Would Women's basketball really get more exposure if they dunked??

I've been an avid fan of women's basketball since I was in grade school. Just seeing the game that I love played by other women like myself is uplifting. A lot of people don't have the same views I have about women's basketball. The WNBA has been on the rocks of demolishing these last couple of years, because people just don't watch the sport. How can we make this better? Would females dunking really change the way female basketball is viewed? In my opinion I really don't think so..People will still have the same mind set that womens basketball is to passive and not aggressive enough. I would love to see to see women dunking the ball, alley-oops, and 360's but it really is not genetically impossible for every women to dunk. I hope womens basketball can be revived . Is going to complicated to figure out how........

Title IX..Fair for other Division 1 male sports?

Don't get me wrong. I'm very forunate and blessed that Title IX was created. Because I would'nt be at the University of Texas on a track & field scholarship. Title IX gave women's athletics the same oppurnitues has males in college athletics. The reason I ask is it fair to other male sports with exception of football, is because they hardly recieve any scholarships. Division 1 football is rewarded eighty-five fulls scholarships. While swimming & diving result with a measly 10 scholarships, swimming and diving have about 40 people on their teams. Track & field is the same way. They are only awarded 12 scholarships, and they have close to 40 people as well. A lot of these athletes are joining sports teams and putting in numerous hours on the field for no finical help with their school. Even though football is the revenue making sport, they dont need that many scholarships to be successful. You can only have eleven people on the field at one time during a game. Half the people that have scholarships will never see the field. In my opinion their needs to be a change in the system. So NCAA athletics can be completely fair across the board.

When Sport is taking too far...At the end of the day it's still just a game

Sport can really affect people's moral judgement. At the the end of the day it's all just a game, but some people really dont feel that way, especially "fans". Last weeknd Boise State was one of the few undefeated divison 1 football teams left in the nation. Looking for their first chance to play in a National Championship game. In order to do that they had to beat #19 Nevada. Long story short, Field goal kicker Kyle Brotzman choked on not one but two field goal oppurtinities that cost Boise State the game, and the hopes of playing in a BCS title game. After the game Brotzman had reported death threats, and thousands of disgusting facebook comments left on his page. Where do we draw the line? At the end of the day , this is still a kid who just had a bad athletic day...get over it. Sport can really mess with peoples morals. I bet if that was their son or daughter who was the cause of a loss of a game, you would think twice about bashing.

Cam "Cheating" Newton... Will football players ever do things the correct and ethical way?

Webster Dictionary defines ungrateful has, "showing no gratitude and making a poor return to a good gesture". This is how I would like to define a numeorus amount of Division 1 football players. These players are given the oppurtinity to go to school for free, and also play a sport that most of them love for four more years. If someone gave you the oppurtunity like that, wouldnt you try to do everything in your power to put full effort on the field, classroom, and have respect to everyone and everything in the institution? Cam Newton is the perfect example taking a great oppurtunity and wasting it. Newton was caught academically cheating THREE times at the University of Florida and also was arrested for stealing a laptop from a dorm room. The question I ask is, " Should he still have the oppurnity to compete in athletics?" What lesson is being taught if the athlete can just swich schools and continue to represent the NCAA? This in my opinion makes the NCAA look really bad. It gives of the assumption that they just care about athletics. Cam Newton is under a lot of scrutiny because of these incidents. I feel he deserves every single bit of bad press.

Football "student athletes" coming to college just to PLAY

I was very disturbed to learn that less than half of all our football athletes at the University of Texas do not graduate. We have one of the worst gradutae rates in the entire NCAA. It really raises my eyebrows to the athletic department. It seem like they care about the athlete until the January of their senior year, than they say Goodbye. I've seen first hand of this happening. After the Longhorns went to the National Championship game of last year and lost, the next semester, numerous amounts of seniors were missing in action(from school). Dr. Todd put all of things in perspecitive that has me very dissapointed in the NCAA and the University of Texas. Our mission statement is to achieve "academic excellence", how our we achieving this if we have academic counselors, academic teachers, coaches, and most important the athletes who are doing the bare minium for the athletes just to PLAY? In my opinion the NCAA needs to increase the minium requirements for athletes to be able to compete. If that means the less talented are going to be benched...oh well. "Academic Excellence" comes first!

