Feeling That Love For Soccer Again

In my previous blogs I talked about how I started to lose my interest in soccer towards the end of my high school years.  I feel like I started to lose my interest because my team was horrible and always lost, no one took it seriously, and I felt like no one in my school cared about women's soccer.  I remember there were some games during my senior year where I didn't even want to play a game or where I dreaded playing a game.  Now that I think about it, I actually do miss soccer.  I miss having something to do all the time after school and actually representing a team.
I started playing intramural 3 v 3 soccer for FSU and doing that made it really hit me that I missed soccer so much.  Playing on the intramural team was definitely different than playing in high school because the intramural team was taken even less seriously than my high school team. It's not that my intramural team is bad, but its just not the same as high school soccer where I actually had practices, official referees, and could even end up in the newspaper from time to time.
This is not to say that I don't enjoy playing intramural soccer because I really do.  Although it does not give me the full experience that I used to get when I played soccer, it gives me the chance to get out there and reconnect with a sport that used to be a major part of my life.

Something That I'm Following

Something that I read recently that interests me is the incident that occurred with Jovan Belcher who is a starting linebacker of the Kansas City Chiefs.  Belcher, who is 25 years old, shot the mother of his three month old child with both Belcher's mother and child watching.  Shortly after shooting the mother of his child, Belcher hopped in his car and went to a practice session for the Chiefs.  Belcher barged into the practice, thanked his head coach and manager, and shot himself in the head right there in that moment in front of them.  Even after all of this happening, the Chiefs continued with their plans of practicing and preparing for their game that was coming up on Sunday.  It shocked me that not only Belcher committed such acts, but also that the Chiefs planned on continuing to play when their player did such a thing.  It was even more shocking that out of all the people Belcher could have spoken to for his last words, he went to whom he looked up to in football.  This incident just shows how people are able to put football essentially in front of life.

Pacquiao and Marquez

Something that I am quite anxious for is the Pacquiao and Marquez fight that is coming up in the beginning of January.  I swore to myself that I would not watch boxing again after the Pacquiao and Mayweather fight, but I just couldn't help myself.  Pacquiao and Marquez have previously fought each other three times, but they agreed to fight each other again to settle their feud once and for all.  In the past three fights, Pacquiao won twice and there was won draw.  In the fights that Pacquiao won, especially the most recent one, Marquez and his team were furious because they believed that Marquez truly deserved that win.

The fact that there has been so much controversy between the Pacquiao and Marquez fights makes me want to see the next fight even more just because I am curious as to how it will turn out.  Since there have been a lot of complaints of improper judging I want to see what will happen in this next fight and if the fight will actually be properly judged.  With Pacquiao just coming out of another controversial fight, which was the one against Mayweather, I keep wondering how horrible it would be if Pacquiao loses another fight that he clearly deserves to win.

Turkey Day Sports

A sporting event that has been pretty prevalent in my life for the past Thanksgiving's has been the annual UF vs. FSU game.  My brother started attending Florida State University seven years ago and since then the seminoles have been a big part of our family's lives.  The one game that we cared about pretty much the most each season was the game against the Gators.  This game always falls around the time of Thanksgiving and I remember that each year for the past seven years my family has always went all out and had a big get together at our house for this game.  Other members of our family like aunts, uncles, and cousins we're known to be Gator fans so we could pretty much say that our family was divided.  With both Gator and Seminole fans in our household for the game, we can say that it would get really rowdy at times.  In the hours before the game I can always remember my brother saying "it's coming!" every five minutes as he awaited kick off.  The FSU vs UF game has been more than just a game that my family watches but it has essentially become a part of our lives and always will for the years to come.

Turkey Day

Whenever I think of my past Thanksgiving's two major things come into my mind, eating and shopping.  Usually my family does the traditional meal which is turkey, ham, mash potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes and so on, but one year my family decided to change it up.  I remember my family from the Philippines was over that year and perhaps that is the reason why my family wanted to change our tradition, but nevertheless this change startled me. I remember coming out into the kitchen that morning thinking I was going to see some turkey and ham in the process of being cooked but I was startled when I saw a full pig sitting in a box waiting to be roasted.  My dad had created a fire pit to rotisserie the pig in the backyard and I was amazed.  The pig ended up tasting really good but I couldn't believe that I was eating a full rotisserie pig instead of the traditional turkey and ham.  That Thanksgiving was indeed bazaar to me but will be something that I will never forget.

