By the end of class, you will be able to... design a website and load an image about your sports and play identity as your Home Page symbol. Show Let's Get Started! Dr. Carolyn will lead you, step by step, through a process in which you create your own personal Google website. Students who already have a personal Google website will help you to be successful. (Note: Students who already have a personal Google website for English class must move all their pages so that they fall under one of two headings: English 12CP/H and Sports and Popular Culture). If you need extra help, go to How to Construct a Google Website instructions. Download your Google Drawing of your Sports and Leisure Identity onto your Home Page of your new personal Google website. Afterward, write 2 sentences above it that invite your viewer to look at the various pages of your website. Complete the Google Form for registering your Google website with Dr. Carolyn for future grading purposes. Create pages for each of our units:
Homework: Finish any parts of your website design that you did not complete today. LESSON FIVE: SPORTS AUTOBIOGRAPHY By the end of class, you will write a personal sports narrative that connects your identity to physical exertion, play, and competition. Please click through to the Sports Autobiography page for today's assignment. Please look for the Rubric on this document. Here is Dr. Carolyn's Sports Biography as a model. Be ready to share your Sports Autobiography in small groups and on your personal Google website at the beginning of our next class. Homework: Finish your Sports Autobiography. LESSON SIX: RESPONDING TO SPORTS AUTOBIOGRAPHIES By the end of class, you will be able to apply a procedure for textual analysis in a way that highlights how sports intersects with the larger society in which we live. Let's Get Started! Please pull up your Sports Autobiography on your Google Docs. Put your Sports Autobiography on your personal Google Website: Copy and paste it on your personal Google website by highlighting and copying your entire text (no real names, please). Go to your Google apps and open Sites. Click through to your personal Google website. Create a new page titled "Sports Autobiography" under Unit One. They say that sport mirrors life. The discipline, drama, hard work, ritual, sacrifice, strategy, the winning and losing in sport are all part of the human experience. On the other hand, the same elements and expressions of ethnocentrism, exploitation of the powerless, greed and racism that exists in society can also be found in sport. In the wake of the Colin Kaepernick controversy, and in light of recent developments in sports, I felt compelled to re-examine the age-old axiom. Advertisement Ethnocentrism? It only took the NFL 83 years to address the lack of opportunity for Blacks in coaching, scouting and front office ranks. While the results are positive and mixed, the league’s diversity effort beyond hiring is limited to their signature event, the Super Bowl (week) and focuses on small and local (Super Bowl city) businesses. A few jobs, and even fewer contract opportunities. Need more? Black athletes have almost universally been considered to be “naturally athletic” and their White counterparts credited for their “hard work,” “discipline” and “knowledge of the game.” Black athletes are naturally given the gift of great athleticism, and White athletes become great athletes through hard work, discipline and intelligence is about as ethnocentric as you can get. Want sexism? You have to look no further than U.S. Soccer and the gender gap. Female players are paid less per game than men who play on the team and earlier this year women filed a lawsuit in an effort to address the discrepancy. While there are factors other than gender that drive the discrepancy, i.e. revenue from men is almost triple the revenue generated by women, the fact remains that women are paid less to play more games and have been much more successful than the men’s team. Exploitation of the powerless. The NCAA’s economic model is based on the “revenue sports of basketball and football dominated by Blacks financing non-revenue sports dominated by White athletes. According to NCAA President Mark Emmert, Black athletes generate more scholarship funding ($2 billion) than any other source except the federal government. Advertisement What about the lingering and persistent college graduation-rate gap highlighted in the recent University of Pennsylvania study? Incidents of academic fraud are on the rise, most recently uncovered at UNC, Syracuse and SMU. The vehicle in many cases: so-called “paper classes” with African American Studies as the conduit. At the same time, the Black student population on college campuses lags at schools that comprise the Big 6 conferences, a victim of policies ostensibly designed to eliminate race as a consideration in the admissions process. The same colleges who face challenges in increasing the non-athlete population on campus have no problem with the imbalanced population among basketball and football student athletes whose talent is exploited to support the economic interest of the school. Racism? I know, how can pro athletes be the victims of racism when the 3 major sports are dominated at the player level by players of color and the combined average salary in 3 major sports is $3.3 million? Easy. How else do you explain the disparity in treatment of the Josh Brown and Ray Rice situations? Rice was suspended indefinitely and then released by the Baltimore Ravens. He plead not guilty to charges of domestic abuse and completed a diversion program for first time offenders. The indefinite suspension was revoked by a Federal Court . Despite his reinstatement, not a single team has been willing to give Rice a second chance. Josh Brown, a White kicker, was suspended for one game (rather than the new baseline of six) even though Brown’s ex-wife told police of more than 20 incidents of violence against her and her teenage son. How could the lack of cooperation of the ex-wife change the facts? Cutting Brown was never an option according to Giants’ owner Wellington Mara who was quoted as saying he “wanted to give Brown a chance, saying that domestic violence “is such a complex and emotional decision.” The view is no clearer beyond the game itself, and the same owners who voted Donald Sterling out of their club for his racially tinged comments remain silent about the lack of any meaningful diversity in NBA spending. despite the record $2.6 billion per year the NBA will receive under its new TV contract. The NBA’s diversity efforts center on public service announcements during Black History Month and “opportunities” for qualified minority-owned, woman-owned and other diverse suppliers to participate in the NBA All-Star procurement process. Advertisement Then there was the near total lack of diversity in stadium construction opportunities. According to civil rights groups, Kaepernick’s 49ers team utilized a process reminiscent to the “good old boys network” to systematically exclude Blacks and other minorities from even being considered for participation on the $2 billion plus Levi’s Stadium. The fact that the team was nearly 80% Black and the minority population in Santa Clara County nearly 60% minority did not appear to make a difference. The fact that the head of MLB, the NBA, NCAA and NFL are all members of the board of RISE, a nonprofit organization dedicated to harnessing the unifying power of sport to advance race relations is like Donald Trump saying he’s going to make America safe through unconstitutional stop & frisk. I applaud Kaepernick for having the courage to take a stand. I just find it ironic that a professional athlete, Colin Kaepernick or otherwise, would protest racial discrimination and lack of opportunity in society without observing the existence of the same elements in sport. Sport is calling out society for soot on its walls when sport is thoroughly covered in it. Sport not only mirrors life, it amplifies it, and the stand taken by University of Missouri football players that resulted in the resignation of the school’s president and chancellor amid charges they had done too little to combat racism on campus proves yet another way sport does mirror life. There is power in unity and only by coming together can sport or society tackle the issues that challenge both. How is sport a mirror of society?Sports is simultaneously a conveyor of wellness, global idiom generating collective emotions, machine for producing heroes, driver of growth, instrument of national prestige, lever for diplomatic action, and a reflection of the state of international relations.
How sports become a mirror of society and politics?Waves of change in sports are reflected in trends throughout society; each step forward for women's sports have aligned with the different waves of feminism, and racial integration in professional leagues, such as the MLB, NFL, and NBA, came around the same time as the Civil Rights Movement.
What does it mean that sport is a microcosm of society?“Sports are a microcosm of life,” Rollins said. “What you do in sports, you are going to eventually do in life. There can be frustrations, happy times, bad times and highs and lows. Sports help you prepare for those life experiences.”
How does sports benefit society?Communities that participate in sport and recreation develop strong social bonds, are safer places and the people who live in them are generally healthier and happier than places where physical activity isn't a priority. Sport and recreation builds stronger, healthier, happier and safer communities.
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