With college sports generating more revenue and television contracts paying lucrative monies to Universities for rights to broadcast their games in popular service providers like direct.tv, a question is rumbling within the college sports world. Should college athletes be paid for their services?
Take the rookie quarterback Tim Tebow for the Denver Broncos. Tebow is arguably one of the greatest college football players of all time. The former Florida Gator won one Heisman trophy and set numerous rushing, passing and touchdown records while playing sports at the University of Florida.
Tim Tebow’s jersey sold in record numbers in Florida and across the United States, yet the sports star never saw a dime from his name placed on millions of jerseys sold.
Some say the collegiate athlete is already receiving preferred treatment and luxury through their college scholarship. While the scholarship pays for the books and tuition, collegiate sports athletes are limited in the types of funds, and even jobs they can work, by the NCAA committee that oversees collegiate spots. With academics and athletics, collegiate sports stars don’t have the time to work a part-time job like regular students. The regulations governing college sports are lengthy, and typically prevent athletes from accepting funds from illegitimate sources.
News from the sports world regarding former USC star Reggie Bush has not been flattering. Bush and his family are accused of accepting funds outside the scope of which the NCAA allows. The allegations against Bush have put the University of Southern California on sports probation, and threaten to have Bush’s Heisman trophy award repealed.
More and more sports enthusiasts are pushing to see collegiate sports athletes receive at least some type of stipend for their services. Some have suggested that jersey sellers, like the aforementioned Tebow, be given a small percentage of their jersey sales that would be paid at the end of their sports eligibility.
The question of whether collegiate sports athletes should be paid, will likely to continue to gather steam as television sports continues to spit out enormous revenues.
Should college athletes be paid for their services?
Sports Keeping Friends Together Forever
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The NFL and college football sports season’s kicked off recently, and crock-pots and barbecue grills across the country got fired up the same way football crazy fans did as the long wait for the beginning of their favorite sports ended.
Friends that haven’t seen each other for an entire year, jumped on an airplane to attend their Fantasy Football draft-night celebration. Tens of thousands jumped in their cars to drive an absurd amount of miles to attend these same drafts, and old friendships were rekindled as the sports year officially began.
Face it, sports brings us together and keeps us together. Even sports like poker played in an online casino can bring people together. If you are a sports fan, making a Tuesday morning phone call to your best-buddy to talk trash about the previous weekend’s NFL games is an absolute must. Getting together with your in-town buddies for the big game is a guaranteed certainty. Even the traditional Holiday of Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without a healthy helping of NFL football following the traditional turkey.
Even the casual sports fan, has some measure of getting together with friends and family because of sports. Every four years the Olympics or the World Cup bring people together on a different level. The global stage of these two events forces the casual fan to stand up and pay attention.
When Usain Bolt took the world by storm with his record-breaking sprinting at the Beijing games, people came together to watch. At the recently completed World Cup from South Africa, sports fans from across the globe gathered together to watch their favorite teams in the biggest sports event in the world.
For those that love sports, the start of their favorite season is like a breath of fresh air. The beginning of the fall sports seasons is a reminder to invite the neighbors over for a late-season barbecue or call your Oakland-Raider-loving buddy to tease him about the futility of being a Raider fan.
Sports as a Metaphor for Life
If you have ever played a sport for any other reason than “because somebody told me to,” then you have most likely adapted some kind of strategy with the intention to win. For a lot of people, this strategy means that you first visualize your victory, then you get pumped up for it, and then you go out there and be in the game for every second of it. Of course, a lot of people just do not realize that sports are often a great metaphor for your regular life. After all, those are generally the same steps that you are going to need to take, if you are going to be successful in any other kind of endeavor in your life.
Consider what it is like when you are preparing for an event. Not the day of, or even the day before, but from the day you really buckle down into your training process. It may be months, or even a year or more before you hear the national anthem and stand there with a crowd watching your every move. This is the process that you go through by yourself, even if you are surrounded by your teammates. In your own mind, you prepare to win. This is just like anything else in your life, isn’t it? Do you not find that when you think it through when you are doing your preparatory work, that you seem to perform far better when it’s for real?
Then, when you actually get to the event, it is critical that you amp yourself up, right? Nobody ever scored a serious victory without being pumped up, both physically and mentally. This is the case whether you are in sports, sales (and aren’t we all?), or the practice of any sort of profession. It almost does not matter what your job title is. Everybody, everywhere is playing that sport that we all call life. So get pumped for it!
