Physically Challenged Athletes

Life for the physically challenged athletes can be an obstacle both mentally, physically, and socially. The problem is with an obstacle or setback in your life, it is difficult to keep self-confidence, self-determination, and motivation to keep up with daily activities let alone sports and exercise. The social dimension does not add a positive effect to that. The downfall is tending to categorize or marginalize the disabled. This does not create a positive image for disabled persons. Anyone that was born with a disability, or was disabled during their lifetime needs extra support to keep them in a positive motivated mood.

Over the years many organizations such as the Paralympics and Challenged Athletes Foundation have been developed to raise awareness and get the physically challenged involved in some form of exercise that suits each individual with a competitive edge to it. The point is to encourage people to compete and be able to feel success through winning, and also the agony of losing. Every person challenged or not, deserves a chance to compete in sports and enjoy themselves doing it.

Some of the issues that face the challenged athletes are funding and awareness of their cause. There are 54 million people living with a disability in the United States alone. The equipment (either regular or adaptive) used to allow these individuals to engage in the active lifestyle is extremely expensive. Also, adaptive training and competition expenses add to the growing bill. So you can see how money can be a deciding factor in whether or not an individual plays a sport. The Challenged Athletes Foundation assists with scholarships and grants to help allow more people to join an active lifestyle and build the self-esteem that comes with it.

The Paralympics is also another great organization that has brought much awareness to the disabled cause. People are beginning to realize that disabled athletes can compete in many events and be just as competitive as the Olympics. Disabled athletes train intensely for their events in the Paralympics. They keep themselves motivated and they have overcome adversity. By doing this they set a very good example to other individuals with disabilities and they show it’s ok to be different emphasizing there are endless possibilities. They’re sending the message across that anything is possible and to not segregate yourself from non-disable people.
However, awareness of the cause is not large-scale as desired. For example, disabled cross-country skier Colette Bourgonje admitted Paralympic sport has come a long way but awareness is still low in some places, especially to disabled Canadians. Colette is a Canadian and hopes that hosting the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver and Whistler will show how many sports there are accessible for the disabled. To get a scope of how large this event is there will be 1,350 athletes and team officials from 40 countries. So the physically challenged has come a long way throughout the years but can always grow more. Disabled individuals face daily obstacles emotionally and physically that non-disabled individuals are not accustomed to. Raising awareness of their cause is crucial and should continue to grow with help from everyone’s support. Everyone should be able to participate in something they are interested in or love doing.

C.Rau
KIN 339
Monday 7 p.m.

Homosexual Athlete - “Coming Out”

So many gays, lesbians and bisexuals athletes are forced to compete in sports in the closet but when they come out their world is uplifted. For example Esera Tuaolo, and NFL foot ball player states, “he felt the burden lifting off of him and feeling light as a feather but jumping on a scale and weighting 300 lb.” Although this was a serious matter, Esera announced his coming out process in a joking manner. He wanted to show how happy he was after that process. Athletes that are gay, lesbian, or bisexual, should not worry about their sexual orientation and how it is view in society. They should be honest with themselves and their teammates because it will form a more cohesive team and trusting relationship within the group. Coming out is a difficult decision to make so their teammates will realized how hard it must have been to be in that situation. Athletes should really take it into consideration because coming out will produce a greater level of happiness and satisfaction with life.



- M.N.

-KIN 339I

Athletes of Color

The other day in one of my classes, we were talking about how environment and ethnicity affects what sport you will play, so my teacher asked a Hispanic boy what he was good at and he said soccer, she asked and Asian girl and she said gymnastics, and last she asked a African American girl and she said everything. The teacher laughed, agreed and went on to name African American athletes that excel in not your typical sports, like golf and tennis. And that made me think is that how society really feels about African American athletes? Are we naturally and biologically better? I do not think it is fair to say. African American athletes like Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Kobe Bryant all work really hard to be as good as they are in their sport, it is not because they are African American, but it is their work ethic and drive to be the best which makes them good.

C. Johnson

Sports and Athletes of Color

My personal experience of being a athlete of color has been different in every sport I have participated in. When I played football for the first time my freshman year everyone expected that I would be great at it and that I had played before high school. This was not the case, it was my first time playing ever. I did not understand all of the rules of football and I had did not know any of the techniques. Where as when I went into wrestling my sophomore year It was not as much of a race issue by my team mates they had no racial bias of how I should perform. I believe that many people stereotype athletes based on race, for example since I am 1/2 African American I should be good at basketball and football and should not be a good swimmer, where as a full Caucasian student might be stereo typed into being a good baseball player or water polo player. I do believe that people are starting to open their eyes to the fact that people of all races can be great in any sport, and to the fact that race is not always a factor in the sport that a athlete chooses to participate in.