Politics in Adbuster

My Adbuster is a picture of a stripper with quotes going across saying "Come Play for UM."  This Adbuster's message relates to the scandal of recruits and players at UM being bribed.  This relates to politics in sports and how the light of scandal is being shined on the players, recruits, and Nevin Shapiro more than it is being shined of the school as a whole institution.  The case is still being investigated so UM hasn't really suffered from any consequences.  The coaches and officials at UM not yet facing any consequences while Shapiro and the players already are, just shows that the whole incident relates to politics.  There are scandals everywhere, even in politics where there are the people who sneak past the consequences while someone else takes all the blame.  Just as the players were being told what to do by Shapiro, there are incidents with government officials where they are/were told what to do in an illegal sense.  In many incidents like this, it is the government official who receives the most consequences while all the other people who were behind it get to sneak by like nothing happened.  The fact that there are even people who set the rules and consequences for these people relate to governments in politics.  It can essentially be said that sports is politics.  

Lance Armstrong Incident

An issue that I have been following in the sports world is the Lance Armstrong doping incident.  This issue attracted me because I remember being in middle school and trying my hardest to get as many LiveStrong bracelets as I can find.  I was amazed by Lance's situation and how he recovered and bounced back from it.  Lance had testicular cancer that spread to other parts of his body but he still persevered and was able to fight back even after being diagnosed with this.  Lance still continued to cycle even after cancer and even won the Tour de France after his surgeries and treatments for cancer.

With Lance being such a prominent figure not only in the cycling world, but also in the cancer world the allegations of him doping surprised me but also kind of made sense.  I always had feelings of people doping in the sports world and they just found ways to get passed the tests.  For these athletes to be so successful and to perform in the way that they do, there has to be some sort of enhancer that they are using.  So even though Lance did indeed dope, there are probably numerous other people in the cycling world that dope as well.  Lance should still be considered a prominent figure in the cycling world regardless of his doping.   

Adbuster Pictures

For the Victoria's Secret picture I'm thinking about putting Cristiano Ronaldo's face on this models body and changing the wording to Ronaldo's Secret....Being A Girl.

For the stripper picture I was thinking about putting a quote saying "Come Play With Me (UM)" because it relates to the scandals at UM of the athletes being payed and bribed to play for UM.

Adbuster

An idea for an adbuster that I have in mind is to photoshop Cristiano Ronaldo's face onto a Victoria Secret Model's body.  Then the lettering that would be on the advertisement would read "Ronaldo's Secret? Acting Like a Girl to Get a Free Kick."  It can be said that Ronaldo is known for faking injuries when he is slightly shoved in the hope that he will receive a free kick.  Ronaldo has been seen many times getting knocked a little bit then falling to the ground grabbing a part of his body as if that part had split in half.  Many of the times that this happens, other players on Ronaldo’s team would run over to Ronaldo and flag down the referee as if they deserve a free kick. 

Ronaldo is not the only soccer player that has attempted to fake an injury for a free kick, as many other soccer players have been seen doing this.  It is something that is very common in soccer, and it makes me wish that there can be a game where a player didn’t act like it was the end of the world when they are slightly shoved.  I am not coming up with the theory that the players are faking injuries without evidence, because there is indeed evidence of players falling to the ground pretending like they’re hurt until the referee declares that no free kick will be given.  As soon as this declaration is made, many players are seen simply getting up as if they were never even hurt.  This just shows that the player wasn’t hurt in the first place and that their little hissy fit was all an act. 

Another idea I have for an adbuster is a picture of a blind person with a walking stick and the caption being "World Boxing Organization Judges."  A boxing match that stands out in my mind particularly is the match between Pacquiao and Bradley.  In this match, the judges declared that Bradley won the fight when it was clear that Pacquiao should have won.  The judges who said that Bradley won must have been blind when they were watching the match because everyone was astonished with the decision.  

Faking An Injury

I once saw a SportsCenter commercial that showed the USA Women's Soccer player Abby Wambach and two men in an office.  Abby was walking down a hall with what looked like a business man, when another man pass them and accidentally bumped the other man extremely lightly on the shoulder.  At this moment, the man fell to the floor grabbing his ankle screaming that it was broken and that he could no attend work for the next week.  Abby and the other man she was walking with simply looked at him, shook their heads, and said "he's fine."  Once Abby and the man walked away, the man on who fell to the floor got up and walked away like nothing happened.  This commercial is funny and ironic because it relates to how many soccer players fake injuries during games.  A player will be lightly bumped, and they'll fall to the floor grabbing their ankle or some part of their body complaining that they are in pain until the referee decides whether or not a free kick should be given.  I've seen instances like these happen many times, and it's even more funny to see that Abby Wambach was in the commercial because she has without a doubt witnessed this event many times as well.  There are probably even a couple moments in Abby's history where she has tried to fake an injury to gain a penalty kick.  The commercial essentially shows that which many watchers observe when they are watching soccer.  The underlying message of the commercial doesn't even have to be described in order for someone who watches soccer to understand it.  

