The hero's of coaching football

Chapter 11 that revolves around the Intercollegiate football spectacle touches upon the football hero as a coach. Radar talks about coaches such as Amos Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne, Glen "Pop" Warner, and Dana X. Bible. The book states that heroic status of coaches come from the belief that coaches played a far more important role in winning a game. Radar tells the story of Knute Rockne and how he came to fame at Notre Dame by adding a "unique formula" to the game. He was a charismatic coach, an amazing win-loss record, and a high number of supports throughout the nation. Both the media and his player loved him.

Although this chapter talks about collegiate football coaches as hero's I feel that in today's society many professional football coaches can be looked as heroes similar to the ones talked about in the book. Let's take a look at coaches like Tony Dungy, Lovie Smith, Mike Tomlin, and Romeo Crenell. If you look at the list I just named off you can see that all off these coaches are African American. I feel that it is awesome to see the diversity in the NFL and that these coaches can be looked at as heroes by some. We also discussed this in class through the racial and gender report. If we look more in depth at one of these coaches we can see how they are really a hero in the mind of some people. Tony Dungy, who is now a retired coach from the National Football League. He has done so much for the sport in my opinion and can be looked at as a hero. He was the first African Amercian head coach to win a Superbowl title, quite an accomplishment after all of his years involved in football.

Overall, I feel as if all of these coaches can be looked at as heroes by breaking the color barrier as a coach in the NFL.

The "New Age" of the pitcher

As discussed in chapter ten there was "An age of the pitcher". During this period of time there was a decline in hitting and the reason why is because the sport of baseball came up with rule changes that gave the pitchers advantages against the batters. One of the rule changes was the size change in home plate. In 1900 they changed the size of home plate from a 12 inch square to a five sided figure that was 17 inches across. This new plate added 200 square inches and gave the pitchers a better advantage. The next rule implemented was they counted the first two foul balls as strikes. I feel that these rule changes did give way to what they called "the age of the pitcher."

I now believe in the 20th century there has been an even bigger advantage given to pitchers, and what this is, is the amount a different pitches a pitcher can throw, along with having many more back up pitchers to relieve them. I feel that through the years of baseball many new pitches have been invented and used more and more throughout the game. Back in the 1900's there was one pitch that batters despised and that was the "spitball". Now a days there are many options a pitcher has to strike out the batter. There are pitches such as the curve ball, slider, cork ball, screwball, forkball, change up, and the rare knuckle ball. I feel that since pitchers now have all these options of pitches it gives them a heavy advantage against the batters.

The other advantage I feel that pitchers have now over any other position is how many back-ups there are in the game. A team can have up to 15 pitchers. This is the more than any other position in baseball. If a pitcher is not doing well, or is getting tired a team has plenty of more options for relief. Overall I feel that these two advantages now in the 20th century give way the "The new age of the pitcher".

By watching this youtube video you can see how effective the curveball is against batters, and how it is an advantage for the pitchers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXHx32z64QY

My sport hero: Super Mario

In chapter nine Rader discusses about the age of sport heroes. It talks about such great athletes like "The Sultan of Swat" George "Babe" Herman Ruth one of the greatest baseball players to hit the diamond in my opinion. The "Galloping Ghost of the Gridiron" Red Grange, and the prizefighting champion Jack Johnson. Although all of these athletes are hero's to me, I would have to say that they are not even close to my sport hero.

My sport hero would have to be a man they called "The magnificent" Mario Lexmieux. Mario Lemiex played in the National Hockey League for a total of 17 years for one team and that is the Pittsburgh Penguins. He currently owns the Penguins after buying them after they called for bankruptcy in 1999.

There are many reason why Mario Lemieux is my hero. The first is the way he played the game of hockey. I mean he scored a goal in the NHL on his very first shot of his very first game. There are not very many people who can capture that feat. Along with that he broke many records and won many awards in the National hockey league. Along with being an amazing player on the ice he is an amazing person off the ice. He has done so much for the city of Pittsburgh and has donated a lot of money towards cancer research which brings me into my next point why he is my sport hero.

On January 12, 1993 Mario Lemieux made a very shocking statement to the world. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Better known as cancer to most people. He underwent tremendous amounts of radiation therapy and fought through this killer disease. On his last day of his treatment he flew to Philadelphia and played...yes I said that HE PLAYED on his last day of radiation and scored a goal, but unfortunately the lost to the Flyers. He then later retired due to back pain but astoundingly came back out of retirement because he missed the game so much. This is why I really look up to him as a hero. He fought cancer, came back retired, then came back AGAIN. HE loves the sports and has so much dedication and passion for the sport of hockey. I think that anyone that is able to do that is a hero in my books and that is why he is the number one sport hero in my heart.

If you have a few minutes check out this video that talks about his career. It's pretty interesting and I'm sure you'll appreciate what he has done with the sport of hockey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rHq6xgtu8U

Danica whats under the racing suit and helmet?

So in chapter eight Rader discusses about the changing ideals of physical beauty. It talks about the prevalent assumptions on how women have the basic roles in the house and the strenuous chores they do around the house. It talks about how women were looked at as the weaker sex and if they were to play sports experts said that damage or inhibit the maturation of the female productive organs, so woman were held back to playing mild games and carefully regulated exercises. As well as damaging their reproductive organs it was believed that if women were to play a vigorous sport while menstruating it would displace the uterus and a reduction in childbearing capacities. In my opinion I feel that these so called "experts" were crazy but there was not a lot of medical technology so they didn't know any better. It then moves along and talks about the Gibson girl who had so called "dominated" the standard of female beauty. She always had engaged in sports with moderation. She smoked and drank, along with abandoned corset, shortened her skirts and wore fewer clothes than the other women. This all escalated into these women onto the playing fields of sporting events.

