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!