Raising Money to Keep Community Sports Teams Afloat
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If you are coaching a community team then the likelihood is that you are often faced with the issue of how the team’s needs are funded. While in some areas it may be appropriate to ask team members or their parents to pay a fee or subscription to take part in practice sessions and games, in other areas team sports need to be provided free of charge at the point of play as a community resource. This is because there are recognizable benefits to being involved in team sports for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. In this situation an alternative method of raising money to pay for equipment, uniforms, venue hire, team travel and additional expenses will need to be found.
Community fundraisers are a great way to raise awareness of the needs of your team. Some good ideas include getting the team to carry out errands such as washing cars or weeding gardens in return for a donation to their team kitty.
Alternatively, you may wish to stage an event such as a “bring and buy” sale where visitors donate goods from cakes to bric-a-brac to be sold to raise money for the team, as well as being encouraged to browse and purchase other items for sale.
Or, if you are feeling ambitions, why not put on a fun evening for friends and family of team members as well as others in your community. Ideas for events include a fun casino night where visitor make a donation to play at poker tables and roulette wheels in an effort to win non-monetary chips with a small prize being awarded to those with the highest number of chips at the end of the evening. Or maybe a sporting exhibition where team members can show off their skills in other entertainments, with monies being raised from the sales of tickets.
Underwater Hockey
It seems like swimmers have something to prove sometimes to the rest of the world. Take for instance, water polo. It’s as if whenever any sport is created on dry land, the swimming world has to throw their swim cap into the ring as if to say, “We can do that in the pool as well!”
A great example of this is the invention of underwater hockey, in 1954. Alan Blake of the at that time newly formed Southsea Subaqua Club created the sport as an apparent answer to all those hockey enthusiasts who thought the sport was either too dry, or too easy to play while breathing.
The resulting sport is certainly one to behold, though at the same time it is also not the easiest sport to watch. As it takes place in the water, spectators must either enter the water or submerge their heads to catch the action. For this reason spectators are often found at the pool’s edge with snorkeling gear.
Inside the pool the teams consist of six players on each team inside the water, and up to 10 players on each team. At the beginning of play a referee will place a three-pound puck about the size of a hockey puck in the center of the pool. Each team will begin play touching the wall of the goal they are defending.
Once the puck is in play there are few rules regarding player placement and movement, with the object being to maneuver the puck into the opponent’s goal using a short, hand-held, curved stick. The sport does include certain fouls, such as hitting anything but the puck with your stick, blocking a player or dangerous shots or passes at another player’s head.
Beyond that it’s pretty much what one would expect with the description ‘underwater hockey’. That really should say it all.
Preparing for a Triathlon
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If you have ran a few marathons, competed in bicycle racing events and swam long distances, then your next challenge should be completing a triathlon. Triathlons are events that consist of three sports: running, riding and swimming. They are serious business that require months of training time. Once you have completed a triathlon, though, you will feel like a real champion in top physical condition.
Triathlon distances can vary from event to event. Some triathlons even have different distances that depend on the participants’ ages and level of experience. Before competing in a triathlon, be sure to check with the sponsors to get information that is specific to the event.
Running in a Triathlon
The Ironman triathlon’s running section is just over 26 miles long. Completing such a long run will require the right types of triathlon gear, including good running shoes. Depending on the temperature, you might also want to use a water backpack that lets you drink throughout the event. That way you won’t get dehydrated.
Swimming in a Triathlon
Completing the Ironman triathlon means swimming 2.4 miles. If you have never swum competitively before, then this might not sound like that great a distance. Once you start training, though, you will find that swimming more than two miles is just as hard as running more than a dozen miles.
Biking in a Triathlon
The Joys of Coaching
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There’s nothing like being a coach. Helping young people to work together and accomplish things is an invigorating feeling. It’s almost impossible not to feel good about yourself and the world when you see shy kids making new friends or patting each other on the back for a job well done. When they’ve worked on something for a long time and it finally clicks, it’s amazing to watch. It also helps when you’re knowledgeable on the topic at hand, because you can be even more helpful to the kids. The kids may not always appreciate it, but when they do, it makes an impression that can last a lifetime.
Many youth coaches are parents of kids who are participating in the sports. They may coach little league baseball, pee wee football, or some other sport. Maybe they’re involved in one of the community center leagues. The one thing they all have in common, though, is the urge to help. Even the coaches you may not like or get along with spend a lot their own personal time preparing the kids for the games and teaching them valuable skills. It’s a lot of hard work, but the end results produce great life lessons and experiences that can’t be replicated anywhere else.
