Final Post

Reflecting on my blog I believe that keeping this blog helped me apply the things I learned in class to actual situations. Relating blogs to actual events definitely helped me understand the class material better. Although I got kind of behind on my blogs, keeping a blog and reading other blogs gives me new insight and makes me think in ways I haven't before. I also like to see what other experiences my peers have had in sport related to the subject material we covered. 

The only thing I would change about writing this blog for this class is I would want to write more about current events going on in sports. There was a lot that happened over the course of the semester in the sporting world that could have let students provide insight and feedback and their opinion of the issue. Some things that happen in the sporting world I am bias towards one way and I would have liked to see some other opinions to try to sway mine. Though I would be more likely to contest their opinion.

As far as what I expected to learn from this class and what I actually learned is more than I expected. I learned so much more about the history of sports and the philosophies associated with them. So what I got out of this class was a new respect for and a broader sense of everything associated with sport. The last thing I hope to get out of this class is an A!

Sports is still changing

As we have looked at and covered sports throughout the semester we have examined all of the different changes and events that have shaped sports to the way we see them today. However, Rader talks of current times possibly being seen by future historians as a time of major change in sports. 

Rader talks about how many sports teams and games promote themselves. They don't need the help of big time promoters to get coverage or viewership of their game. The teams and the players themselves are enough today to get a sporting event watched. It seems that sports are getting more and more competitive and more emphasis is being put on winning. That emphasis is being put on more by the owners and GMs than the players it seems. The owners and GMs are making more trades and buying and signing more players than ever in an effort to make their team a champion. How do you know if the player you are signing did it the right way? Does it even matter to these owners? There could be a whole chapter in the book about the steroid era in sports. These controversies are not only at the professional level. College teams more than ever are becoming more competitive. With this comes playing players and other illegal acts. Not only negatives will be known to come from this era however.

Rader talks about more and more opportunities for fans to get involved with their own sporting experiences. As mentioned in a previous post, March Madness gets bigger and bigger each year with more and more people filling out brackets. Also fantasy sports are drawing more and more people in, especially fantasy professional football where the fan gets the be the owner of a team and make draft picks and control the team the way he or she wants. More and more people are also playing sports. Whether it be in a pickup game or in organized leagues. A lot of people play softball well into their sixties. While we have seen a lot of change in sports, Rader may be right in saying the time we live in now may have resulted in the most changes sports has seen.  

Athletes in 21st century sports: MVP LeBron James

This might be the most bias post I have written or will write being that I am from Cleveland and a huge LeBron James fan. In chapter 20 Rader talks about whether athletes today are heroes or just merely celebrities. I think LeBron James is both. I think almost everybody sees LeBron as a celebrity. His face is everywhere. Right now he is probably the face of not only the Cleveland Cavaliers, but the entire NBA. He has more endorsement deals than I have fingers and toes. You almost can't go a day with out seeing or hearing about LeBron James. Not everybody can think of him as a hero though because not everybody likes him. A lot of people dislike him, like sportswriter Skip Bayless. No matter what LeBron accomplishes Skip always find a way to talk it down to less than it is and criticize LeBron. However, many people may see LeBron as a hero. I think this is especially true with people from Cleveland. I definitely think LeBron is a hero.

What LeBron has done for the city of Cleveland is more than any mayor of the city by themself can do. I think LeBron has kept the city from burning to the ground. Figuratively speaking of course. If it wasn't for LeBron, Clevelanders really wouldn't really have much going for themselves at all. The economy is bad around the nation but exceptionally bad in Cleveland. We are one of the poorest cities in American with one of the highest crime rates and people are abandoning the city. After Hurricane Katrina Cleveland had the second highest desertion rate for any city in the U.S. behind New Orleans. LeBron gives people of Cleveland hope. Maybe all we need to lift our spirits is a championship. We have waited long enough, 45 years. LeBron may be just the person to do it for us. With his MVP award being announced today I feel that we get one step closer everyday. To me, LeBron is a hero in a city that needs one more than any city. He has so much power. He alone can bring a whole city together and give the people hope. However, even if he brings Cleveland a championship, if he ever leaves when his contract is up, the city may crumble. This is a fate I hope I never see. 

