Final reflection

I am an athlete and for the most part I thought I knew most of what there is to know about sports. This class taught me more then I ever thought I would ever learn. There are many aspects of sport that I did not even think about inside and outside of my sport. Learning about all the politics and money behind each sport really made me rethink all the brainwashing that we have undergone by the media. I would recommend that our athletic center should require this class, that wouldn't happen because they probably don't want us to know about it all. I would definitely recommend this class to my friends and anyone interested in sports.

Sports Pages #13

When you look at the African American culture in sport it is usually of struggles and making it out of bad situations. The white side of course is based mostly off the idea that the player was really talented and came from a nice place. This makes sport a very essential for a black person to be able to go to college, if there is no sport then college is most likely not an option.

In the movie Coach Carter there is a team of mostly black kids with some white kids all living in the ghettos. The message you get from the movie is that this is the life of the average black kid playing a sport. Coach Carter tries to turn the team around by making them get good grades so that they can have a chance to go to college. This is a nice theme that shows school matters to a student athlete but it is also saying that you cannot go to college unless you have both pieces to the puzzle. Due to the neighborhood and school district there are not many kids who can do really good in school and go to college for it. If you are a great ball player but cannot get the grades then there is another problem. The message is that you cannot just be smart or just be a good athlete in these types of school (predominantly black) you have to have both to go to the college level. In white neighborhoods the college rate may be higher due to the ability for normal students to be able to attend college just by doing well in school. This puts a huge stress on being good in sports for the poorer areas that black people live in. Being good in sports is the only thing that could get you out of these poor areas so that makes it a priority.

An example of a culture flip of this idea is of the movie The Blind Side. The boy got moved to a white school where he began to concentrate on school rather than football. He had the opportunity to be comfortable with his new family and not worry about being the one who brings his family out of poverty. This put less stress on sport and just allowed him to play.

Sports Pages #12 (Formerly SP#14)

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

The commercial I have found is of Troy Polamalu endorsing the head and shoulders hair product. Head and Shoulders hair products are usually for women. The product they have introduced in the past few years is called Head and Shoulders for MEN. I believe that this company wanted to expand their sales to cover the male market.

The brand head and shoulders was already well known, and well known to be used by women. The problem now was getting men to use it. So they turned to one of the manlier sports, Football. Not many male players have long hair in sports, so finding a long hair player who is top ranked is a gold mine for Head and Shoulders. They used the masculinity of the sport and the masculinity of Tory being one of the best all time safeties and hardest hitters to show that this product can be used by men.

In the commercial the two obvious things are as I mentioned above, football and Tory. The next part that shows it’s a manly product to use is the fact that it is set in a locker room after a game or practice. The men are all pretty manly and they are not hiding this bottle of Head and Shoulders they are openly handling it. The whole message continues to be that it is okay for men to use this product. I believe their strategy works out well for them and they do display this product as very manly. When they show a close up of the product it is also showed in a manly way. There is a close up of a wall with showers going on behind it then and hand tapped up slams the bottle down taking the center view. They could have had just the close up of the product but to have it slammed down by a taped up hand makes more of the masculine statement.

In all I believe that the Head and Shoulders company is really trying to appeal to the male audience by making their product masculine. They do a good job of accomplishing their goal by using, football, tough men, tough setting, and a key main character.  

"Interrogating inequalities in Sports Media: Examining gender/race representation in "

I did my short study on the ESPN Insider web page. My research found that there were twenty-two minorities and twenty-seven whites in the extent of my findings. I jumped onto the ESPN Insider web page and took into account any colored person I saw and any white person I saw. Then I moved my mouse over each tab (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAAF…etc.) and counted how many coloreds and whites I was able to see in each tab.

            My findings lead to a pretty balanced out representation of coloreds to whites. Being that now day’s sports is more diverse this is not shocking to me. In this sports magazine I feel that even if they wanted to be racist they couldn’t because such a huge portion of athletes and costumers are minorities. Being that this is an online website I understand that the pictures, topics, and stories can change several times a day. Today during my research the first thing that I saw was the biggest picture on the page, and that was of a minority baseball player. The headline is CUBA, Opening the Next Great Pipeline in Sports. This article talks about how there is now a new Pipeline to Cuban players in baseball.

            What seems to be a very diverse ESPN page actually holds an underlying issue concerning the types of sports we are allowed to play as a race. The interesting thing I saw was the on the Professional level of the NFL and NBA the race was exactly equal but on the college level basketball and football were all colored. The messages that are being sent here is that at the professional level things are diverse but at the college level there are a lot of colored athletes. This also sends the message that the NBA, MLB, NFL, college football and basketball are sports that coloreds can play in. On the NHL, Nascar, and Olympics tabs they had only white people. It is true that there are not many colored people that participate in these sports but still the message being sent furthers the notion. Certain sports are meant for certain races and maybe ESPN isn’t trying to send that message but regardless it is being sent. 

