Reading Journal 8

http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/current/story/564997.html
             I chose to due my final reading journal on a sport that I really know nothing about Cricket.  Gollapudi wrote an article about corruption in the countries cricket league BCCI. Players from teams have been throwing "no- balls", which is a penalty and gives the other team a run, in an effort to shave points for money. The Pune Warriors were a major offenders with two of their bowlers, the equialent of pitchers in baseball, guilty of purposely throwing no-balls. One player Srivastava from the warriors was caught in a recorded tape making negotations to throw a no-ball in his upcoming match. I thought this article was really cool because I got to learn about a sport that is the equivalent of baseball in the developing country of India. I thought Gollapudi's writing lacked imagery and was kind of a boring read but he certainly scored points from me by being direct in his delivery of the event, he didn't dance around the subject, he simply told the story like it was with no opinon on the matter.

Reading Journal 7

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/story/_/id/7934470/english-soccer-concerned-racial-abuse-european-championship
         Associated Press wrote an ariticle about the racial abuse occuring in their annual UEFA championship series. The UEFA Championship is like Europe's superbowl, all of their premier teams from countries like England, Spain, and Italy compete for the title. English players especially are concerned about playing their qualifying games in Poland and Ukraine due to teams having players from countries like Nigeria and the Ivory Coast. Eastern Europeans have always been intolerant to people of color however it's rarely documented in history books due to the lack of confrontation between the two sides. England is bringing a police force of twenty-four to protect their sidelines and referees have the authority to end a match if fans are making racial insults to players. I thought this article was fascinating because I had no idea that Ukranians were intolerant of minorities.

Reading Journal 6

http://espn.go.com/racing/blog/_/name/newton_david/id/7916132/nascar-danica-patrick-joins-coca-cola-racing-family
             David Newton wrote an article about emerging nascar driver Danica Patrick. Danica Patrick is the sports first woman to drive in the premier series the Sprint Cup and she is gorgeous to boot. Danica recently just signed a deal with Coca-Cola to drive with the Coke logo on her Chevy around the track. Also it's expected that she will be doing commercials based on the fans she brings in, she empowers women to compete with men, and men thinks she is beautiful. I thought the authour's writing style was bland but I did love his comparison of Danica to another Coca-Cola driver "
She climbed out of a race car on Thursday wearing six-inch stilettos and a tight black outfit with a plunging neckline. Ryan Newman, the other member of the Coca-Cola family here, wore blue jeans and a red shirt." I thought it was clever.

Reading Journal 5

Inside the Quidditch World

         Authour Eric Hansen writes about his first experince of "mugggle quiditch" in the quiditch world cup held in England. Hanses was shocked to realize that over ten thousand spectators showed up for the event wearing robes and carrying wands just like their favorite wizards in the J.K Rowlings "Harry Potter" series. The rules are just like the real game minus the whole magic thing, players run around with brooms between their legs, they try to throw balls through three hoops, and the game ends when the snitch is caught. One aspect of the game I thought was interesting was how they have a Snitch runner, who is generally a track star, runaround with tennis ball to simulate the magic snitch in the game. Also the authour Hansen provided fantastic imagery like "a cross between the Super Bowl and a medieval fair.” when describing the sport.

Reading Journal 4

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/5933045/how-qatar-became-player-world-soccer

           The article talks about the small oil rich nation of Qatar and how they are sending scouts like Joseph Colomer around the world to discover youth soccer players. According to Colomer he travels on over 160 international flights a year to places like Gautemala, Brazil, and other developing countries to see if he can recruit the youngsters into the Qatar Football School. The School is fastly becoming a pipeline for impoverished youths to grow and become star players in some of the world's premiere soccer clubs like Manchester United.
             Most interestingly is the fact that the scouts are traveling to smaller towns and cities to find as the authour wrote " "There's no question that all countries have talent," Colomer said. "What happens is that sometimes the players live in villages that are very far from the capital and no one goes to see them, or their families are poor and don't have the resources to get them into football schools so they can be seen." I agree that many times of the players with the most ability and work ethic don't get discovered because their community lacks the resources or population to recieve attention from the outside world.Also I was a fan of the author's use of imagery to describe how the Football Dreams program changes lives.