Transgender Athlete in NCAA Basketball, is it fair????

First Openly Trangender NCAA athleteWhen I first heard the story that women was starting the process of turning into a man, it made me question ethics. Is it fair than an overly masculine female who tell "his" teammates to call him "he" and pronounce his name "Kye" instead of "Kay" to still continue to play a womens sport. If I was the teammate of this athlete, I would feel very uncomfortable in the locker room. Knowing the fact that a man is watching me dress, taking showers, and sleeping in the same hotel rooms would make me self conscious. The NCAA allowed her to continue to play because she hasnt started her testosterone therapy yet. This always makes me question some things. If she wanted to become a male so bad why wait until after the season to start? She said in an interview that she probably already has a lot more testosterone than good amount of males. I really do not find this situation to be very female for the women athlete, having to guard a MAN on defense is pretty difficult.

Violence in Sport : Is the NFL Going to become a Professional Flag Football League?

This Wednesday in class we talked about the violence in sport. Dr.Todd used cock fighting and dog fighting to explain to the class that the purpose of those fights are to place harm on the other animal in the fight. These types of fights are very similar to the national football league. Football players are at risk everyday to get in injury (life threatening actually). So the question I ask is, “Should the NFL go to a non-physical game?”  In my opinion I shouldn’t, it would take away from the past time of America’s favorite game! Even the new rule that the NFL has enforced {A player will be suspended are heavenly fined for flagrant hits to the head of an opponent} is a little ridiculous. Fans and players of all types love to see players make big plays, which mean BIG HITS. The players can’t even play their type of game, because in the back of their mind it’s the conscience of being fined for making a big play. NFL needs to go back to the drawing board of making rules, because the NFL will eventually be called the NFFL (National Flag Football League)

Test...Eye Opener...Need to Read

The test we had last Wednesday was a huge eye opener. It made me realize that I need to start reading the articles and journals in a effective way! I feel during class, I'm pretty good at being attentive and following what Dr.Todd is lecturing about. But the readings not so much. I found myself on Tuesday cramming two months of reading into one night. Surprisingly I found the articles and journals to be very interesting, but I still was not effectively reading them all. I go to the test on Wed and half the questions our very detailed. For example, asking questions about actual authors, names of coaches, exercises, and professors. Going over the test in discussion was embarrassing, because I knew if i would have just took the time to read the reading every week, I wouldn't have gotten so many wrong. Glad I got the eye-opener tho!

Peter Norman....The Silver Medalist

When I was in 9th grade my mother bought me a shirt that had one of the most epic moments in Olympic history. That was the moment where Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on the potum to make a silent protest of the discrimination they have to face back home in the United States. In this picture I never notice the "white guy" until we watched a documentary in class about Peter Norman. It's so admirable that a white man not even from the United States would risk his own life and the respect from his country to help two people fight a controversial cause. Norman was the one that came up with the idea that Carlos and Smith wear one glove. The world needs more people like Peter Norman. He even said that he was in the right place at the right time, and does not regret his decsion at all

"Hey excuse me Sir....oh I'm sorry Ma'am...Wait what are you????"

In discussion last week we talked about is it ethically right to subject athletes to gender test. In my opinion I feel it only needs to be done in extreme cases. For example in the World Championships in track and field their was big controversy of the South African 800 meter runner Caster Semenya. Many spectators and fellow athletes felt that Semenya was not a female,and she should be gender tested. Semenya was offended and South Africa as a whole was as well.  To be honest with you, when I saw and heard Semenya speak my eyebrows were raised. Never have I seen a female with such a masculine built and even face.  She also beat her competitors in SECONDS,  in a 800 meter sprint race. This would be the only time that I would ever question someone to a gender test.  Test results were not released for Caster but I feel that she has something in her that could be a disadvantage to the other female runners.

