Ethics Class

Learning about and discussing ethical topics in class this year has been truly enjoyable. The issues we read about and discuss are issues that I already naturally talk to my friends about. Being able to relate my personal life to this class has only made it that much more easy to learn. When I was deciding on a major before college, I was thinking about what I wanted to do in life. I knew that I had a passion for sports and so I decided to take the sports route hoping that everything would work out in the end. All I really want is to enjoy my job, and I knew that working in the sports field would definitely allow me to do that. So far in college, I have really loved the classes specific to my major, but it is the classes like these that really remind me that I am on the right track. My favorite TV channel is ESPN and when the same things are being discussed on ESPN as in one of my classes, I knew I had picked something right.
Usually student go through college dreading class and reading and all they really want to do is hang out, party, and somehow magically have the good grades flow to them. And in my case, that is how I feel for most of my non-major specific classes. "Just get the work done the best you can and get this class over with." However, in this class, I looked forward to reading about ethical issues in sports and I looked forward to discussing them in class. Like I said earlier, my friends and I have the same type of discussions regularly, and I would go to class, discuss the same things and then get a grade for it. I could not ask for a class better fitted for me, and I truly enjoyed learning most of the material we went through.

Credit for Athletics

At Universities, students are required to have a certain amount of PE credits depending on their major. We have to take classes like "weightlifting" or "swimming" in order to fulfill our degree requirements. Personally, I thoroughly enjoy these classes. I took softball last semester and had an absolute blast with it. We just went out to the softball fields every Tuesday and Thursday and just played softball, it was the best time of my week. I have heard from other student though that their PE class was not as fun. Some PE professors grade strictly on performance and improvement, and some professors assign papers on the sport and mandatory attendance at outside of class events. That would be the short side of the stick as those classes might be harder to keep up with than my simple, awesome softball class. But either way, we are getting academic credit for playing a sport or participating in a physical activity a couple of times per week. So, would it not be fair for athletes to get academic credit for playing a sport. If we only have class twice a week for less than an hour and half and they have practice everyday for multiple hours, shouldn't they get some kind of class credit for that? It sure seems so.
In these PE classes, not only are we running around and getting our exercise on, but we are also learning to deal with things like teamwork and sportsmanship. These are actually very important lessons in life, especially in the workplace. These PE classes can turn out to be very valuable. So, if we are learning the basics of teamwork and sportsmanship by going to a PE class three hours a week, how much of those two attributes do you think athletes learn by practically having to make siblings out of their teammates throughout the year? Surely they can probably teach the rest of us a thing or two about having to get along and get along well. So these athletes are spending five times as many hours in practice as a PE class does and they experience much more of the lessons learned in these classes but they don't get ANY academic credit for it? Something is wrong with that picture.

Jackie Robinson

In my opinion, Jackie Robinson was the ultimate Black hero. The way he stood up and performed against diversity was like none ever before or after him. Jackie was an all around athlete. He was a star football, basketball, and baseball player, and it was said that baseball wasn't even his best sport. But when the Dodgers went looking for a negro player, he caught their eye, and it was not for his talent. Jackie was not even the best ball player in the negro leagues, but he had the tools necessary to make it in the MLB. A great all around player, Jackie could play multiple positions, hit for a very high average, and steal a ton of bases. But it was not his ball skills that attracted the eye of the Dodger organization so much. Off the field, Jackie Robinson was such a great guy. He was humble and quiet, and he could block out all of the racist remarks heard from everywhere he went. That takes a lot. Think about it, literally everywhere he went there were probably people saying things that should have just pissed him off. Most people did not want a black player in the MLB, and people were not afraid to say that, among other probably much worse things, to his face. Somehow, Jackie was able to not only tolerate it all and stay calm at the time, but he also continuously delivered on the baseball field. So most people hated him and they told him to his face, but he kept playing and playing well. That blows my mind that he could possibly put aside all of the comments and remarks and still perform. His mental toughness is out of this world.
On top of most people hating him and not agreeing with the fact that he was playing with the whites, ticket sales sky rocketed when Jackie joined the Dodgers. So EVERYONE came to watch him play. Every at bat, every play in the field, every breath Jackie took, thousands of eyes were staring at him, waiting for him to do something wrong or out of the ordinary. He never did. Not only did he never really do anything wrong, but with all eyes watching him intensely, he continued to perform at his best and win MVP awards and earn the respect of everyone in the game. Put anyone else in that type of adversity and let me know how they do. The way Jackie Robinson handled it is truly unbelievable.