Argument

            America was built upon the idea that a man’s attitude and work ethic should determine his prosperity. So why do we as a Nation make the hardest working athletes at the top of their respected sports compete in the Olympic Games for free? Patriotism and the thrill of competition can’t but food on the table and sneakers on the feet of athletes. American athletes deserve payment for their participation in the games.

            Nick Symmonds, who is an accomplished two-mile runner, has been offering up advertising space on his arms in the form of temporary tattoos to raise money so he can train for London Olympics.(Escobedo) Symmonds’ story is one that is all too familiar for athletes training for the games around the country. They are expected to train and compete at the highest level but they lack the funding to do so. Where is all the money from the American Broadcast of the games? N.B.C has been advertising the games since the Patriots Super bowl but athletes like Symmons have to resort to desperate measures like selling advertising space on their body so they can train to compete on the world stage of athleticism. Time magazine reported that the United States Olympic Committee (a non-profit organization) churned out a healthy fifty-nine million dollar profit. Even more shocking is how U.S.O.C executive Terry Harper, whose position pays him over one-hundred grand a year, responded to the situation “It’s not my problem”. (Escopedo) When it’s a person’s job to help and organize the Americans to prevail in the 2012 London Games you would think it’s an issue that Harper should care about. But then again the slave-owners in the antebellum period probably didn’t believe that the injustice of slavery was their problem either.

            Many other developed countries competing in the 2012 Games are pioneering new strategies for funding their athletes. Australia is one of those countries pioneering a new plan to divide the lump sum that the country generates from T.V time, advertisements, and etc. into an annual payment for the athletes while still placing incentives to win medals by offering cash bonuses for medalists. (Magnay)According to “The Age”, an Australian Newspaper, Germany developed a progressive but still somewhat lacking plan for paying athletes. Cash bonuses (although still taxable) are going to be awarded to athletes who place from first to eight place in any event, with the highest bonus being given to gold medalists, an amount of about twenty-thousand dollars, and the smallest bonus of two thousand dollars to eighth-place finishers. Although the new plan put forth by the Germans comes up short when factoring how much time athletes spend training throughout the four years between games it is still certainly a step in the right direction, a step in a direction that N.B.A star Dwayne Wade would greatly appreciate.

            Earlier this month N.B.A stars Dwayne Wade and Ray Allen publicly voiced their discontent over not receiving payment for their participation in the Summer Games. (ESPN) Wade’s argument mostly consisted of the simple fact that he is surrendering his summer vacation time, time that should be spent relaxing, spending time with family, and preparing mentally and physically for the coming season to compete for the United States in the Olympics. Wade played brilliantly for the team in the 2008 games in Beijing leading them to a gold medal but should players like Dwayne Wade have to risk injuring their livelihood for free? U.S.A Today interviewed U.S.A Basketball Chairman Jerry Colangelo on the subject and he believes that there is nothing wrong with him and his other executives being paid while the ones doing the labor aren’t. The best three reasons he could think of were "The opportunity to represent your country is a privilege without anything further said, that's No. 1," Colangelo said. "No. 2, the experience broadens individuals in every regard and every respect because you experience things you would not have under any other circumstance — the travel, the people you meet.

"Thirdly, the brand. We will live in a global economy. All of our players have shoe contracts and apparel contracts and they're little mini-business onto themselves and in some cases, they're not mini-businesses, they're quite substantial.”  He isn’t completely wrong in what he said but he neglected the largest and possibly the most obvious issue. What happens to a professional athlete if he or she sustains a career ending injury while they are competing for the games? Imagine how much American Olympic teams would suffer if a professional athlete like Dwayne Wade shattered his knee-cap in a qualifying game against a country like Latvia. Professionals participating in any sport at the game would certainly think twice before they sign up for the 2016 games. Of course the professionals do possess as much patriotism and desire to compete as Americans but there is a major difference in what they risk versus the women’s Kayaking team. The professionals support their families off of their sport.