Once the cheering stops: The life of a retired pro-athlete

More than 60 percent of retired NFL or NBA players are under finical stresses and some even going bankrupt. We tend to see the glorious lives of athletes after their career. Troy Aikman as a commentator, or Michael Strahan and Terry Bradshaw also as a commentator. Life after professional sports can set you on the right path for you to be successful. For most this isn’t the case. Many athletes don’t know what to do when their time on the field or court is up. They end up not having any money left and not knowing what to do with their life. In the ESPN article Derrick Brooks talks about the football field is a safe haven where you can block everything out, and how that can be a double-edged sword with life.

Athletes usually start their athletic career at a young age. No matter what time of year it is you always keep in shape or get strong especially as you grow older and move into high school then college. By the time they are playing professional spots it is difficult to find any other purpose then to keep playing. I know personally I don’t know what I would work out for if I am not playing a sport any more. That would leave me lost because I’m always conscious of that thought to work out for my sport. The degree is greater for these professional athletes. To make that transition to being a X-player is difficult.

The other aspect that makes it difficult for these players is that they are used to getting a lot of money for doing something they love. Each pay check rolls in and it supports their lifestyle. Now when they retire and their income doesn’t match their lifestyle they begin to dig their way into debt. There are smart players who put away money, don’t live the lavish lifestyle and are prepared for life after their athletic careers.

I think that these athletes struggle like this because they become used to a lifestyle and certain things. Once it is taken from them they do not know how to act. As we’ve discussed in class the more money an athlete makes the more successful he looks. Some athletes have a lot of money and can spend money on things without it being a problem. Other athletes don’t make as much as the really rich ones but still hang out with them and maybe spend money they don’t have.

I personally have thought of this a few times. I am the type of person to conserve money and use it wisely. That is just the way I was raised. I think that if more pro athletes were educated about how to spend their money then we would see the numbers of broke athletes decrease significantly. Of course they would have to listen and actually do the things they are educated about but at that point it is up to them.

High school sports

High school sports is prevalent in all of America. We participate in high school sport because we want to be active. We also compete in high school sport because we want to move on to the college level. This drive to be recognized by the next level has made high school sports more and more competitive. This leads to the high school sport turning into more of a business.

High school sports are meant for kids to stay out of trouble and be a part of something. It is also good to take a break from education and to stay healthy. What we see with the effort to be recognized by colleges is that high school sport is changing. If you are an average kid and you want to play basketball you probably are not going to be able to because there are kids who trained their whole lives for this sport in order to move on. This tells certain kids they are not good enough and pushes them to the side. The sport gets so intense that the main reason the kids are there for (education) doesn’t really matter anymore.

In America we see interscholastic sport as a preview of the future of sport. We all like to look at kids and say one day he/she is going to be great. It is sort of like a stock market. The more exposure you get as a high school athlete the better off you look to the colleges. Usually the colleges tend to stay around places where they have found talent before.

The problems we see here is that not everyone gets a fair chance to be looked at by coaches. One of the problems is that you need to go to camps for your sport, but they are expensive. If you don’t have the money to go then you will not get as much exposure. Another problem is that not all kids play in the same city, some cities might be harder than others and coaches look at the harder ones more than the weaker ones.

A solution could be that there would be an NCAA camp that goes around to each city and holds a free camp for kids to come show their skills. This would allow certain kids in certain areas to get some recognition to build off for their future.

Reflecting on the Shame of College Sports: Should NCAA Div 1 Basketball and Football players get paid

Pay for play has been a pressing issue in the past decade. It takes away from the amateur style of sport, but the NCAA and colleges make so much money shouldn’t the players get some? These are the types of debates that are happening around this touchy subject.

In today’s society everything is represented by a brand. It is no longer the slam dunk competition it is the Sprite slam dunk competition, or no longer the NBA all-star game it is the Kia All-star game. When companies put their name on something like the dunk competition they are paying a lot of money to the program that they are endorsing. The players now get a little more money for participating, and some of that money comes from Kia. As our NYtimes article talks about “big-time sports has become the public face of the university, the brand that admission offices sell” if college sports is the face of the university in essence the college is compared to Kia as the sports team is compared to the dunk competition. The dunk competition will represent Kia and Kia will get a good name as the dunk competition gets paid. The sports team will represent the university and the university will get a good and as the sports team will not get paid. This is the dilemma we have with players getting paid. Is it free labor is the question?

   The argument against paying athletes is that with such a wide range school wealth across the nation some schools could afford to pay their athletes and some couldn’t. This would make the stakes uneven for D1 sports. For example Colorado St would never have even the slightest chance of beating Norte dame. Norte dame just has too much money to offer good players while Colorado St would not. Another problem there would be is who do we pay? Some players offer more worth then others. If you are driving down the street and look up and see your starting quarter back on a billboard or you see the starting long snapper, which one would make you more interested? The quarter back of course, so should he get more money than the long snapper?

                The problems I find with the NCAA not paying athletes is that they don’t know how to distribute the money.  As an athlete myself I think we should get paid just because I want to get paid. After I learned what exactly the NCAA makes as well as the schools make I believe that we need to get paid and I feel used in a way. I think the NCAA should make a fund where they put money into from every school, brand, or company that makes money off Sports then divided it up to every scholarship player. They should make it like a player tax, where the tax goes to the players.