Another thing that being a coach can do is bring people closer to other families in the community. When the kids play together, parents also end up spending time together. New friendships are often born this way. Even opposing teams’ parents can end up being friends. Of course, it’s all business when the game’s going on. After the game, though, whether the Bulldogs won or lost, nobody’s going to make any pet insurance claims so why not have a bit of fun. Everyone will probably go out for pizza or ice cream, though, and there will almost certainly be a big lesson learned for everyone involved.
How to Increase Your Participation in Sports Events
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If you have an immense love for sports, you aren’t alone. More people than ever follow a variety of sporting competitions religiously and feel a personal connection to the athletes with every win and loss.
If you have been searching for a way to take your fan status to a higher level, you may be wondering what other involvement options are available besides watching the competitions or games on television. So you can begin to better understand your options, here are a few ways people are taking their fan status to the next level.
Join a Virtual League
Perhaps the largest recent trend among sports fans is participation in a virtual league. These leagues carry a variety of benefits including the potential to win money at the end of the season. Apart from the money you can win by joining a virtual league, perhaps the greatest benefit of this option is having the chance to socialize with other individuals who love sports as much as you do.
Of course, if you decide to join a virtual league or partake in any other form of betting, then you should begin following the game statistics very closely. Understanding the world of sports handicappers can also be beneficial.
Attend Every Game
Although attending every competition of your favorite sports team can become expensive, this is the best way to see the sports action up close. While you may not have enough extra cash available to attend every game of every season, making this a goal for at least one sports season can help take your fan status up a notch or two.
Being in the sports stands among cheering fans who are excited about the big game is one of the greatest feelings. Few other venues or events bring so many people together and generate so much visible enthusiasm.
Why Coaching with Love and Concern for a Team Works for Kids
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Being a coach of a sports team for children can really play an influential part in a kid’s childhood. That first coach is someone that leaves such a lasting impression on the child that they will be talking about it when they are 80 years old and sitting in a nursing home.
With such a task ahead of you as a sports coach it can be a bit intimidating. So how do you know that you are coaching the right way as compared to the wrong way? How do you know that you are leaving a good impression on a child?
The answer really comes down to instinct. If you are coaching from the heart and with the thought that you must guide a child through a very important part of their life and let them learn how to play a certain sport, then you are probably going to leave a very good impression on these children. However, if you are coaching them as if there is a hoard of sports betting sites nipping at your heels and trying to get them to win, then you probably aren’t going to be that coach that everyone remembers.
Children’s sports should be all about having fun, trying out a sport and meeting new friends above everything else. There is absolutely no need for anyone to act like these young children are professional players and have millions of dollars resting on their shoulders, because they don’t.
Remember if you coach with love and instinct then you’ll be a coach that children will love. If you act like these children have the world riding on their shoulders and end up being that screaming, raving coach, then you probably will not be a part of a child’s memory and if you are it won’t be favorable!
Are pool and darts considered sports?
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Nothing lights up the sports-radio talk shows faster than the discussion on whether something is considered sports or an activity.
Thefreedictionary.com says the definition of a sport is – “Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.â€
Although pool and darts don’t take a lot of physical prowess to complete, you better be prepared for a fight if you tell a pool-player or a dart thrower that what they’re doing is not considered sports.
Breaking down the previous definition of sports, pool and darts seem to meet the criteria of being a physical activity. Although neither may force a competitor to break out in a full on sweat, pool and darts are certainly more than just sitting on the couch.
From the previous definition, pool and darts seem to meet the criteria of what sports are by being governed by a set of rules or customs. It is un-arguable that pool and darts are not governed by rules. Games within the games of both require participants to know the specific rules and customs that govern these activities. Whether it’s 501 countdown in darts, or a game of eight-ball in pool, participants are required to know the specific rules of every variation within these sports.
And finally, pool and darts appear to be sports that are engaged in competitively. Ask any pool player or dart thrower how competitive their sports are, and you would be lucky to find any other answer than, VERY competitive. Each spring, dart throwers from across the Globe gather at state, regional, national and world championships, competitive events.
While the radio talk shows will continue to have actively, and often animated discussions on what is sports and what is not, darts and pool meet the criteria within the definition and must be considered sports.