Jason C.

Kin 339I

Psychological Issues of Women in Sports

Nineteen seventy-two was the year woman's sports had a chance to make a push for themselves. However, this is also another factor that may cause women to psychological issues in their sport. Men, in history, have always been seeing as the more dominant of the two genders, and especially so in sports. Women have been seeing as inferior at sports they play that men play, as well. For instance, take the WNBA (Woman's National Basketball Association)- the women of the WNBA have always been put down by sport writers all over the nation. "They are physically inferior to compete with male NBA athletes, and do not have the ability to market to the average American male" - this is one of many things that the WNBA is criticized on. This type of lashing at women in sports can play a huge part on their psychological mindset. Causing them to also feel inferior, or, no mater how much they achieve, they will never be able to be as good as a male athlete.
Coming from another angle, female softball players are highly identified as being lesbian and "male" like. I believe these women play a very competitive, hard-nose sport, and are wrongly criticized for portraying the same competitive nature as males in their sports. A stereotype like this can do serious psychological damage to young girls around the world who may have an interest in this sport, or other sports of similar nature. There is not one girl out there who will be okay with being wrongly accused of being something they are not.

Tony P. Nuñez

Gay and Lesbian Athletes

I really wanted to write about something that I'm not really knowledgable in, but I went online to read some articles about. I personally do not have anything against gay or lesbians, in fact I praise those who want to let people know that they are comfortable being who they are. I love sports and I believe that everyone should be given a fair chance to be part of a team or become an athlete. I was researching articles on gay and lesbian athletes and came across an article that caught my attention. It discussed the issues and stress that gay and lesbian athletes deal with. The pressure that the athletes, who are gay and lesbians, deal with is ridiculous. An athlete must deal with the thought of discrimination, playing time loss, loss on the roster of the team, coaches criticism, team thoughts, etc. If a player feels this way how are they supposed to function as an athlete without being bothered by a single disturbance. Performance would decline, self-esteem would plunge, social connections lost. Just the thought of it sucks. This case of an athlete feeling like this would mean that the coaches and team mates of the athlete are stereotypical, prejudice, uneducated in how to deal with gay and lesbian players, and disrespectful. If coaches and players are really part of the team, then they would respect and accept their fellow mate on their sexual orientation. Educating players and coaches that there are people of different race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation would be beneficial to providing team cohesion. How would teammates and coaches react in finding out that their point guard and best player on the basketball team was either gay or a lesbian? Definitely educating athletes and coaches and even people on this topic would benefit. What harm would it do?



I just wanted to end this entry with a quote from the article that describes a little on how to respect a person.

"What is required is respect for difference and a belief that everyone on the team should be safe and treated with dignity and fairness. This standard should be the bottom line for addressing all issues of diversity on an athletic team, not only differences of sexual orientation."


"Ja-Ja-Roni"
Ronnie Pierpoint
339i Mondays 7pm

Athletes in color

I'm reading a book for another class called Souled out? How Blacks are Winning and Losing in Sports. There are so many great black athletes our there with multiple endorsements. (I'm going to use the reference "black" because my book does). Lets go back in time to the 90's during the Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen era. During a specific demonstration at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the basketball team illustrated a point on the medal stand. MJ draped an American flag over his shoulder to cover up the Reebok logo on his "Dream-team" warm-up. The rest of the team followed this demonstration. You may be wondering why this is such a big deal? Well, when Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two black sprinters at the 1968 summer Olympics took a stand for eqality and justice but got labeled as radicals or trouble-makers, they were standing up purely for what they believed in; equal "human" rights. This was the first original protest...meaning, they didn't march or riot and shout out for justice, they made a stand for equality. Back to MJ and the Olympic team, the main point of endorsements is that in the past they have silenced many black athletes from speaking out about sensitive and important issues. MJ knew not to commit financial suicide like Ali did, he had a plan to build as much capital for himself as possible and in order not to be attempted to attack the establishmemt (which he was appart of knowingly) he just kept his mouth shut. This made Jordan's silent act on the stage so important and more accepted and acknowledged in the 90's than it was when Smith and Carlos tried to take a stand in the 60's. My question is does this still happen today, have we completetly overcome it, or are there still limitations with certain black athletes?


M. Lisnock Kin 339