Jenkins Conclusion

In concluding this semester’s worth of blogging, the topic of mine that generated the most discussion was the “Title IX in Social and Legislative Context” post on February 1, 2012. The question for that post elicited 10 comments from other people, and resulted in a many more opinions than I thought it would. In addition, I enjoyed blogging because it gave me a chance to bounce ideas off of other people through commenting, and it gave me an opportunity to consider different points of views and incorporate them into my own. Specifically, I enjoyed working on our own presentation very much. It taught me about a side of hockey I had not traversed before, in women, and I thought that learning the history of women in hockey was especially intriguing.       

Overall, the most interesting thing I learned in this class was about the “cool pose,” and how black athletes would use sport as a vehicle of expressing themselves in a unique way to overcome social and structural constraints/adversity. Looking back, it is interesting to see the way that trends in society can shape the progress of an underrepresented gender/group/race.  

Lastly, I hope I was able to make the class more enjoyable for all of you!

Have a good summer and best of luck,

Neil Jenkins

DFLO's Final Thought

After keeping a sports blog for the last eight or so months I've came to really enjoy writing in mine, writing comments in others, and reading feedback on my entries. Blogging has become a great way for me to write about my love of sports but also being able to state my opinion about it. Some of the topics and readings from our Sport & Gender class weren't always the most interesting or a topic I would pursue on my own, which is why it opened my eye to these topics. The media doesn’t' publicize many of these topics and after all we are here to learn so I found pretty much all of the topics to be beneficial in some way or form. I really enjoyed the more current topics and articles on famous athletes such as Kobe, LeBron, MJ, and Tiger. I enjoyed being able to blog about things that were taking place in today's sport world such as the NCAA tournament. I believe this class will help me in my career by having a better understanding of women, racism, and sexuality in sports. I will be able to see things from different perspectives and empathize with different people in tough situations. Overall, I really enjoyed taking this class and my group that I was in.
-Derek Flores

Matt Konyesni Conclusion

In this past semester I have experienced a lot and learned more than I thought I would have. I have learned how to view different topics in sports differently. It has opened my mind to new opinions and allows me to relate to different situations. What I found most useful to this class was experiencing everybody's opinions   on different topics. By listening to other people speaking about these touchy topics in class allows me to gain a full understanding of each topic. The reading that was especially interesting was the Michael Jordan article. I did not know how much he actually influence the game and also the sporting world industry. I knew that he was very big but I did not know how much he was worth and how it keeps growing.

Having a blog was sometimes difficult to write about. I did not want to offend people by writing about touchy topics that people may take offense to but I still liked to write about topic in which it allowed me to express my opinion when I could not have done it in class. Finally, I thought pretty much all of the presentations were interesting but I really liked the wrestling one. I liked it so much because it was related to class and we did not talk about it to much so with them presenting the topic it helped me learn more than what I already knew. I am going to take this class and apply it by looking at both sides of topics and opinions. I have enjoyed this class over this past semester and always looked forward to class.

Matt Konyesni

Bounty Hunters

I am writing on a topic that has taken place a few weeks ago, but it makes me mad to this day when I talk about it or when I hear about it on ESPN. The New Orleans Saints organization has taken a hit on its franchise in the past few weeks. I do not condole what they did but I think that the NFL is taking it to far. The fact that they suspended the head coach Sean Payton for the year I can understand but for the one year suspension they have put to many restrictions on the terms. He is not allowed to talk to anybody within the football world. He also has to report everytime he comes into interaction with somebody he might know inside the sports world and he can not even go into college athletic events. I do not know what he will do with having nothing to do. There are simply to many restrictions placed on the coach and I think the NFL took it to far.

The league also banned their defensive coordinator Gregg Williams indefinitely for his actions inside the locker room. I heard what he said inside the pregame talk before they played the 49ers. Yes what he said was bad and could be taken offensively but anybody who has played football speeches like that are not suppose to be taken in that form. He was just trying to get his players motivated. When a player is out on the field he does not just think what the coach says and tries to take out one of their legs or rip their heads off. It would not surprise me if every defensive coordinator in the league has a pregame speech like that. It was just that someone recorded it and the NFL does not want a bad image on them even though the leagues lives of these teams and the way they play.

I have shared my opinion, but i want to know what you think about the topic. Do you agree with my thoughts, or disagree?

Bubba-licious

This past Sunday there were two main sporting events that made the weekend a great one. First, the national championship for hockey was on Saturday. The two teams competing to be named national champions was Ferris state and Boston College. I watched the game with my brother while I visited and we both agreed that we thought Boston College had the advantage over Ferris State for the soul fact that some of them had experience in this situation. The outcome is what we expected even though it was a very close game until Boston College took over the game in the later minutes in the third period.

The second reason why this weekend was a great one is due to the Masters and the drama that it entailed on Sunday. In one of my previous blogs I wrote about Tiger winning his first tournament of the year and what it could mean for the Masters and what if would win the Masters what kind of impact that would have. Although, I would have liked to see Tiger win the Masters I don’t think he could have brought as much of excitement as what Bubba Watson did. Coming into the final round being three back at six under he managed to shoot a 68 which was four under for the round which led him into a tie against Louis Oosthuizen. On the sudden death hole they both drove it near the woods with Bubba in the pine straw. The shot that basically won him the major was his second shot on the sudden death hole. He did not have a clear shot at the green at all but he was still able to hook the ball more than 30 yards putting him in the position to sink his birdie putt and becoming the 2012 Masters champion.

This win the past weekend was his fourth career PGA tour win which propelled him into the fourth spot of the world golf rankings. This is great win for the young and promising golfer winning in the state where he played college golf at. 

Matt Konyesni