Over the course of this semester I really have enjoyed Sport
and Gender. I thought our class was the perfect size to have a lot of good
discussions where everyone felt comfortable voicing their own opinion. Usually
people do not say what is on their mind in class, but I thought everyone
weighed in and gave different views on a variety of topics. My favorite topic
that we talked about was the Jordan Effect. I feel that a lot of people know
Michael Jordan, but do not look beyond his basketball career. If anything, I
think MJ is just as good of a businessman as a basketball player. It is good to
see an athlete not blow millions of dollars and file for bankruptcy two years after
their playing career (Allen Iverson). I also liked the debate about the entire
topic of gay athletes and find extremely ironic that a NBA player came out
today. Jason Collins, 34 year old NBA free agent just told Sports Illustrated
today that he is gay. If you ask me, I could not think of a worse time for
Collins to come out. He is a 34 year old center who is currently a free agent.
I think it is going to be extremely interesting to see if anyone in the NBA
will sign him now. Owners can easily use the excuse that he is too old when
really they just do not want to deal with the publicity they would receive from
everywhere the team traveled.
Once again, this was a very interesting class and good luck
to everyone in their future endeavors.
-Taylor Redd
This class has been one of my favorites of the semester. Being a talkative person, I loved the discussions every class period. We may have gotten off-topic every once in awhile, but I always felt like I walked away from class with a little better knowledge of the topic we were covering that day. Normally I despise daily readings for class, but the readings that were selected for this class were interesting and a good way to convey the different themes and ideas we were going to cover in class. Obviously the topics we were disussing in class were relevant, seeing as during our class about homophobia in sports we were wondering when the Jackie Robinson of gay athletes was going to show up. Just this past week, we may have found one: Jason Collins. I know had he made his announcement sooner, we would have added him in our discussion which is another thing I liked about the class - how current our topics were. Writing the journals may have been annoying sometimes, but I they definitely helped me to think more about everything - like where I stood on certain issues, how my past experiences played into my views, and so on. Our own presentation about the money gap in men's and women's professional sports really opened my eyes to how unequal the pay is. Talking about tennis proved to me that we're constantly taking steps toward equality in sports, which is a great thing. Overall, this class has been both enjoyable and helpful to me in my career just by forcing me to think more. It's a requirement for Sport Management majors but even if it wasn't, I'd recommend it to anyone.
ReplyDeleteBy: Micah Stein