Scholarships for STUDENT Athletes

These days it seems like every good college athletes is on scholarship at his or her school. You can just scan the field or court and realize that most of the players are basically getting paid to be there. These kids get their whole college paid for so that they can play a sport for the school. The ironic thing is though, is that athletes are notorious for having trouble when it comes to maintaining good grades in school. A lot of athletes don't even graduate. So in reality, they are getting their school paid for, but then don't end up learning or getting the beneficiaries of school, knowledge. The school is paying for the kid to be a "student-athlete" at their school, but the kid doesn't really partake in the "student" part of the deal. So what is the college paying for in the end? This is one reason why it is not right to give out athletic scholarships, because the school is paying for the kid's privilege to learn, but he doesn't end up learning anything in the end. If an athletic scholarship is awarded, it should be awarded to a kid who will up hold the "student" part of "student-athlete." Otherwise the University if wasting money if the kid isn't going to learn or graduate in the first place.
When an athlete is on scholarship, it is not news to him, he is well aware that he is extremely gifted in his sport. The fact that he is on scholarship just boosts his ego even more. Some of the time in can even present the message that his sport comes first in college. Since he is on scholarship, they are paying him to play a sport right? So the sport should come first, right? Well the fact is that they are actually paying for his schooling so that he can have the privilege of playing the sport. Student comes first in student athlete, and sometimes scholarship players forget that.

Steroids and the Olympics

There was a time when people competed fairly and no one complained of cheating with performance enhancing drugs. But that time is far from now. Foreign countries first started using steroids in the mid 20th century to aid their teams in the Olympics. At this time, no one really knew anything about performance enhancers, so they had no way of knowing that it was cheating to use them. They just assumed they had found a great way to get much stronger much faster. When these other countries started using, we had to use also just to keep up. Well, the Olympics found out about the enhancers and they decided that something needed to be done to stop the use of illegal enhancers. So, they started testing for the basic enhancer and hoped that the countries would see that they were going to be tested and then stop using the drugs in all. The only problem is that the Olympics were only testing for the basic enhancer of that time so all the users had to do was tweak the drug a little bit to avoid it showing up on the test. People were still using performance enhancers now even though the Olympics had started testing for them. This game continued for a while. They would improve their tests but then the athletes would just keep finding the loop holes and avoid getting caught using. Finally, the Olympics figured out how to prevent all steroids and such from being used at the games. With this though, athletes would just use their drug until about a month before the games and then stop using so that it would not show up on the tests at game time. To this day, athletes continue to find loop holes in the system so that they can keep using performance enhancers. Perhaps if the Olympics had just eliminated the thought of steroids when it first came up, people would not be using them now. Either way, it continues to be a big problem in sports today and there seems to be no real solution to completely removing them from the athletic society.

Violence in Football

Since it has now been proven that the physicality athletes partake in when playing football causes serious health problems later in life, should people be risking their health to play the sport in the first place? According to the article "Offensive Play" by Malcolm Gladwell, football players, especially linemen, are at very high risk of CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, when they grow older. The constant damage the head takes when making and taking hits in a football game amounts to health problems at an older age. Can anything be done to the sport to make it less violent and reduce the risk of health problems? The answer to that question is no. If violence would some how be taken out of the sport, it would change the game as a whole and it would no long be America's prime time. There is no way that football could be played to the level of excitement it is now without the physicality it brings to the table. Removing the violence would completely change the game as a whole. Instead of removing the violence, the NFL could try and require safer equipment and padding. This would reduce the risk of injury, but it would increase the violence of the game. If the players knew that they could hit harder and be more aggressive without risking their health, they would throw their bodies around and probably cause even more traumatic damage than before. Improving the safety of the equipment would only increase the violence. Seeing now that there is no real way to remove the violent risks from football, should parents let their kids play in high school? Playing football in high school is really not a very big health risk. There is not near enough physicality to cause health problems later in life. There is, however, the risk of breaking a bone, or getting injured in the present tense. But, the fun the kid has and the friendships he makes should be well worth any chance of getting injured that he has. Being part of a high school football team can enhance the high school experience way more than an injury can hurt it. Once a player gets good enough to make it big time though, the family has a decision to make. Is it worth the health risks to play college or in the NFL. It really depends on the player's love for the game, but sometimes, the health risks can be so high that outsiders would seriously question the decision of the athlete.