"Super Size Me Please"

In class to my enjoyment we watched the documentary, Super Size Me. The film was about a man in perfectly good health who took on the task to eat McDonalds fast food for thirty days straight. After just a week of eating McDonalds, his health already started to decrease. Blood pressure, body fat all increases. Before watching this film I would have thought eating McDonalds for an entire month would be a breeze and a dream. But watching jim suffer and look completely miserable I have second thoughts. McDonalds is Americas favorite food, and this relationship we have with it is making us fatter and more importantly killing us! I'm really glad I watched this film because it opened my eyes to realize that their is ABSOLUTELY no nutritional value in any fast food item. Even the salad on the menu is more calories than you should intake in a whole day! As of 10-26-10 McDonalds is officially off my menu.

"Why We Hate Fat People"

Reading the article "Fat Politics" made me realize that I have never seen an obese person in any professional job. For example watching TV I notice there isn't too many overweight actors and actress. The only one I have ever seen an morbidly obese person in show business was actress Gabourey Sidibe. And she got so much exposure in the movie "Precious" because of her weight. Also I have never seen an obese doctor, lawyer, wall street broker, the list could go on and on. This leads me to the conclusion that obese people are discriminated against. The article said it's even hard for morbidly obese people to even sign apartment leases. I'll be the first to admit I would be uncomfortable if I had an overweight doctor, but that still doesn't it make it right for them to be discriminated against. We never know, they could be the best stock brokers, doctors, lawyers, but I guess we'll never know because the United States wants people to be "perfect"...literally

"Bigger, Stronger, Faster"......

Yesterday we finally finished the documentary, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster". I've come to the conclusion that the Bell family is extremely dysfunctional. I should have notice this probably half way into the documentary but I've never heard of a WHOLE family who ALL have the same dream and desire to be professional wrestlers. I really feel they used the wrong family to exploit steroids. In my opinion steroids are not really that bad...at all. I've done my research and only 3 people die per yer from these things! And that's probably from over dose. In the film it showed the Bell family claiming they suffer from depression cause of steroids. And two of the brothers "Smelly" and "Mad Dog"grew an obsession from steroids. They felt they couldn't accomplish the things that they wanted in life without steroids. In my opinion even if they used the steroids like they wanted to, "Smelly" or "Mad Dog" would not have made it as professional wrestlers anyway.

Jan Todd " World's Strongest Women"

I would be telling a massive lie if I said I wasn't extremely shocked when I found out Dr.Todd was a world class athlete. When she told the class that she dead lifted 463.5 pounds, my jaw was nearly on the ground. I'm a thrower here at the University of Texas on the track team. So I pretty much hold my own in the weight room. But I dead lift no where near 463 pounds. I also found it very admirable that she lifted all of that weight without the use of steroids. Nowadays it's hard for anybody to lift that kind of weight and not use some type of performance enhancer.

Are Steroids Really Ok???

Watching the documentary, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" really had me questioning my morals. The film made it seem that their is nothing wrong with anabolic steroids. While watching the film It made me ask a lot of questions, "What is the real reason why steroids are ban from sport?" , "Is it because it's not fair?". I came to conclusion the main reason why steroids are not allowed in NCAA is because it would not be fair. For example everyone knows that the University of Texas has one of the wealthiest sports programs in college sports. Saying that, Texas could afford the top line anabolic steroids on the market. Now teams like Texas State University and Sam Houston University would not be able to afford to give each player steroids. So this would make for an unfair advantage.
I'm an athlete at the University of Texas on the track and field team, where I am a thrower. Strength, Power, and speed are important factors for becoming a top line thrower. So steroid use is always very tempting in this event. After watching the film it tempted me even more. The documentary stated that only 3 people die per for anabolic steroid use, and those three cases are most likely because of over use. And their really is not much health affect using steroids. Even though it's very tempting I would never use steroids. One because my morals wont let me do it, and two because I feel it takes away from the purpose and discipline of sport.