Violence in Sport

The following blog was provided by Matt McLagan:

Check out these videos below, all showing examples of violence in sport. Whether it is used through intimidation, strategy, or strictly as a conscious effort to physically harm another, this has always been an issue in sport. Even our top athletes and role models engage in all levels of violence, and sometimes when displayed outside of the rules of the game, these actions are dealt with in house (with in the organization). Give examples of violence in sport that you have observed and/or experienced (whether it be within or outside of the rules) and explain what kind of influence that has on spectators and observing youth. How much should violence be emphasized as strategy, within the rules of the game? Are the most severe cases of violence we see in sport go above the law at times? What affect does this have on our athletes (what are we teaching them)?


Hockey Fight (used as strategy for the game): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz7Nb6uzg0s

Brutal Body Contact/Borderline Violence (notice the celebration after the play) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGNJox8eLpE

Criminal Violene (post game assault): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz9RE9RGrVY

Society Pressure in Sport

The following post was provided by Alli Zezoney

Regarding your entrance into sports, how did it occur? Did you personally feel pressured to play sports from an outside influence? What was your drive to continue sports? How did you deal with outside pressures and how would you have changed your path if allocated? What other areas of sport were you interest in that you did not attempt and why? Have you seen or heard of athletes deeply affected by peer pressure and how can society change its influences on young athletes and help guide them to become successful? After reading the article, post a response regarding this issue.

http://kidshealth.org/teen/food_fitness/sports/sports_pressure.html

Building New Stadiums - Ticket Price Increases

The following post was provided by Zak Johnson:

With the shape of the nation’s current economic state, how do you feel about sports teams opening new stadiums/arenas? Do you think it is fair to increase prices (tickets, merchandise, food, etc…) just because the team/owner needs to make money; in order to fund or pay for the stadium?

Link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=091005yankeestickets

Sport and Religion - Part II

The following post was provided by Grant Bilski:

Does god care if you hit a home run? Does God care if you score a touch down? I would say no but that may be just me. I understand faith/religion is important in many peoples lives but is it necessary to point up to the sky or make the sign of the cross every time you do something of merit on the playing field? In the age of excessive sports celebration how far is too far?

Here are two examples...
http://cardinals.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=10059103
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=9744845

Youth Sports - Travel Teams (Part II)

This post was provided by Stacey Sheetz:

After reading these short articles and from what you may know personally how do you feel about kids in grades 3rd-5th participating in the traveling sports such as AAU, Jr. Olympic volleyball, hockey, softball, baseball, and soccer? What are the benefits for these kids?

http://livefitblog.com/2010/03/15/how-parents-are-hurting-their-child-athletes/


http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;119/6/1242


http://topnews.us/content/23808-children-should-not-overdo-sport-experts-warn

College Sports

This post was provided by Sascha Hansen:

Read the Sports Illustrated article, “Troy Burning: Mike Garrett saw no evil: Now USC is paying the price,” by George Dohrmann. You can find the article at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1170882/index.htm . After reading the article respond by stating if you think the punishment fits the violation. Is it too harsh or should more be added to it? Finally, do you think that it is fair that athletes and coaches at USC are being punished for violations that they did not commit?

A Father's Impact on Sport

This post was provided by Byron Thomas:

In the movie Boys N the Hood, John Singleton tells a story about three young men (Tre, Ricky and Darin (Doughboy)) growing up in South Central, Los Angeles. All three grew up in the same community and faced with the struggles. Ricky and Doughboy were brothers and they grew up without a father. Ricky was a phenomenal football player and was possibly a future USC Trojan. Tragically, he was murder on the streets of South Central. My question to you is what role does a father play in the success of their sons or daughters today? We typically hear the heart felt stories like Tiger Woods father teaching him how to golf at a young age or even Venus and Serena Williams dad handing them their first tennis racquet. What if Ricky and Doughboy father would have handed them a football? Generalization, can having a dual parent home help in the success of athletes in today’s society?