Jackie Robinson

I found an article by Hank Aaron published in Time Magazine in 1999 that talks about what Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier meant to him and  the impact it would have on professional baseball forever. It was a feature story about the top 100 most influential heroes and icons. The article was called "Jackie Robinson: He thrilled fans, shattered baseball's color barrier and changed the face of the nation". In the article Hank Aaron talks about the first time he saw Jackie Robinson as he was passing through his hometown of Mobile Alabama when he was 14. Robinson talked of segregation to the black crowd that came out to see him. Hank Aaron said a lot of people talk about a person who is bigger than life, but to him the only person he has known who truly was is Jackie Robinson. Aaron talks about how Robinson was bigger than all of the segregation and hate that was directed towards him. His perseverance opened the door for many more black players. If Robinson would have retaliated against a fan or against other players it might have set back African Americans from becoming more of a part of the game. Hank Aaron thinks nobody else could have put up with what he did while playing for the Dodgers. 

Aaron talks about how Robinson was different from some of his other heroes that didn't let the color of their skin stop them. He compared Robinson to Joe Louis. The only difference was that Louis was competing against white men while Robinson competed with them. Aaron goes on to talk about the steps Robinson took after his baseball career was over to get more equality in sports and in America. To Hank Aaron, and probably many other players and people, Jackie Robinson was one of the most inspirational people they could ever know. 

College Sports in the National Arena: NCAA Basketball Tournament

With the NCAA tournament come and gone it once again showed no lack of upsets, excitement and surprise. Every year the NCAA college basketball tournament turns in more viewers and followers than any other sporting event in the country. I think the NCAA basketball tournament is what makes college sports, or any sport for that matter great. Its the unpredictability and not knowing what will happen. No other sport shows this as much as the NCAA tournament. 

With the exception of last year when all four number one seeds from each region made the Final Four, there is an upset sometime in the tournament over a number one seed who is supposed to make the Final Four. Upsets are what make the tournament fun to watch. One of the most exciting tournaments to watch was when George Mason made the Final Four. Everybody jumped on their bandwagon and became fans of this Cinderella team. It is also good for the school. Research shows that when a schools makes the tournament or does well, enrollment goes up. It's like the Flutie effect when Doug Flutie of Boston College completed the Hail Mary pass in the final seconds to beat Miami. The next year enrollment at BC went up. What makes the tournament great though isn't what it does for the school but what it does for the fans. When else can you watch four very important games simultaneously and be as interested in one as you are any other? Even if you know nothing about college basketball you can still fill out a bracket and do as well as a supposed expert. That's what is so intriguing and fun about the tournament. There is no other time of year like March Madness. 

The start of the merger: Joe Namath

When I think of the first really flashy professional football player it came way before 'Neon' Deion or Michael Irvin or Terrell Owens. The player who set the bar for all players following him was Joe Namath. What may have started him on this path was when he was selected by the New York Jets of the AFL for an incredible $420,000. It could have been the Lincoln Continental he received with his contract also. Namath's nickname was "Broadway Joe" and it made sense. He was very flashy with his fur coats and many women. His fame became more after he guaranteed and delivered a victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. But it wasn't any of this that Namath should be most famous for. It should be that he may be responsible for the Super Bowl all together.

When Namath signed his huge contract in 1965 with the New York Jets of the AFL it may have sparked the beginning of the merger of the AFL and NFL. That year Namath was drafted by the older and more powerful NFL team the St. Louis Cardinals. Namath refused to join the older and bigger league and signed with the New York Jets in the AFL. Three years later the NFL started to notice the large rookie contracts players were signing in both leagues. They were afraid to get in a cost and bidding war so they invited the AFL to merge with them. Joe Namath may be bigger than his stats, his guarantee, and his Super Bowl win. His biggest accomplishment, and possibly biggest sports feat ever, is being the catalyst for the AFL/NFL merger and eventually the Super Bowl.

