries because it is a huge thing to do to a country. Olympics have been around forever and are watched by many people everytime they have occured. It gets me excited everytime their on because I really do believe it is a way to show our dominace in the world.

Fighting Racism in Sports

In the class where we watched the movie Salute about Peter Norman standing up with John Carlos and Tommie Harris on the podium after the race between them. This movie is very inspiring because not only did it show black athletes standing up for their rights and demonstrating to the world that they were living in a society that is holding them back, but it also showed Peter Norman, a white Australian man, stand up with those black athletes and help their cause. It shows that not all white people out there at that time felt the same about African American Athletes. This demonstration also came at a time of great importance because Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and African Americans at the time needed something to be inspired by and there was no better way to show their pride than the olympic games, which are seen all over the world. Seeing this movie also had me thinking about how athletes that were black found out a way to show the world how they were being treated and show how the can fight discrimination against by using their athletic fame. While Tommie Harris and John Carlos were expelled from the olympics after making this salute to black power and were treated terribly by the white majority, their bravery and courage to stand up for what they belived was right, paved the way for black athletes in and outside of sports for the many years to come. Their demonstration changed the way people started thinking about black people in general.

Fast Food Cravings

In Dr. Todd's class viewing of super size me, it had me thinking of my eating habits. It made start to feel that I need to overhaul my diet. I eat fast food to many times a week, more so towards the weekend. Every weekend I go through the same problems. I eat pretty well during the week and tell myself to not eat any fast food this weekend, but as soon as I get back from downtown, its whataburger time. It is hard to resist eating fast food because it is so fast and is so cheap. Also it is just a part of our culture sadly. When all of your friends are going to get fast food and they ask you it is hard to say no. It is also hard to control how much you eat when it is so good. When you go to whataburger at 2 in the morning and you eat three honey butter chicken biscuits along with a large fries and coke, you know something is right. It is pretty amazing how much fast food cravings have over you. It almost seems to change your whole attitude when it is time to eat. To pick eating a baked potato over french fries, you would have to be crazy. Thats why I also found our speakers article about finding ways to keep our nation healthy and try to lower are obesity problem. We have to find a way to get the knowledge out to people about what to eat and how to watch what you eat. We almost need to treat the obesity problem as serious as cancer. This problem is killing people and the way to do it is get the people who are healthy and in shape to reach out to obese people. They need to go to schools when kids are yound and rely this problem to them and tell them the right way to eat and live. We need to find a way to stop our eating problem and I am the first one to say that I need to re learn how to eat and stop eating fast food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HSqE1U_m_0&feature=related
This video explains how are country does have a problem with obesity

Women's Bodies

In the last lecture that we had with Dr. Todd, she pointed out the fact that the women in todays society are very closely analyzed by everyone in around them. I feel very close to this subject that growing up with my sister I saw the trouble that she had with this situation and trying to overcome the idea of what she was supposed to look like in her mind. I saw her struggle through high school and then saw her struggle even more through her first two years of college. She was at a very low point in her life, but then she finally figured it out. She knew that she didnt need to be really skinny or have great abs to be happy. She only did that because she wanted other people to think better of her. She joined a rowing team and got into the best shape of her life and also had a great time, and a by product of this situation is that she looked good. Another thing that I saw from that was that people also judge girls because they are involved in sports like rowing, because they do become buffer and look stronger than most girls would. Thats why I was interested in the article about the girls soccer team because the situation in how they looked because they had to get stronger if they wanted to advance their career, and it reminded me a lot of my sister. The true thing is that if women want to play a sport, play that sport and don't worry about what other people think, because truly in the end those are the people who are the most unhappy with their lives.

The Steroid Era

In the last lecture Dr. Todd explained to the class about steroids and how they became such a big factor in professional sports today. We discussed what the difference is between something like taking a pill or if you were to take steroids by injecting yourself with a needle. The whole class agreed that taking a pill or taking somehting like protein powder is a lot more natural than doing it any other way. The truth is are they really that different from each other. How can we clarify what is wrong or right just because the perception something may not seem as bad as something else. From my personal experience in high school to become the best athlete that I could, I would take many supplements to try to get my peak level of athleticism, but looking back on it, how was that any better than if I were to inject myself with steroids. The drive for most athletes to become the best that they can be can really cloud their judgement. They will try to find reasons why it is ok for them to take performance enhancers because they really want to be the best that they can. The real problem I have with all this is that the athletes who were all natural and worked their butt of to get to the highest level. If they were to accomplish something amazing people will doubt the athlete and wonder if he used performance enhancers. It is the age that we live in and any athlete that has a great accomplishment in this era will always have doubt looming over them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-h-hibbard/the-ripple-effect-of-dopi_b_693078.html
-You can see how steroids in this article have ravaged cycling so much that it is hard to actually know who is doping and who isnt doping