Elite Competitiveness vs. Mass Fitness

Elite competitiveness and mass fitness are two reasons to motivate the country to get in physical shape. Elite competitiveness would be the idea that the country needs to get in shape so that we can compete and win in world class events of all sorts. Mass fitness is the idea that we need to get in shape simply because it is healthy and it would make our country look much better for us to be healthy. Obviously it is in the best interest of the country to be more healthy and highly regarded around the world, but the question is, which mentality would work better in improving the nations health?
In the idea of elite competitiveness, if the best of America go out around the world and compete and win, that would set a great example for the rest of the Americans. These winners would become idols and the physical shape they are in would motivate others to join them and work hard to gain similar physical shape. These days, kids in America tend to pick a favorite celebrity to base their childhood off of. Some kids pick athletes, some kids pick rock starts, and there are some kids who pick artists. However, imagine if the majority of children in America were basing their childhood life style on one of the top athletic competitors in the world. These kids would be driven to be in just as good of shape as these athletes and this would improve our physical health as a nation.
On the other hand, the idea of mass fitness would work well too. This would be more based on the government implementing some kind of required program for everyone in the country to participate in and get in better shape. Once people start doing the program, then naturally people will become competitive with each other and try to get in better shape then their peers. So instead of a world known athlete motivating people to exercise, everyone's peers would be motivating people to exercise. This could also potentially be very successful.
Regardless of the method plan, getting everyone in the whole country into shape is a very difficult thing to do. Hints the fact that it is a high priority and it is far from getting done in the country.

Jesse Owen

The story of Jesse Owens is quite intriguing. The way he dominated everyone during the Berlin Olympics had to have caught the eye of most people in the world. In an Olympics supposed to be dominated by Germans, Owens won numerous gold medals in numerous events, including the 100m dash, 220m hurdles, and long jump, among others. He wiped out all of his competition to the point where most of his races were not even close. Everyone seemed to be extremely impressed, including most of the German's themselves. A person would think that after such a dominant performance, Owens would come back to America and be a nationally known celebrity. Everyone would want to meet him, companies would want him to star in their commercials and he would be featured everywhere. However, this was not the case. When Jesse Owens returned to the US, he was basically disregarded. No endorsement offers, no invitations from famous people to hang out, and very little publicity from outside of the African American population. When I first heard this, I was shocked. Put Jesse Owens in this day and age and he would be the face of the country after such a dominant performance. Look at Michael Phelps today. He dominates the world in swimming and becomes a iconic legend in America. He is on the front cover of magazines, asked to be the guest on countless TV shows, and even gets caught breaking the law but does not seem to get his image hurt. But back then things were different. Blacks did not have nearly the amount of respect that whites had and even a stint like dominating in the Berlin Olympics wasn't going to fix that. Owens ended up speaking about success and becoming a role model to the black society, but never really gained stature amount the whites. It is amazing to see how the times have changed, and purely unfortunate that the time of Jesse Owen's prime had to at such a time like it was.

It seems that America today is built for everyone to be overweight. Food is more unhealthy, more available, and come in larger sizes. We don't walk anywhere, we drive literally everywhere we go and then complain when our parking spot is too far away. We don't get enough exercise because we sit inside and stare at a screen for eight hours a day before driving home only to stare at a screen for another three or four. And, the majority of the population lives like this so since our neighbors and best friends aren't changing their ways to be healthier, why should we?
Our bodies need exercise daily. Back in the day, when our parents were growing up, they did not have to worry about getting their daily amount of exercise in because they had to walk or ride their bikes to half of the places they were going. That took care of itself. Nowadays, we have fancy cars to hop into and deliver us to the place of our choice much quicker and easier than walking. Our parents used to walk miles to the grocery store or to a restaurant without complaints, and it was very good for them. Walking places can be physically healthy and mentally relaxing too. Today however, my friend who lives ten houses down the alley wont even walk to my house. He says "it is like a two second drive so I am basically not using any gas." That is when you know today's life is skewed.
Part of the problem though is that we simply don't have the time in our busy days to walk places or to go work out. We don't have the 2 hours it takes to get ready, drive to the gym, work out, shower, put on clothes, and drive back. Well the truth is that you dont need that much time at all in order to get a day's worth of calorie expenditure in. If your day really is packed to the point where you dont have any more than twenty minutes to spare, then change shoes, put on some shorts and take a twelve minute jog around the neighborhood. That should get you about a mile and a half a good sweat with almost no time used to do it. Simple exercise outings like that can improve your health exponentially and save you from feeling guilty about sitting in a chair all day and eating that double cheeseburger for lunch (I am not saying that running a mile everyday justifies eating a double cheeseburger for lunch everyday, not even close).
Sometimes it is good to look around at people these days and think about what we can do to help ourselves and society be a little bit better and healthier. One thing everyone can do is exercise a little more. Sacrifice that short car ride and take the fifteen minutes to get a little work in. Hopefully that little bit of exercise will turn into a lot sooner or later, and what do you know, it could add double digit years on to your life. Who knows.