Women's sports being overshadowed

It seems that women's sports are overlooked ad accomplishments by women's teams sometimes go unrecognized whereas there male counterparts are much more glorified in their success than they are. The example I want to look at is this year's Connecticut Lady Huskies and their more than impressive 39-0 championship season. However, the women's national championship game that pitted the Huskies against the Louisville Cardinal couldn't even be seen on national television. They put it on ESPN, which is actually a step up when most of the tournament coverage was seen only on ESPN2. 

I would find this as an insult as anybody who follows UConn or women's college basketball. For a team to go 39-o, which is the best record any collegiate team has ever accomplished, and get very little recognition for it is absurd. Say the same school, UConn, and their men's basketball team went 39-0, you wouldn't stop hearing about it and they would be mentioned as one of the greatest teams of all time. By the way, the Lady Huskies beat every opponent they faced by 10 or more points all season. These accomplishments should not go overlooked. 

The college football coach

Being a former college football player, be it at a small school, I think there has been a shift in coaching styles throughout the years. In the beginning there was Knute Rockne. Rockne was the first coach to instill the idea in his players as a coach and a mentor as well as a friend. The coaches job was not only to teach them and coach them to win games but to guide them into becoming a man. However, as college football got to be more of a spectacle and such a great importance was put on winning there seemed to be a shift. Coaches were more focused on pushing their players to their limits and doing whatever it took to win. Great examples of coaches like this were the famed "Bear" Bryant and Woody Hayes. Though these coaches have gone down in history as some of the greatest of all time, they weren't really know for their charismatic and lovable personalities. These coaches were known to really push their players and a lot of time be hated by their players because of the extent to which they were being exerted. 

Nowadays it feels as if there has been a shift back to a more traditional and charismatic coach like that of Rockne. From personal experience I have seen this. When I played in college the main goal of our coach before even winning games was to shape his players into men. He put a high importance on faith and character. During the recruiting process he made it known that these were his goals and that he looked forward to his recruit being a part of something great  during his weekly phone calls. I also see this same style in coaches like Jim Tressel from Ohio State and Pete Carroll from USC. They seem to really care about their players not only based on their ability but their characters. These coaches develop close personal relationships with their players and have a very clean and fun-loving image to the media. While you can say their styles may seem different, they both seem to evolve around personal relationships and building character. In these ways I think the college football coach has transformed back into the ideals of Knute Rockne and the "unique formula".

Sports Heroes

I know this post is kind of late but I need to catch up.
When I think of sports heroes the first name that comes to my mind is Babe Ruth. I think there are many reasons we can consider him a hero in sports. First of all is his upbringing and youth. Being an orphan and not having a very good childhood Ruth epitomized what it meant to live the American Dream. That is success without being born into it and it not just being given to you. I think a lot of people can relate to this as being the American Dream. Maybe not having as much success or fame or riches as Ruth but living a very comfortable life relative to where they started. Also I think people liked the fact that he was an out of shape man and didn't seem very athletic. These factors gave everyday ordinary people hope for more in their lives.
It is kind of strange and difficult to imagine the sports stars of today being heralded as heroes by later generations. It seems that no athlete today or even in the last 25 years has accomplished or will accomplish the kinds of things the Babe did. He shattered records and rewrote the books. Today there is just too much competition out there. I think the only players that may be close to being considered sports heroes one day are Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. They have already established themselves as dominating their respective game as Ruth did. I just wonder how a player like Babe Ruth will be looked upon after many more generations of players come and go in each sport. Hopefully he will always get the same respect and be regarded as the same hero he always has been.

Sports Commentators

I believe that as a fan the commentator of a game has a lot to do with how much I can enjoy a game. Sometimes if I feel the announcer is biased either way towards either team I can't even stand to watch the game. I really can't stand a bad in-game commentator. Sometimes I even mute the game on TV and find a local radio station that is broadcasting the game. It is very important to me and I'm sure a lot of fans to have an unbiased intelligent announcer. 