            Americans participating in the Olympics deserve to be payed based on the amount of money their respected events generate. Sorry Nick Symmonds but Dwayne Wade and his teammates deserve more money than you but the high grossing events like basketball should contribute their money into the fund to pay all athletes. Meaning that the superstars still do take home the most amount of money from the games but in proportion to what their sports generate they take home less money than what athletes in less romantic sports like the distance runners, pole-vaulters, synchronized swimmers, and etc. take home so they can afford to train as well. Barack Obama said in his 2012 State of the Union Address  "As long as we are joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, and our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong." And I believe that the same idea can be used for Athletes competing in the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

Argument work studied page

Escobedo, Duwayne. ":US Olympic Athletes Have a Hard-knock Life | Inside the Blogs | Insidethegames.biz." Insidethegames.biz. Inside The Games, 09 Apr. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. http://www.insidethegames.biz/blogs/16524.

Gleason, Scott. "Wade, Allen Think Players Should Be Paid in Olympics." USA Today. Gannett, 11 Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/04/wade-allen-think-players-should-be-paid-in-olympics/1

Gregory, Sean. "Keeping Afloat." Time. Time, 02 Apr. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109761,00.html?pcd=pw-op.

Kitchen, Matthew. "Games of the XXX Olympiad: July 27 - August 12, 2012." Nbcolympics.com. NBC Olympics, 24 Apr. 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2012. http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-blogs/blog=olympic-talk/post/should-american-athletes-get-paid-for-competing.html.

Lopresti, Mike. "Lopresti: Olympians Should Never Be Paid." USA Today. Gannett, 12 Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/lopresti/story/2012-04-12/Lopresti-Olympians-should-never-be-paid/54213128/1.

Magnay, Jacqueline. "No Cash for British Medal Winners." The Age. The Age, 23 Apr. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. http://www.theage.com.au/sport/no-cash-for-british-medal-winners-20120410-1wn52.html.

Wallace, Michael. "Dwyane Wade: No Pay For Olympics." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 13 Apr. 2012. Web. 09 May 2012.
Zillgitt, Jeff. "Colangelo Explains Why NBA Players Are Not Paid as Olympians." USA Today. Gannett, 11 Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/story/2012-04-11/Jerry-Colangelo-Why-NBA-Olympians-are-not-paid/54191718/1.

Argument Proposal

           Athletes should recieve proper compensation for their participation in olympic games.

Steve, Jess, Kelsey, Dylan Casket Blog

Memoir rough draft

            “All of the suicides, sweaty mornings in the weight room, two a days in the heat has led us to this one night; one game, forty minutes to show who put in the work in the offseason, who wants it more. I can promise you guys they haven’t worked harder than us, they don’t know about pride laps, they don’t know what it feels like to lose every game in a season, they don’t know about overcoming adversity, so let them know who we are. Who are we? CARDINALS!!!”

            Errrh! Errrhhhh! Errrr!! I slammed the snooze button on my alarm clock, it was six o’clock in the morning and five more minutes of sleep would do me wonders. I got out of bed turned the shower to hot, after about five minutes switched dial back too cold to force myself to get out. Threw on my favorite pair of American Eagle jeans and today for the first time in almost a year I got to wear my football jersey to school. Next I threw on my sunglasses, hopped in my truck and drove to school.

            I pulled in to my usual parking spot behind the gym and saw a few more of my teammates walking out of their cars in their jerseys. “What’s up Kory man.” I said to my co-captain. “ Nothing much man, I could hardly sleep last night. Are you ready for tonight Cap?” “Aww man you know I’m getting at least one hundred yards and two touchdowns tonight.” I tried to give off an air of confidence even though deep inside I’ll admit I was nervous about tonight. I remember staring at the minute hand on the clock all day, my friends and teachers were trying to talk to me all day but their words passed right through me like water through a paper towel. I didn’t care about anything that day except winning the first game of the season. Finally the end of the day bell rang and I walked out to my truck. A few of my teammates piled in the back and I drove down the road to subway. I think anyone who has ever been to subway knows the feeling, the worker asked me what I wanted “ummm, uhhh, uhhhhhhhhh, well I guess I’ll have the foot long chicken teriyaki.” I thought I was in the clear but then he kept asking me details about the sandwich. “Which kind of cheese? What type of bread do you want? Any Veggies?” Finally he finished the barrage of questions and made the sandwich. I apologized to him but I was way too focused to be bothered with questions about a five dollar sandwich. After we finished and my friends stopped imitating me trying to complete the simple task of ordering a sandwich, I drove back to school and went into the locker room to suit up.