Children and Sport - Parents!

The following blog post was provided by Sara Braatz:

Childhood is an exciting and impressionable time is one's life. Many youth spend much of their childhood playing sports in organized leagues where parents are their biggest cheerleaders. Many parents often become upset when their child does not perform to their expectations, or at all. A recent study (see http://www.nays.org/fullstory.cfm?articleid=10389) shows parents in the United States display the worst behavior at youth sporting events. Parents often become angry at coaches or officials and even gone so far as to fight or shoot officials (see http://www.naso.org/sportsmanship/badsports.html). Children watch their parents behave in such a manner and believe it is acceptable for them to behave in this way as well. What steps should we take to reduce to occurrence of such behaviors among adults and children to enhance the sport experience for all.

GPA and Sport

This blog was provided by Cy Wainwright:

Does competitive sports contribute to education? High school sports VS College. In high school you are required to have a 2.0 same as college but does it make a difference having a teacher and a coach making sure you succeed? Where college you only have a coach? Think of Boobie Miles (Friday Night Lights) case for example. Try and predict if he was to go into college what do you see his outcome being?

Is sport recession proof?

The following post was provided by Jeremy Crowley:

Have you gone to a professional game in the last year? Attending sporting events has been seen as a luxury since the games are usually on TV, so why go to the games? Sports are an integral part of our society as we have seen in this class and throughout our lives. Many people cherish their sports or sport teams so it would seem that the sports industry would be recession proof. However, recent figures regarding the biggest sporting event in America, Super Bowl, has shown a different story. Here is a short article relating sports to the recession http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2009/01/28/are-sports-recession-proof-not-judging-by-super-bowl-festivities/. Discuss sports as being recession proof or not? Use your own experiences to explain why people are continuing to attend games or stop attending?

Sport and Religion

This Post was provided by Tommi Richards:

Have you ever heard of FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes)? Were you involved in High School? If you were involved, what about the program made you want to belong to it? Why was FCA's approach intriguing? Does faith really play a role in sports, and if so, provide personal examples. Do you think FCA provides role models to the younger generation rather than many of the images in the media today? If you were never involved in FCA, were there other faith-based programs that you were involved in? If you are totally against FCA or any program like it, what are your reasons? You don't need to answer every question, but these are just some to think about...

Youth Sports - Travel Teams

This Post was provided by Doug Patterson:

I am on the board of directors for the Sauk Rapids Youth Baseball Association(SRYBA) Currently we are a travel baseball program that serves kids 9-15 years old. We have tryouts and then place kids on travel teams. Our travel teams play in the gopher state league and travel throughout central Minnesota and the north metro towns. The rest of the kids play in an in-house league were we have the rest of the teams evenly split. The last couple of years we have had great numbers in our younger teams but have lost kids as they got older. Why do you think we are losing kids and what do you think we should do to keep our numbers growing? Right now the things we are looking at doing is making the whole association in-house playing local teams like Sartell, Cold Spring, Foley and Clearwater. Keep some combination of both or put all our kids on traveling teams. I have my own personal views on what we should do but interested to get feedback from other people.

Moneyball!

This Post was created by Kevin Lindstrom:

Moneyball (Lewis, 2004) tells the story of General Manager Billy Beane's quest to build a winner out of a small-market, low-budget major league baseball franchise, the Oakland A's. He does this via "uncoventional" methods, including drafting and signing players other teams have little interest in, being selective and aggressive in the trade market, and micromanaging the on-field moves of the team. All of this is juxtaposed to teams like the New York Yankees, who essentially buy success by spending many times the amount of the A's on players. What kind of social world do you believe is constructed for players and coaches when it is clear that they are at a financial disadvantage? How does being at a financial disadvantage shape social worlds at other levels of sport, including the youth level?