Some of the most important and biggest plays in sports history have some of the most memorable quotes from the commentators. It seems that every big sports moment is paired up with a commentator. The best commentators are those that know what they are talking about, are unbiased and are dramatic. Being dramatic as a commentator makes it seem that the game is as important to them as it is to the fans. That is important in a commentator.

In some instances I think it is okay to be biased as an announcer. If the announcer calls games only for a certain station and team then it is okay. I think Michael Reghi was a great caller of games for the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was very enthusiastic about the Cavs and people felt like he was a fan calling the games. He was famous in Cleveland for his intense and dramatic calls of plays. I think it was wrong that he was fired and was replaced by the Detroit Pistons announcer Fred McLeod. Cleveland needed a Cleveland guy like Reghi calling the game, not the enemies former announcer. 

With all things said, I think it is very important who the commentator is in enjoying a game.

Intercollegiate Athletics

Intercollegiate athletics are a huge part of the history and philosophy of sports. I think it is safe to say that intercollegiate athletics are taking over the sports world. That is at least in two sports, football and basketball. A reason I think that intercollegiate sports may be more popular than professional sports is because not all states or big cities have a professional sports team. However, all states and most big cities have a big college program. 

For example, look at the Arkansas Razorbacks football team. Arkansas has no professional sports organizations in the whole state. People latch on to the Razorbacks as their professional team. Darren McFadden became a superstar playing in a state with no professional team but excelled at the college level. Another great example is at Utah and Boise State. The only professional team in either state is the Utah Jazz NBA team. Neither have a professional football team. Both states connect better to their collegiate teams. Utah and Boise State have had a lot of success as smaller schools competing against the bigger schools. I think most of the focus of sports fans in these states are on their football programs. Even in states where professional sports are prominent, like in Ohio, a lot of people enjoy watching the Ohio State Buckeyes rather than any other team. I think this is because of the success Ohio State has had and a fan likes to root for a winner. All other teams in Ohio have had very little success and sometimes its hard to be a fan of those teams. 

Another point to be made is the following of the NCAA basketball tournament. It alone is the biggest sporting event in the United States. Every game is bet on and people do brackets and pay attention to the tournament even if the team they root for isn't in the tournament. I used to watch the games in class in high school on a five inch TV to keep up with the games. 

The final reason is that collegiate athletics are pure. Players aren't competing for money but for pride. It's not about that next paycheck but for your school and the fans of your program and the history. That isn't seen nearly as much in professional sports.

All of these reason are why I think college football and basketball are taking over the sporting world.

The Origins of Baseball

I found Thursday's class to be especially interesting because I am so interested in the sport of baseball. I really enjoy finding out and discovering new things about something I already know a lot about. The origins of baseball have always been kind of a hazy area for me - especially the early rules. Though a lot of the rules are the same, some I thought were kind of strange or funny. First of all, there were no called strikes, you had to swing and miss three times in order to be called out. I am very glad that this isn't the rule today because I don't see a lot of players at any level swinging and missing completely three times. Either the pitchers were very good in this era, or the games were very long with more hits and most outs came via a batted ball. I guess the point wasn't really to strike anybody out in that era but to let them hit the ball though seeing as that the pitcher was obligated to toss the ball gently. 

These are the really early days though before games even got very competitive. What really struck me however, was that even as the game progressed into a more competitive era, for a while an out could be recorded by throwing the ball at the runner. I found that funny because when I used to play stickball when I was younger we would use a tennis ball and outs could be recorded by throwing and hitting the runner with the ball. I always wondered how that came to be. As weird and interesting as some of the rules of the game were then, I am very glad where they are and have been for generations now. Baseball seems to be a game where the rules have changed the least over the course of the years. Almost every year there seems to be a rule change in professional football. I think that baseball has very sold roots and the rules for the game that were established so long ago are still perfect for today's game.