            The locker-room smelled like the usual body odor and Icy-Hot but there was such a feeling of focus in there. Twenty four kids who had worked so hard all off-season to make up for last year, to bring pride back to program were standing near the lockers getting dressed. I plugged in my headphones and started to suit up. I felt like gladiator who was suiting up before a fight, losing what was not an option; I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror anymore if I didn’t leave everything on the field to give my team a win. My coach, who looked as anxious as all of us, walked into the locker room and said “bus is leaving in fifteen minutes and carry your shoulder pads on the bus its an hour and a half ride and there’s always traffic in Boston.” My team walked onto the bus in a straight line after me and we were ready for business.

            The bus was cramped because the administration in all their wisdom scheduled the smallest bus in the fleet. We really didn’t care we just wanted to get to the stadium and do what we worked so hard to do. Of course our bus driver got lost in inner Boston and we got to see some of scenic Boston. Pimps in their usual all fur coats, Homeless guys carrying signs “punch me for twenty dollars” it was very enlightening. After two and a half hours we got to the stadium in Roxbury Park.

            I led the team out of the bus and an official said we have twenty minutes to stretch out and get ready then its kick off. It didn’t faze me, I led the team onto the field and we could see our opponent for the first time. The Boston Latin Academy Dragons were dresses in all black and they had twice as many guys suited up but I knew we were going to run over these guys all night. My other captains and I led the team through the abbreviated pre-game routine.

            We were all warmed up and ready to slay these so called “Dragons”. We finished stretching and Kory said “take a knee around Carberry”. I looked around at all my teammates and saw the determination in their faces. Twenty three of my teammates were looking up to me just as I used to look to my captains before games when I was an underclassman.  I looked around into all their eyes and said “All of the suicides, sweaty mornings in the weight room, two a days in the heat has led us to this one night; one game, forty minutes to show who put in the work in the offseason, who wants it more.”

Reading Journal 3

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2012/02/27/tv_russia_ukraine_agents_foil_anti_putin_plot/?p1=Well_News_links


          Earlier this morning Russian Secret Service foiled an attempt by Chechynan terrorists to assasinate the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Earlier this month Russian Servicemen arrested four terrorists in Odessa, Ukraine after an attempt to manufacture explosives backfired and caused a large blast. After weeks of interrogations the terrorists finally coughed up the plan they had to assasinate Putin after the elections last night. The Chechnyans had recorded many videos of Putins convoy and had planted explosives along his expected route home after the elections. Lucky for Putin his Secret Service men reached the alley before his convoy and rooted out the explosives. Now Putin is counting this as a victory for himself and Russian National Defense. In my opinion I think Putin is very lucky and eventually Russia's "chickens" are going to come back to roost.

Reading Journal #2

http://espn.go.com/boston/nba/story/_/id/7595636/boston-celtics-rajon-rondo-suspended-tossing-ball-ref
          Sunday afternoon the typically calm, cool, and collected Rajon Rondo of the Celtics was ejected in a game against the Dallas Mavericks. Rondo who is usually a leader on the team regardless of his age compared to the rest of the team lost his cool when an official made a bad call and he tossed the ball at his chest. although it was only a soft underhand toss the Vice-President of the NBA decided that Rondo had earned a two-game suspension. The rest of the Celtics and their coach Doc Rivers were understanding about the accident. Doc Rivers summed it up perfectly when he said "You're always disappointed when that happens," said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "You should never put yourself in front of the team. But it's an emotional game. We can all agree that it was a pretty bad foul and a clear foul that wasn't called. At the time, we were getting our butts kicked and the frustration was high and it's a human game. I can guarantee you five seconds, 30 seconds after it happened, I guarantee you Rondo wished he could take it back." In my opinion Rondo's suspension was deserved because if one of the NBA stars starts disrespecting officials then other stars can get away with it.

