Major in Football, Basketball or Baseball?

              

               The common issue about the ethics of the college sport is that whether university should consider athletic programs as central part of the educational mission. We all know that students can major in art, music or even dance, but why shouldn’t Universities allow athletes major in the sports whatever they are participating? Just like music students, those student athletes have same talents and put same effort to become successful in the field of sport.

                I think the reason student athletes have very low graduation success rate is that they are not benefiting from their hard work participating in athletic program. If the schools offer credit for being successful in their specialties, I guess more student athletes will be able to earn the bachelor degree. I’m not saying that university should allow collegiate athletes to graduate just by participating in sport; it is reasonable to provide just a small number of credits. Intercollegiate athletics show positive values, including striving for excellence, resilience, hard work and sportsmanship; therefore, universities should balance the approach of education by considering both cognitive and physical capacity.

Violence in Sport

             

                 After reading the article “Offensive Play” and watching videos showing football players’ hits, I realized the severity of this problem of violence in sports. Many of the former football players ruined their future life suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and brain damage. In addition, those players had much higher rate getting dementia and Alzheimer disease. It has been scientifically proven that repetitive concussive traumas during the football game are detrimental to players’ brain, which hitting their head in full speed can cause similar damage to having a car accidents. 

                Considering this dangerous aspect of sports, we were debating whether we can solve this serious problem. In my opinion, sports association could establish some new rules that can reduce the number of injuries or concussion. For example, the victory of the game can be partially determined by the number of fouls committed. If two NFL football teams have scored the same number, the winner can be the team with less fouls committed. I know this would not directly reduce the number of hits between players during the game but the players would become more alert to not to commit illegal tackle. However, we should also understand that there is always a chance to get injured in any sports; professional sports players recognize this risks and it is their responsibility to overcome the difficulty.

Racial Discrimination In These Days?

                 

                The incident at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games, when two black athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised their black gloved fists as a symbol of “Black Power,” marked a turning point in existence of racial discrimination in sport. Although the International Olympic Committee banned those two runners from Olympics after this incident, they stood up against racism and took a first step toward the equality in sport. 

                After watching the documentary called “Solute,” we questioned each other in our discussion session about the existence of racial discrimination in present days. By looking at the professional sports leagues, we might think that there isn’t any discrimination in modern sports because Black athletes are everywhere in NBA &NFL and there are also large proportions of Hispanic players in MLB. However, I think that there is still some discrimination existing in sports. 

Many Korean soccer players are currently playing in European soccer leagues, which some of them are having a hard time for racial discrimination. Ki Sung-Yong, a young Korean soccer player who plays as a central midfielder for Scottish Premier League club Celtic, has recently suffered from opposing team fans’ jeers and booing during the match, just because he was the only Asian player in the field. English soccer fans also try to humiliate Korean players by calling them a dog eater, expressing a cultural bias. Therefore, I think the racial discrimination still remains in sports although we can’t clearly recognize them like in the 1960s.

           Related link: http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/3207410/Fury-after-footy-fans-woof-at-Celtics-South-Korean-star-Ki-Sung-Yueng.html

Obesity as Cancer rather than Epidemic

       

       In the last few decades, people became more sedentary and dependent on fast foods. The author of the “Perfect Storm” Baker Harrell describes the problem of obesity as cancer rather than epidemic, which he is emphasizing that this problem is much more severe than what we are assuming. I was surprised about the increase in percentage of obese people compared to past years, which the amount was 5% in 1970 but it has almost tripled to 15% in 2002. If the problem is not considered seriously, we won’t be able to cure this wide spreading disease.

      In my opinion, the social environment plays important role to improve the problem of obesity. For example, schools can help to reduce the chance of children being obese. School can increase the amount of time for recess and PE classes in order to let more students participate in physical activity. School can also control the food offered to students by reducing the amount of fast food section and vending machine. Moreover, most families consider perceived safety of a neighborhood, because it influences parents allowing children to active outdoors. Therefore, providing safe environment in the area where children usually spend time could be another method to allow more physical activity for teenagers.

Ideal Image of Women?

       During the class, Dr. Todd presented us different pictures of women including image of bodybuilder, soccer player, tennis player and super model. The students’ votes for the most attractive women among those images were quite common. Most students stated that body of super model was the most ideal one, and many students responded that female bodybuilder was far from ideal image. In my opinion, this respond showed similar results because there are some kinds of standard of femininity. 

       

        We can relate this issue to the changing standards of women’s beauty. Recently I read an article, which I talked about beauty of women that changes through different cultures and ages. In ancient Chinese culture, thin and fragile women were known as beautiful woman. However, the standard of ideal women changed to someone busty and healthy-looking. In Japan, the definition of beauty of women also changed throughout the periods. Women with long faces, thin eyes and large chins were considered beautiful during ancient times. However, women who were buxom later became more attractive. This shows us that there can be different standards of women’s beauty or femininity according to the social trends of the time. Then, does that telling us in someday our society will consider huge and muscular women as the ideal standard of femininity? Who knows? 

Related link: http://www.beautyopinion.net/beauty-of-women-through-different-cultures-and-ages.php

History of Sport: Ancient to Modern Sports

         After learning about historical moment that sports had went through, it was interesting for me how the origin of sport is different from the modern sport. Do you see the difference between these two pictures above? The nature of the sports has been changing for centuries. The original sport began by honoring gods with ritualistic of nature, and then it was used as survival skills, and then the birth of modern sports started with the industrial revolution in Britain. In modern sport, people began to organize and regulate the game which sport participants could actually find their job as professional athletes. Eventually, the sport became a business and it is now one of the biggest industries in the world. 

          I tried to come up with a good definition of sport, which one of the definitions that I found from the textbook says “sport is regarded as a physical expression of the norms and values of that particular society in that period of time.” I think this definition of sport clearly gives us an explanation of the changing nature of sport. To give an example, sport existed throughout primitive cultures to maintain the survival skills of hunting, wrestling and running. Moreover, sport also existed during Victorian era in UK for preparation for officers in war and development of proper characteristics.