Sports in Revolutionary America

After reading the many articles about sports in Revolutionary America I was surprised to see how many sports we still play today that got their roots in that time. What also surprised me is that the sports were never really played competitively with "no attempt to build company pride through sports challenges, nor pit one state or region against another" stated Bonnie Ledbetter in Sports and Games of the American Revolution. I believe that they probably didn't want to get too competitive against one another especially when they were fighting a war with each other. It wouldn't have been good to have animosity against a soldier you are fighting with because of an intense cricket game that was played the day before. I think that also has to do with why they never would keep score or keep track of who won and lost.  Ledbetter went on to say "The positive attributes of theses games were informality, individualism, spontaneity, and flexibility."(53) It was a good thing that the soldiers cared so much about these attributes because otherwise the games we know today could have been much different.

Mascots

After watching the video about mascots and how they depict Native Americans I had mixed feelings. Being from Cleveland and a long time Cleveland Indians fan I have always shrugged off the protesters of the games and didn't really consider it a big deal. After seeing the video I more understand where they are coming from. Only a small portion of the video dealt with the Indians but what struck me the most was about the Washington Redskins. I never knew that Redskin was a slang word that had a very negative meaning. Any word that is comparable to the 'N' word is terrible. I could not imagine another professional sports organization using a word comparable to that word to represent their team. It is very unprofessional in my mind. 

The problem I think is that there is not enough Native Americans to speak up. With all of the oppression in their history and now their small numbers across the United States, their voice isn't loud enough to be heard. If any teams had a slang name for Hispanics or African Americans as their mascot it wouldn't be for long because of the huge outcry that would follow because of the sheer numbers of their populations. So, in conclusion, sadly it doesn't look like much is going to be done about this problem. 

Introduction

My name is Andrew Karr and I am a Junior Sport Management major with a specialization in marketing. I am from Parma Heights, Ohio outside of Cleveland. I am taking this course not only because it is a requirement of my major but because I am also very interested in the subject of history and philosophy of sports. All my life I have been a fan of and participated in sports and still do both today. I am a huge Cleveland sports fan and Ohio State Buckeyes fan even though I go to BG. I like to believe I know a lot already about the history of sports and different sports stars and icons. I am actually hoping that I don’t know as much as I think I know and that this class can teach me a lot more.
As for my own history playing and watching sports I started when I was five with soccer. I never really got into soccer and stopped playing at age 8. At the age of six I got into tee-ball. I gradually moved my way up and kept with it. I played many years of travel baseball and started four years on my high school’s varsity baseball team where I hold two school records. To this day I still play in an adult wood bat league in the summer. I realized while growing up my passion was for football. I never played organized until I was in 7th grade but I started playing pick-up games around six years old. I went on to be very successful playing football in high school being named 1st team all conference and all district three times as well as honorable mention for the all-state team three times setting my schools’ rushing record. I decided to play football after high school but because of my small size was not given any scholarship offers. I played for a year at a small division III school called Baldwin-Wallace. After a year I realized college football wasn’t for me though I still had a lot of passion for the game. I still like to stay active and play other sports like basketball and golf, but nothing ever compared to playing football.
That was my playing career. As for my experience as a fan, being from Cleveland, it wasn’t very exciting. I remember watching the Browns before they left when Bernie just didn’t seem to have it anymore. I remember how heartbroken I was in 1995 and ’97 when the Indians just fell short. Until recently I remember how dismal the Cavs always were. And I will never forget in 1995 when the undefeated Buckeyes and Eddie George got ran over by Tim Biakabatuka and the Wolverines. I’d have to say I really started paying attention to sports at age six or seven which would have been 1993 or 1994. Since then the Buckeyes have been pretty consistently good and it’s not painful to watch them. The Indians are inconsistent now, the Cavs are looking great and who knows about the Browns. All I want is a championship for Cleveland really. I think we deserve it.
I hope this class gives me a chance to learn new things and gain more respect for different aspects of sport. I am excited about the things I may be able to learn in this class.
Thanks for reading!