Rhetorical Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeC3kPU-ZoA&feature=related
          The commercial I chose to watch was last years Super Bowl commercial for Gatorade. Gatorade spends a minute and half and millions of dollars just to show national television a bunch of over-payed athletes drinking their product.Why did they do that?
           The money they make selling their "sugar-water" is unbelievable, Every kid or athlete watching the Superbowl is going to watch that commercial and see people who have reached the pinnacle of football success drinking Gatorade. Subliminally people are going to associate performance with drinking Gatorade.Its hilarious to see people who are not even performing an excessive task drinking a sports performance drink like Gatorade. For example, the crossing guard up the street who is getting payed to stand and wave at people was drinking Gatorade the other day. I can promise that his body wasn't craving electrolytes or even really needed them, he was just thirsty and years of advertisents by Gatorade have told them to drink the drink of champions. This ad is genius in the way it applies to everyone, everyone likes to win no matter what it is they want to win. Even though for the most part this advertisement is being presented to athletes by athletes at the top of their game its inspiring; everyone is inspired by winning. In a country built by winners and overachievers Gatorade is an easy sell, if you work hard hard work will provide you success.
            The executives in charge of producing this commercial nailed it, every athlete watching it especially during the Super Bowl was inspired to work hard and drink Gatorade. They used a perfect balance of top NFL athletes and heart-pounding music to create a commercial that is aesthetically and musically pleasing to the viewer. Gatorade nailed it and now i want to run up to Cumberland Farms grab a bottle and finish everything I need to get done today.

Show Don't Tell

My hometown was more of just a place to spend 18 years before growing up and going to prison.
Lacie had a rather eccentric style, she would often walk out of the house in leopard skins.
Mr.Brown deserved his own chapter in the "Wayside School" series as being the teacher from hell.
The room reminds me of my cell back in the joint.

Reading Journal 1

http://espn.go.com/action/surfing/blog/_/post/7546719/chance-encounter-cautionary-tale
        
            Almost two years to the date San Diego surfer Josh Buran finally met the man who saved his life during a six foot swell at San Diego's Black Beach. Josh was having his typical Saturday morining out on the exceptional waves. Everything was going smooth for him until he wiped out in the pipe and took a surfboard right to the jaw. The rest of the story is told through Jason Isaacs perspective. "I paddled over, and Josh was unconscious, not breathing and blue. I got off my board and started compressions in the water by pushing on his chest and back at the same time. Grey foam was coming out of his nose and mouth and after a minute or two he made a gurgle/choking noise like he was trying to breath," says Isaacs. When Isaacs was trying to paddle him back to the dry land they were gobbled up by a 7 footer and Buran's body went under the water. Jason  and his fellow surfers dived under the waves to retrieve his unconscious body and pulled him onto the sand where the life guards were waiting. Buran was taken to the hospital where he survived with little injuries but he never ended up meeting his hero until two years later for the article.

Sports

As long as I could remeber sports has always been a release from the outside world, whether it was a Thanksgiving day fotball game or just hanging out playing basketball. I belive that I learned more about myself and just life in general on a field or a court than I ever learned in a classroom or a lecture. The focus of my essays will be on my experiences playing in sports, the first time I went surfing, and what I learned from playing sports. Also there are controversial issues in sports including but not limited too steroids in baseball, methamphetamine in surfing, and head-trauma in football.

reading journal practice

Forget Goofing Around
       The New York Times article if focussed on the argument of recess's place in school in the twenty first century. Some like the administration at the Broadway Elementary School believe that recess should be strutured to teach youngsters the advantages of exercise and discipline and most importantly to keep children safe and out of trouble. Researchers like Dr. Romina Barros believes that a structured recess is not conducive to learning because recess is suppposed to be a break from school, not the typical schoolrules during recess. I personally agree with Dr. Barros, recess is supposed to be a time for a creativity, exercise, and freedom; not a time for more of the same schoolwork.

Autobiography

        Writing has always been a subject that I have never had alot of trouble with. The hardest part of
 writing for me has always been just getting started. Even when I was in middle school the hardest part of writing even if it it was only a small one page assignment was thinking about what to transfer from my mind to pen to paper. Once my pen could finally touch the paper and I have completely thought about what to write regardless of my interest in the subject I could write for any space of time.
        Reading is by far my strongest academic area of study. During Prep School a large part of the curriculum was grammar syntax and critical reading skills. All the hard work in Prep School payed off and I ended up getting a 670 on the critical reading section of the S.A.T. Also in my sparetime I enjoy reading non-fiction or biographies. In my younger years I used to lean towards more fiction writing or fantasy but now that I am older I view such reading as pointless.