Stong? Or Sexy? Or BOTH?

In class this past Wednesday, we analyzed some women. No, no, it wasn't in any kind of perverted way, we simply looked at VERY fit women and were asked to report what we thought of them. This got me to thinking. Obviously guys like women that are physically fit, but is there a line? Is there a point where the women are too fit or too strong to be attractive? Well, those are two completely different questions and two completely different answers.
When it comes to a women being too fit to be "hott," I say impossible. If there is a female that is just ridiculously in shape, contains a few muscle lines and can probably out run you, I think that is very attractive. It may be just me though since I am attracted to the athletic type, but I think that it is impossible to be overly in shape. There is a difference between being overly in shape and overly strong though.
There are women out there that are beasts. Usually athletes, they can probably out lift a lot of male athletes and have enough muscle mass to satisfy them for lifetimes. Even if these women are still skinny and fit, this does not attract me. When the girl has bulging muscles and is cut like an NFL player, that pushes me away. I just like it when the girl is in shape, not ripped out of her mind.
Why? Why don't I like girls who are extra strong? I am really not sure. Maybe it is because it makes them seem more manly. Maybe it is because they become intimidating. Maybe it makes them too good to be true. I don't know why buff girls don't make me happy. But the fact of the matter is, that they don't. I just like the fit girls and not the strong ones, and I'll have to settle for that.

Women Started Getting Involved

Did you know that during the draft for World War 1, many of the men who were drafted did not proceed to the war because they failed the physical test to become a member of the army. We are talking like millions of American men. That is so sad. American used to be so out of shape that some of us did not even earn the right to begin training for the army because they thought it was a lost cause. Some people failed the conditioning test, some people failed the eye test, some people failed the health test, and there were many more tests available to fail. Bottom line is, America was not very healthy.
World War II comes around and what do you know, the same thing happens. Millions of men get turned away from the army because of their physical condition and capabilities. Also, at this time, women started getting involved. Females started joining the army, and a lot of them were in better shape than some of the males. Not only did they have to get in shape to join the army, but those wives whose husbands had been shipped off to do their country a great service had to be in shape to because they had to now start working to earn their family a living. So not only were they taking care of their usual daily jobs of home maintenance, but they were also working hard to earn money and stay above water while their spouses were gone for an extended period of time. World War II is really when the women started taking a rise in society and this stuck out to me because women hold a large role in the workforce today. I had never thought about when that had really began. I knew that back in the day, women did not do much besides take care of things around the house, and of course I knew that a good amount of wives these days work full time, but I had never thought about when the time was that women really started working hard. Today I came to that realization and for some reason, it hit me like an epiphany.

Muscular Christianity

When looking back on the history of sports in class, one movement/event that stuck out to me was Muscular Christianity. Muscular Christianity is that idea that since the human being consists of three elements, the mind, body, and spirit, exercise is a good way to use all three. Obviously when you exercise you are using the body, but if you playing some sort of active game, or exercising in any way that involves thinking, then you are also using the mind. And, exercise is great outlet for stress, anger, or negative feelings in any way as exercising usually puts people in a good mood following their work out. So all three of the elements of humanity are being used in an uplifting way and that is what Muscular Christianity wants.
Piggy backing off of this idea, all of the YMCA started including gyms into their facilities and this attracted a lot more of the youth population to come spend time at the Y. When looking at the overall picture, this is a huge win win win for the whole party. The young people have an easily accessible option for exercising and improving their health, the YMCA is attracting way more people than it ever has, and Christianity is also attracting more people to their belief system as they are credited with the brilliance of the idea. AND everyone probably seems to be more happy and healthy on top of everything. To me, this is really when team sports and the emphasis on the important of exercise really took off. And even though America is one of the most overweight countries in the world, it has seemed to work to some extent because YMCAs everywhere are constantly hosting athletic leagues, events, and get togethers, helping everyone everywhere be more happy.

