Racism in sports

Many people assume how a person will perform based on their ethnic background. Men and women of color have been deemed the “athletic race” because of how dominate colored people have been in popular sports around the world i.e. football, basketball, soccer, track and field. But with this rise of colored people excelling in sports, a bitter taste of racism returns to the racial forefront. Personally, I have been discredited because of my race. People will typically say, “He is fast because he is black,” discrediting all the time and hard work that I have invested in track. Yes, it is true the majority of exceptional athletes around the world are black, but that it is not because they are black; it is because they have put in the effort to achieve that exceptional status. Nothing is stopping any other race from excelling in sports but the time and effort it takes. I am not saying that other races don’t have the time or the drive to excel in sports, but I am saying that black people typically do because they have seen other black people like them do it. It takes nearly fifteen years to reach an Olympic level for most human beings. The problem with is that most people don’t start or focus training in the sport the love until they are well into their teens, and fifteen years from then sets a person well behind the Olympic level. In Africa, it is normal for a boy or a girl to almost focus their entire life on training for one sport, because it is all they have to do. People already know of the horrible conditions in Africa now, and those conditions are forcing young African boys and girls to focus their lives on a sport to escape those conditions. I remember reading people being upset because the Great Britain 4x100 meter team was all African. Sometimes, people fail to realize that where they live doesn’t determine who they are, or how they will do in life. When it comes down to being a competitive professional athlete, the determining factor of being elite is whether or not you will allow someone else to be better than you.

-S.May
kin339I
Mon. 7pm

Women in sports

When it comes to women in the world of sports I find that women not only are viewed in a negative way they are also associated with lesbianism as well and sexual promiscuity. Women in sports do not get the respect that they deserve nor do they receive the glory they should receive for their work. For example, more people go to men basketball game as opposed to women basketball game based on the simple fact that the individuals that they are watching are of the female sex and that in and of itself is totally wrong. Women work just as hard as men to reach athletic success and they should not be limited to sports that portray them as weak and dainty like cheerleading and gymnastics. Personally I love a woman who can get down and dirty with the guys and at the end of the day, can clean up rather nicely. My favorite athlete, male or female, is Sanya Richards a world class runner. She is my favorite runner because of the fact that she knows how to “be a man” when needed and know how to turn into a lady when she needs to. If women in sports learn to separate these two worlds, and society comes to understand that women are just as good of athletes as men if not better. We will, in the end be able to tear down the sexual barriers between men and women in sports and promote equality, but we are far from that point.

Women in Sports

In order to do this blog I talked with my sister who was a high school varsity soccer player. It was very interesting to find out what her responses were to my questions. I always grew up wanting to play soccer in college and hopefully in the professional world, but unfortunately that didn't work out. Haha. My sister wanted to play soccer also and take it to the next level that I didn't. So when I was living with my folks back in korea I trained her the best I could and as hard as I could to make sure that she was the best player. I can honestly say that training a female is totally different than training a male athlete, to my first hand knowledge. I always thought that the way that females are trained is totally different than what a male athlete would be trained. So I compared the same training techniques I used on my sister and a male athlete same age and found out that my sister did not like the training. The male athlete on the other hand did not have the same kind of complaints of the training. My sister told me that the training was too stressful, the way of talking was not comfortable, and the intensity was too much. The stressful part of it was that I was asking her to do too many work outs at an intensity level where the male athlete was trained at. The communication between my sister and I was not sympathetic, but at a competitive level. An example would be that I would just be yelling when she would mess up or would complain about the workout. The intensity level of the work out was at the level where i trained the male athlete. Basically I learned that I was a pretty bad trainer to my sister. The male athlete however did not have the same reaction/response to what my sister said. I also learned that what this class has discussed about psychology and how to talk with athletes in that perspective was that it would have been nice to have known this subject back then. My sister said that the training drained her emotionally, psychologically, and physically, but she knew that I wasn't doing it to punish her, but to make her a better athlete and it did according to what she said. I just didn't take into account that women have a different type of training and that different individuals also have different kind of training.