Sport and the Economy - Issues of Race

This blog was created by Randy Quistorff

...When Tiger Woods starting winning golf tournaments in the Professional Golfers Association, pressure started to mount for him to designate what racial group he was a part of. After winning the 1997 Masters the pressure put on Woods by the media to identify what racial group he was a part of intensified. When appearing on Oprah, Tiger tried to put the racial questions to rest by saying he was "Cablinasian", which was a word Tiger made up to describe all of his ethnic background. As a result of Tiger's Cablinasian statement, many African-Americans were calling Tiger a sell out and telling him he had committed one of the greatest crimes a black person can make: not being "black enough. Having failed to difuse the situation, Tiger turned serious and issue a stern and pointed statement, which he claimed would be the the final and only comment he would make on the issue: "My parents have taught me to always be proud of my ethnic background. Please rest assured that is and will always be the case. Truthfully, I feel very fortunate and EQUALLY PROUD, to be both African American and Asian. The critical and fundamental point point is that ethnic background and/or composition should NOT make a difference. It does NOT make a difference to me. The bottom line is that I am an American...and proud of it! That is who I am and what I am. Now, with your cooperation, I hope I can just be a golfer and a human being"...[Information taken from Shaun Powell's book Souled Out? pgs 150-151)] Do athletes "owe" it to society to be a part of a certain racial and ethnic group?

Gender in Sport

I am posting this now in order to give you time to prepare.

We will not be conducting a blog discussion for Unit #4 in order to give you time to prepare to lead a blog discussion for Unit #5. After you select an area of interest, start thinking about a topic you would like discuss relative to your area of interest. Prepare an initial “Post” to start the discussion and send it to me via email. I will “Post” your topic to the blog site (giving you credit).

Everyone will be leading one blog discussion and following 13 additional discussions. You will be expected to provide a minimum of (3) comments on your blog and (1) minimum comment on the additional blogs you are following.
Leading a blog discussion and participating in (13) additional blog discussions will be worth 80 points towards your final grade. Please submit your blog “Post” to me no later than Thursday, July 22nd @ 11:59 PM.

Please consider that you will need to check and have a presence in the blogs over the last two weeks of the course.
To access the blog click on: http://trendsinsport.blogspot.com/

Race and Sport

Read Identity Theft on pages 295-296 in Coakley and read the article on the NCAA ban of Native American Mascot nicknames (click here) and (click here) for an additional article on the topic.

In 2005, the NCAA banned the display of Native American names, logos, and mascots on uniforms and other clothing.  However, they made an exception for Florida State University.   This controversy has carried on down into the high school and middle schools.  When I was in Junior High School, our school was named Chief Joseph Middle School, our mascot was the Warriors, and on the gymnasium wall was a picture of a Native American swinging a hatchet.  What are your thoughts on the topic of Native American mascots?  Is this ok?  Do you have a personal example to enhance your response?

To access the blog click on: http://trendsinsport.blogspot.com/

Social Class and Sport

Unit #2 Blog: Social Class in Sport
Under additional readings on D2L, there is a link to a book titled: Body and Soul: Notebooks of an apprentice boxer by Loic Wacquant. You can access a portion of the book through Google Books. (click here). Begin by reading the section: The Street and the Ring 73 starting on page 13.

We will approach this blog topic a little different than in Unit #1. To get started, as a class please provide a very detailed description of the gym at Woodlawn and how it fits into the community. Respond to this question by considering the socioeconomic climate of Woodlawn and the description provided in the chapter. What is gym’s role in this community? Provide facts and stats from the reading. Important: In your initial post, you do not need to respond to your classmates. Read previous posts and provide additional comments and avoid repeating information that has already been posted by a classmate. The purpose of your initial post is to contribute to the class’s analysis of Body and Soul.

Socialization into Sport

After reading the Chapter 4 in Coakley (Sports and Socialization), how did you get involved in sport?  What kept you involved?  Why did you keep playing?  When you decided to stop playing a sport, what was the reason?  How has your participation in youth sport impacted who you are today?  Share your thoughts on your participation in sport.  You do not need to respond to every question.  However, feel free to expand on the questions presented above in relation to this topic.