Why Saints' "BountyGate" is no Surprise

Sports are used as a window into society, and based solely on sport you can tell a lot about our culture today. Football is the number one sport in America, only because it exhibits the most amount of violence out of any sport played here today. Earlier in the week, it was reported on ESPN that the New Orleans Saints' coaching staff was offering their players money for "big hits," and injuring opposing players. In todays society, we love violence and our values would support that. We discussed how our values are shown through sport in class on February 2.


In the article Ashley Fox discusses the "bounties" the Saints coaching staff was allegedly placing on other players and how the players were compensated for them. Many other former and current players have come out saying this system is in place all around the league with many organizations, the Saints were just the first ones caught. It is not surprising at all like I said earlier, based on many sports fans values nowadays. As fans we want to see the big hits and the teams want the upper edge so why not try to hurt opposing players? The article also discusses possible penalties handed down by the commissioners office.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7645118/saints-coach-sean-payton-gm-mickey-loomis-deserve-fired-bounty-program

In Coakley's text, he discusses our values and how sport is a mirror of society on page 18. He claims that sports reaffirm our beliefs because they show through in the games we love. Sports are a great way to show off America's beliefs and ideals, because millions of people in the country love and participate in sport. These violent acts in football that the Saints have committed are just another place our beliefs and culture are showing through

http://news.yahoo.com/video/sports-15749645/new-orleans-saints-face-sanctions-for-bounty-gate-28514896.html#crsl=%252Fvideo%252Fsports-15749645%252Fnfl-bounty-scandal-could-end-up-in-courts-28518006.html

Elite Sport Training Programs

More and more now in today's youth sports, parents are turning to "elite training" for their children. Parents are placing children in these academies that put children through intense work-out regimines and drilling them to encourage early specialization in a certain skill or sport. We discussed this new trend in class on February 16.

The article describes the vigourous training the children go through everyday to become elite athletes in their respective sports. It also discusses how long the athletes will be doing this training, and whether or not the specified time is safe for them or not. One important thing discussed in the article are the signs of overtraining some students will endure such as: getting tired more easily, irritability and unwillingness to work with other teammates, lack of motivation to practice, decreased ability to achieve training goals, and slower times in certain drills. Children often become very stressed and overworked in these types of environments, which has forced many people into comparing it with child labor laws.
http://www.sportssafety.org/articles/how-much-training/


In Coakley's text, he discusses these new elite programs on pages 131-132. Coakley talks about how the "Children in high-performance training programs work at their sports for long hours week after week and year after year." This is one of the same concepts discussed in the article, as well as in class. Coakley also discusses the issue of the training infringing on child labor law issues. In the text on page 132, there is even a line that says it borders on child abuse.

The video link below is a clip of the elite gymnastics training that is the main focus of most of the new academies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqRKc5vChw0

Role Models in Sport, Is it Their Job?

Children often look up to sports figures as role models and figures to mold their own lives after. They choose these sports figures because athletes are in the spotlight more so than figures children should be idolizing such as; teachers, parents, grandparents, and successfull business men/women. We discussed the topic of role models in sport on February 14 in class. While discussing this topic we learned that at the beginning of the 20th century athletes began to view being a role model as a part of their job. Another issue we discussed were the qualities that made up a good role model such as:
-Honesty
-Commitment
-Good Sportsmanship
-Sense of Humor
-Fairness
-Determination
-Good Self-Image
-High Moral Values

This slideshow that identifies the 25 best sports role models over the last 25 years, shows each of these qualities within the players. The article explains how each athlete was able to overcome adversity, or show great play on their respective field, or give back to their communities through charity.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1043972-top-25-sports-models-of-last-25-years#/articles/1043972-top-25-sports-models-of-last-25-years
Tiger Woods (pictured right) is one of the most controversial role models in recent sport history, and we have talked about him on numerous occassions in class. He has been scrutinized for his actions off the golf course, but remains a great role model for the work he continues to do through the Tiger Woods Foundation. Some of the other great role models we covered in class are: Dwight Howard, Tim Tebow, Lance Armstrong, but perhaps the greatest of all is Pat Tillman. Tillman gave up a contract to play safety for the Arizona Cardinals, and it ended up costing him his life while he was fighting for his country. We also covered some of the worst figures in sport: Plaxico Burress, Gilbert Arenas, Adam "Pacman" Jones, Terrell Owens, and of course Michael Vick.

Children Dropping Out of Youth Sport

Children have been participating in youth sports now since the 20th century. The creation of Little League in 1938, was one decisive factor in jumpstarting youth sports in this country. Over the years programs have continued to grow, while others continue to sprout up all over the country. As we learned in class on February 14, there are now 47 million children participating in youth sport.

 In the article I found on youth sports, it is said that 80% of these children participating in youth programs drop out by the age 12. One reason they claim, just as we did in class, that children drop out is because sport is losing its "fun factor." The article also makes the point that many of the coaches and instructors that are coaching these teams are not paid and are just doing it for their children. Knowing this many of the coaches do not have proper coaching certificates, therefore may not know how to properly deal with children. We spoke about this in class, eluding to the fact that this makes learning the game not so fun for children, because an emphasis is placed on winning instead of fundamental skills. If these sport programs were able to find coaches who have proper training, that would allow the children to have all the attention and skills that it takes to have sports become fun again. These coaches and instructors also need to know how to give children positive encouragement, far too many times added pressure is placed on these kids, leading to negative experiences in these sports.
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/normal/3885.html

These ideas are evident in Coakley's text, displayed on page 94. Coakley expresses that the 3 main factors children stay involved in sports have to do with: the child's abilities and characteristics, the influence and support of significant others, and the availability of opportunites to play sports.