A Greeeeeaaaaaat Day

When I woke up this morning, I let out a big sigh and just said “greeeaaaaaat.”  I woke up late, as usual, and got myself off to a bad start.  Maybe one day I’ll actually wake up on time, but for now that’ll never happen.  To make my day even better, as soon as I walked over to my closet full of emptiness I realized that I should probably do laundry at some point so I can actually have some clean clothes to wear.  So there I was all dressed up in dirty clothes that I tried to cover up with some body spray, which now made my clothes smell like a weird combination of good and bad.  As I walked over to the kitchen with the thought that I had food to look forward to, I had the most “beautiful” sight in the world: A fridge full of absolutely positively nothing.  I just had to let out another “greeeeeaaaat” before I was off to the place that I loved the most…..not.  On my way to work I was thinking “it’s okay, at least I get paid” and the thought of earning money essentially gave me the determination to actually go to work.  As I was trying to talk myself into how much I love working, some jerk came out of no where and cut me off like it was nothing to him.  As I saw him speed off I just hoped that some cop would be sitting and waiting for a guy like him to speed by, so his ass can have it.  But of course, he got away with cutting off me and almost every other car he encountered while I sat in my car heated with the fact that he almost wrecked my car and I couldn’t do anything about it.  So after this “wonderful” morning I finally made it to work and kept saying to myself “at least I’m getting paid.”  Once I finally got into my office and just wanted to get my shit done, I saw a note from my boss sitting on my desk.  I couldn’t help but let out another “greeeeaaaat.”  So there I was at my bosses office wondering what she possibly had to talk to me about.  All I wanted to do was go back to my desk and get my work done so I can go back home and my day would be over.  Once my boss finally came into her office, she came in with the biggest smile like everything was all fine and dandy.  The way she was acting even made me think "damn maybe I'm getting a promotion, finally."  So I sat there waiting anxiously and kind of excitingly for what she was going to say, when she let out words that hit me like bricks to the face.  "You have been working excellently and have really been an asset to our company, I really like the work that you've done and applaud you for it but I'm sorry I'm gonna have to let you go.  The company is just unable to keep you on as an employee as we need to make some cut backs," this statement turned my face from the biggest grin to the maddest stare anyone could have ever seen.  I literally just walked out of that room, grabbed all my shit from my office and drove home and didn't say one word the whole time.  Once I finally got home and just took a seat on my couch, you already know I couldn't help but let out the biggest "greeeeeaaaaaaaat" of all time.     

My Favorite Movie, But This Time About Sports.

My favorite movie in relation is "She's The Man."  This movie stars Amanda Bynes and is about a girl who plays soccer who's high school just cut the girls soccer team.  This leaves the main character, Viola, with no soccer team to play for since her high school did not allow girls to be on the boys soccer team.  In order to be able to play soccer, Viola cut her hair and disguised herself as her twin brother who attends her rival school and who also happened to be going out of town for a while and would miss numerous days of school.  Viola attended her rival school as her brother and tried out for the boys soccer team there and ended up making the team.  This whole time, the team and everyone at the school believed that Viola was in fact her brother and no one knew that she was actually a girl.  At the end of the movie, Viola ended up playing her old school that would not let a girl onto the boys team.  During this game, Viola's actual brother came home and it was revealed that Viola was in fact a girl that was pretending to be a boy this whole time.  The boys team continued to allow Viola to play for them despite the fact that she was a girl.  Viola ended up scoring the goal that beat her old school proving that girls can indeed play for a guy's team.  In this movie we see a fake reality of people actually believing disguises that are extremely obvious.  This is not to say that girls cannot play on guy's teams, but I don't find it possible for a girl to be able to pretend she was a guy under her circumstances for such a period of time.  We also see concepts of hope and inspiration through Viola's character and how she ended up on top and proving everyone wrong despite her circumstance and gender.

My Favorite Movie

Although I have numerous favorite movies and can't pick one in particular that I can call my favorite movie, "The Dark Knight" particularly stands out at this moment when I think of my favorite movie.  This may be due to the fact that I recently re-watched the movie a couple of days ago so it is fresh in my mind.  Everything abou the movie was great.  The nail-biting suspense that is brought upon you, the way that the characters where portrayed and played, and even the ending that may have shattered many people's hearts.  Something in particular that I loved about the movie was the way in which "The Joker" was played.  He was mysterious, yet had a story behind him that somewhat explained his behavior.  What was different compared to many other good guy vs. bad guy movies was that the bad guy essentially ended up winning in the end, even though he died.  He made numerous people suffer, made "Batman" run away, and even turned one of the heroes in the movie into a bad guy by the end.  In the movie, Harvey Dent was an archetype in the sense that he represented courage, love, and pride for the city of "Gotham."  A fake reality that we see in "The Dark Knight" is that bad things will never end in total doom.  Even though the good guy lost in the movie, he still ended up killing "The Joker" and stopping the doom that was happening at that moment.  This can make some people believe that nothing can end in doom.

