Conclusion

I liked blogging in this class, although it was a lot of work. The best part about blogging is that you can just be honest and tell your view on things. Charles Barkley is my favorite sports analyst, because he is funny and so honest. I enjoyed the topics we talked about in class this semester. The issues were new and relevant like Caster Semenya and the gender testing or Serena Williams outburst at the U.S. open. Also the class just made me look at things differently. I never thought about masculinity, femininity, and gender roles that much before. I felt like the last month of class the topics were very serious like racism, homophobia, Aids, and sexuality. I think that you have to be careful anytime you discuss those topics not to get anyone angry. I have to say this class and my practicum are the classes I liked most this semester. I loved the class discussions and wrote most of my blogs around them. I felt like there were a lot of articles to read though. Some of them were interesting, but others were tough for me to understand. The topics were things that everyone could relate to. Also in some classes the professor just lectures the whole time and there is no feedback, but in this class it was nice that feedback was encouraged.

Yao Ming

Yao Ming came over to the United States as a 7'6" twenty one year old center from Asia in 2001. He was the number one pick and a lot was expected of him. So far I think that he has done a great job. He has lived up to the expectations, although he has been injured a lot and only taken Houston past the first round of the playoffs once. He is helping the NBA become a more global game. Every year more and more international players are coming to the NBA. When foreign players come then people from Asia and other places cheer for their player from their home country. In class we were dicussing the Asianization of America in golf on the female women's tour and Yao Ming. The female golf players from Korea are dominating the women's tour. It was unfortunate some of the comments that Jan Stephenson made about Asian players. She was saying that they have taken over the tour. I feel that diversification is a good thing.

Elizabeth Lambert

This is kind of an old story, but the female soccer player Elizabeth Lambert was suspended, because of her actions against BYU soccer players. She hit players in the back, kicked a girl in the face, and even yanked a girl by her ponytail to the ground. Elizabeth has apologized since, but it doesn't seem sincere since she had so many altercations in the game. In class we were arguing if a male did this would people act like this and I say yes. Soccer is a contact sport, but the things Elizabeth did weren't part of the game of soccer. Also a girl in class pointed out that this is the only way that female college soccer can get coverage on ESPN and sadly I agree with her. The only women's soccer coverage that I have ever seen on ESPN was the 1999 U.S. women's team.

Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods is the most marketed athlete in sports. He has contracts with all different types of companies and an excellent image. It was recently found out that Tiger Woods cheated on his wife. I am curious to see how his endorsements and popularity will be affected because of this. I think cheating on your wife is one of the worst things that a person can do. A lot of the women that he slept with probably were only there because of his money and fame. I hope that he deosn't lose too much money and his image remains the same. He made a mistake, but no one is perfect. In twelve years I have never seen Tiger Woods get negative coverage about his personal life until this point.