Bigger, Faster, Stronger

The movie we watched in class last week was one of the most informative and interesting documentaries I have seen in a long time. Underneath the obvious message that steroids can and will ruin your life in many ways, there was a strong message that America is obsessed with winning and its impression much more than it cares about character. Several people that were on steroids were interviewed and they proceeded to state how they were happy on steroids because they liked being that strong and powerful, regardless of the side effects. They were so single minded and oblivious that they were convinced that what they were doing was right. And that mindset seems to come with some Americans. We tend to be so caught up with winning and succeeding at any cost that we completely miss the vision of what is right. In the lives of these steroid users, everyone around them used it, so to them, they were no different then the person next to them. And when everyone is doing it, it seems less wrong. With their skewed up view of the enhancements, and the fact that everyone around them is also using, they have completely lost sight of the fact that steroids ruin lives. And when people would try to convince them that steroids were bad, they would not budge their stances. It is the mind of Americans and sometimes it tends to get WAY out of hand.

Steroids and Such

Steroids are terrible for the body in so many ways. They ruin your long term physical health, they make you be considered a cheater, they alter your mental health and make you extremely short tempered, and much more that doesn't need mentioning. Since steroids are illegal and banned in basically every sport, no athletes should be using them. But new ideas and new supplements are constantly being designed and discovered and athletes are finding ways around steroids all of the time. The tests keep having to improve to keep up with the times and more and more enhancements get banned each and every year. So the question is, when are they going to give up and just make steroids legal? Since there seems to be no way to really keep athletes from using them.
Steroids should never be legal. If the government and league officials were to allow athletes, or anyone for that matter, to treat their bodies in such a horrible way just to have an advantage in competition, it would be making a huge mistake. The harms that can come from taking steroids heavily out way any glory steroids can bring. There is no way that the higher ups can bring themselves to support this wrong doing. They would basically be sending the message: it is more important to win than to take care of your body. That is not okay.
However, on the other hand, what if keeping up with the time does get too hectic? What if there is no way to really keep players from using the new and improved, undetectable performance enhancer of that time? The answer to that is, just keep doing the best to enforce steroid prevention. And if there is ever any giving up, do it by simply not changing the tests and failing to keep up with the times. But do not legalize performance enhancers. No one wants to see a juiced up and LEGAL America.

Ethics and Values

Ethics, to me, is a very subjective and interesting topic. Questions like "What is right and what is wrong?" or "What should have happened there?" intrigue me so much, especially when it comes to sports. Players make questionable ethical decisions in sports games all of the time. The most obvious and common to me is when a soccer player flops and fakes an injury just for a minor foul call. Should he fake the injury and potentially get the call? Or should he keep playing through it and if he gets the call it is just an added bonus. In my personal opinion, the player should always play through the "questionable calls" and earn the goal and the victory. To me, if I do win by faking a foul or persuading the referee or doing something besides actually earning the victory, it doesn't feel like a real W in my mind. But that may be just me.

The story of Paul Brown and his high school football team is definitely an interesting one. This happening seems to be so rare that it is worth repeating. The team uniforms had a picture of a regulation sized football on the front of their jerseys and the picture looked real enough so that the defense could mistake it for the real ball. So when the ball was snapped, all of the players would hold their hands near their jersey's like they were holding the ball and the defense wouldn't know where the actual ball is. Who thinks of something like that?!?! Yes, it is genius. But in my mind, it is completely unethical and wrong. I know it was not against the rules then, but the players and coaches had to feel like they were cheating. And if I win a game with that cheating taste in my mouth, it does not feel even close to a real victory to me. What coach Brown did was completely wrong in my book and him and all of his players should feel guilty for "bending" the rules so much like that.

I am excited for the next ethics discussion on Wednesday, this stuff really revs my engine.