Looking at today's sports women are prevalent in many of them. They are forced to wear their uniforms so many spectators only look at them through the uniforms they wear such as Danica Patrick the female formula 1 racer. I feel that women in sports these days are tired of how the spectators of them just look at them as just a woman that plays sport. They want the people to look at them in a beauty sense as well. This is why more female athletes are taking their careers to the next level and start to model. Many female sport athletes have started taking off their sport uniforms and trading them for bikinis to show off their bodies to show off their natural beauty. Some female athletes have even taken a even further step and are posing in magazines such as playboy. I will talk about the less racy photos that Danica Patrick took the incentive of posing in the 2008 Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. There are pictures of her with her driving suit half off and showing her in a bikini, as well as a picture holding her helmet. I feel that she wants to show the people that she has a lot of natural beauty under that helmet and racing suit. Not only has Danica done photo shots like this but other athletes such as Natalie Gulbis of the LPGA and other female athletes have flaunted their beauty.

Evolution of the YMCA

By reading through chapter seven I realized that the YMCA has come a long way. It started in the 1890's as the Young Men's Christian Association (which I never knew what YMCA stood for until I took this class). The original purpose of the YMCA was to attract young men to spiritual work and offered classes of physical culture. It was more geared towards boys that were from clerical classes and business men. By 1892 the YMCA had over 348 gyms and had over a quarter million members. For the late 1800's that is a lot of people being members of the YMCA.

The YMCA has grown so much over the last century. Along with have calestetics and gymnastics YMCA's have so much more to offer to their members. I will look at the local YMCA in my home town as an example. The YMCA in Findlay has a wide variety of activities to choose from. First off, there is a large weight room, with a track for people to run around with, 2 pools, 6 or so basketball courts, racquet's ball courts, and a large lounge room for kids for after school. The YMCA also offers endless classes for people such as spinning classes, yoga, and swimming lessons. As well as offering classes the Y offers a day care along with day camps in the summer for kids out of school. Also, with the evolution of the YMCA there are a lot more female members than back in the last 1800's-1900's. The YMCA has grown from its quarter million members to over 45 million members worldwide. This number is outstanding! I myself was a member at our local YMCA before college and used all of it services to it's fullest. Hey there is even a song written about the YMCA that we all know, that's how popular it is!

College football makes college communities

In chapter six there was talk about football and the making of college communities. We see this all throughout the United States now-a-days. Some college campuses revolve around gamedays. There are many factors that take place in today's college football scene that make college communities. Let's take Ohio State University for a major example. Ohio State has had a prestige football team for many decades. In some cases students go to Ohio State just for the football team, call me crazy but I have heard of instances where this has happened. If a person were to go down to the campus of Ohio State on game day for the first time I feel like they would be filled with shock and awe to see how the campus comes together for the game. There is so much that happens during a gameday. Such things as ESPN or other television companies are there to cover the game as well as many events taking place around the campus. One major thing that college football does that makes college communities is the gameday tailgating. This is one of the biggest things that happens at a college campus before a game. Students, Alumni, and even just fans of colleges gather in parking lots or houses to get amped up for the games. I feel that this is an awesome event that happens on campuses to bring together the students and makes the college so special. Other schools that I feel like football helps make their college communities bigger are schools such as USC, Florida and Oklahoma. I mean these are just a few but football makes many other college communities bond together and become a unified campus.

The wealthy New York sporting communities minimized.

As talked about in chapter four New York in the late nineteenth-century was the wealthy sportsmen community. As well as Philadelphia and Boston these three cities were dominant and elite. As well as being very wealthy and dominant, these cities were very large compared to the other cities. A great example that Radar explained in the book is James Gordan Bennett Jr. who used his fathers fortune to win the world's first transatlantic yacht race. He was dominant is track and Field as well as played polo.

After reading this I noticed it was similar to my high school hockey experience in Ohio. There were three major cities in my high school career that were always very dominant and prestige in hockey. Those cities were Toledo, Cleveland and Columbus. I feel that these three cities imitate how New York, Philly and Boston were like. Each city is very wealthy and have very prestige private schools that students pay large amounts of money to go to. Some schools for example are St. Francis in Columbus and Toledo, and St. Edwards, and University School in Cleveland. They are all very wealthy and all of these teams have been at the top of the state rankings for the past decade. Smaller schools such as my school in Findlay always had a challenge when playing the teams that were more wealthy. I feel that not only Ohio sees this but other states as well.
Here is link that if anyone wants to take a peak at how the rankings stand, most of the teams near the top are from those cities that I listed off.
http://www.ushsho.com/ohrank.htm

Between the foul lines and stands

Alright so procrastination got the best of me and now I am starting up my blog again.

As I was reading through chapter 4 I noticed in that they were talking about how wooden fences kept out non paying spectators out of major baseball games.Their were then those that avoided this by looking through holes in the fences. These people got the nickname of "knothole gangs". As I read through this it reminded me of how this has evolved over the decades.

Looking at major league ballparks now days they are built most of the time in downtown areas. This means that there is plenty of high towered buildings surrounding the ballpark. Take a good look at Wrigley field in Chicago. They take advantage of those buildings by building bleaches on them, so people can watch the game on the top of the buildings. In my opinion I feel that this is a great idea for those buildings to make money, and I am sure that the cubs get majority of the money.

If you take a look to the right on the page this is the seating that the cubs are using. I mean what it talks about in the book is a little different than what I am talking about now, but I do feel that it is along the same lines.