Pierpoint. M 7-9:45

Psychological issues of female Bodybuilders

Body building is considered a very competitive sport for both men and women. These are people who spend a great majority of their time at the gym. Having incredible amounts of muscle mass is what is expected of them. Some people body build for fun and some body build because of the obsession of getting bigger which is can be a sign of muscle dysmorphia. Muscle dysmorphia is a disorder where one always feels too skinny or to small. It is called bigorexia, muscle dysmorphia is the opposite of anorexia nervosa. People who have this become obsessed wanting to get bigger. They worry that they are too little and too frail. Even if they have good amount of muscle mass, they are always dissatisfied with their bodies. Some signs of this disorder would be of the following: one who is preoccupied with being more leaner or stronger, very strict diets, long hours at gym,and an impaired social life. Those with this disorder most of the time become uninterested in important goals such school or education or career accomplishments, they also put bodybuilding as a priority as opposed to family, friends, dating, and they do not stop if they are injured. Those with this disorder use drugs which include steroids, and other unhealty supplements and exercise because they are afraid if they stop they will go back to their old self. One example of a female bodybuilder who used steroids was hospitalized for kidney failure because of her high protein diet and her consistent use of drugs. When she was released months later she was back using drugs and an unhealthy diet. Unfortunately those with this disorder refuse to get help.
KIN339I
A. pineda

psychological issues of physically challenged athletes

I had a friend in cross-country who during her sophomore year of high school developed fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is an illness similar to arthritis in which the individual feels pain nearly all the time, ranging from mild to severe. She first realized something was wrong when after a race she could barely walk because the pain in her hip and lower back was so severe. She ended up having to quit running, and developed a deep depression that took her months to get out of. The depression was probably due to the pain, and being diagnosed with an illness that usually happens to people over twice her age, but I think not being able to run cross-country played a large role as well. It seems like it would be really hard to be told you can no longer participate in your sport for reasons you have no control over. This was only in high school, but imagine how hard it would be for a professional or elite athlete, who spent nearly their whole life dedicated to a sport, to have all that taken away.

Kyle B.
KIN 339I

Psychological Issues of Women in Sports

Women in sports have come a long ways in many aspects of the sporting world in a variety of ways but what they have been subjected to along the way can lead to a number of psychological issues that many women have to deal with. Many women have to deal with the stereotype that if they are good at their specific sport, more athletic or stronger than their competitors they must be either lesbian, or that they are not women at all (South African runner Caster Semenya who was raised as a female all her life questioned about her gender because she demolished her competition in an 800-meter race). How could you expect the majority of females to want to become good at something if they know that they will be criticized for it? Women in sport also have to deal with underrepresentation in media coverage compared to their male counterparts. Even when women do get coverage in the sports that they do play it is often done in degrading ways, such as tennis players like Maria Sharapova, and Indy Car racer Danica Patrick who use their good looks and promote their sports by coming off as sex symbols and are recognized by their good looks more so than their actual talents and athletic abilities. What kind of message does this send to the young female athletes? That they have to show off their bodies and appear as sex symbols to gain attention? These problems alone definitely add to the many psychological issues that the female athletes have to deal with. A lot of these problems root from how our society as a whole is, what do you expect from a country that is obsessed with making money and becoming higher on the food chain than others and where males rule and make all the decisions while females are thought of as followers. Slowly great strides in women’s rights have helped to extinguish such problems but as of right now our society still see women athletes as secondary to male athletes. Similar to the problems gay and lesbians face in the sporting world to fix the psychological problems that women in sport have our society as whole must change and until that happens we will continue to see issues like these reoccurring.
Adam Grubb
Kin 339i

Gay and Lesibian Athletes

No matter what sport you play there will be a mix of heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual players. The only problem with this is most of the players that are not heterosexual are forced into hiding their sexual preference. This can have a damaging effect on their performance in their sport. They have the added pressure of complying with the normal male/female roles in relationships and dating. They also have the fear of being rejected by their team or being kicked off the team. I believe that their is more problems for gay male athletes than female athletes. This is due to the stereotype female athletes attain just by being in certain sports. Many people believe that most female basketball players are lesbians this is not true, although my cousin that played basket ball was a lesbian. When it comes to male homosexuals in sports it is much more taboo. Most people see homosexuals as being like women and not having any place in sports especially contact sports. I knew a guy on my wrestling team that was gay, people made fun of him and he ended up quitting his first year. I believe that everyone should be given a chance to play any sport they want no matter what their sexuality is, and they also should not have to hide who they are. Before this could ever happen we as a nation would have to change and accept people for who they are.

J Cruickshank KIN 339I