What Brings Me Back

Teams riding in school buses going to or coming from games, players wearing clothing or accessories that represent their team or sport, or even pictures on Facebook or Instagram of my friends at team bonding dinners or activities are all part of what brings me back to fond memories of playing on sports teams.  It's not just the idea of simply playing the sport that makes me happy, but it's the idea of being a part of a team with organized practices and other rituals.

When I reminisce to the days when I played on organized and competitive teams, what I miss the most isn't playing the sport but instead the hype on game days, the team bonding and meals we had after school while waiting for the evening games, the dress code we had to wear on certain days, the practices and conditioning that the whole team would dread together, the morning announcements or articles in the newspapers talking about our victories or performance, and even our team huddles before, during, and after games.  With all these things that I miss, I can essentially say that I don't exactly miss the sport itself but I miss more of being a part of a competitive team.  There are many chances for me to play the sports such as pick up games or intramurals, but playing the sports in these ways isn't the same as it was when I played for a club, middle school, high school, or city team.  When I play pick up games there's no hype or team activities, just a bunch of people who feel like playing the sport.  

My reminiscence on the things outside of actually playing the sport does not mean that I don't enjoy simply playing the sport.  I love playing soccer, volleyball, or softball but it's not the same if I am not part of an organized team.

My love for sports is way more than just playing the sport or game.  I love sports because of every aspect that is involved in the sport.  Some people may not like practices, team bonding, or even dressing up on game days, but to me this is what makes up the sport.  Whether I ended up winning or losing the game I was a part of a team that still worked together and ultimately strives for success.
My trigger definitely may be different from many others.  My friend Sara, who I played soccer with for five years, always said that the things she hated the most about soccer were the practices, the stupid team bonding activities that they had to do, and having to formally dress up to school on game days.  For her, she simply enjoyed playing the sport alone and would have a ball in pick up games even though they weren't competitive and serious.  She would say that her trigger is simply seeing someone play with a soccer ball.  Although we may have different triggers we both still end up loving soccer whether we just simply love the sport or all the other things involved in the sport. 

Sport and Culture

Rodney Jones' poem "End of Practice" talks about athletes working towards their goals or dreams.  These goals or dreams may or may not be achieved but they are still there and they still can be worked towards.  Everyone strives toward the goal in their own way, as expressed with the different types of runners.  In "End of Practice" we see that not everyone strives towards the same dream in the same way.  This could lead to the consideration that maybe these dreams can be dependent upon ones culture or even a part of ones culture.
Klosterman's "33" talks about sports and how they can relate to aspects of life.  These aspects can range from politics, ideas, controversies, and much more.  Klosterman relates The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers to aspects of life such as music, relationships, interests and more.  We can see that "33" relates to many aspects of culture.
It can be said that sports can create a culture or simply be a part of culture because it depends on the way in which you make sports a part of your life.  If your someone who simply doesn't care about sports then you may not be a part of this culture that sports creates.  Although if you are someone who has some sort of interest in sports you can say that it both creates culture or is a part of your culture.  Depending on who you are sports can either be applied to life or can just be a part of life.

Dear World Boxing Association,

The last fight that I watched (Pacquiao vs. Bradley) taught me a very important lesson.  I will never ever give money to pay-per-view ever again to watch a boxing match.  First you guys make us pay money to even get the match up on our tv screens, then you come up with results that make no sense at all.  There was no way that Bradley deserved that win.  Pacquiao clearly dominated in the majority of the rounds.  For most of the fight Bradley felt like cuddling for some reason and decided to hug Pacquiao whenever Pacquiao had punches on him.  To make things even worse, the ref seemed to like Bradley's cuddling and hardly broke it apart.

In the end of it all, the decision of Bradley winning the fight was extremely shocking to me.  As a side note, this shock nothing to do with me being a big Pacquiao fan.  As we saw the decision being made, everyone could even see that people in the audience whether they were Bradley or Pacquiao fans were mind blown.  To finish off this letter I just want to say that I will assure you that you lost many World Boxing Association viewers after the Pacquiao vs. Bradley match.

Have A Bad Day :) ,

Gabby Duray

Participants Versus Spectators

The reading that addressed Participants Versus Spectators explains how sports essentially involve all types of people.  It involves people who were brought into sports by other influences and who chose to be a part of sports on their own.  These two groups of people differ in the way they were introduced to sports, but they can also be categorized into other groups of people.  For instance some of these people are spectators, participants, or even both.  The reading basically explained that everyone's experience with sports is different.  Some people simply like watching sports because they aren't good at playing the actual sports or simply because they enjoy watching rather than participating.  Some people love playing sports but can't stand simply watching other people playing sports.  In addition to all this, the reading also addressed the trend that some sports are popular to people depending on their geographic location, social class, or even gender.  When people talk of participants and spectators of sports, these people can't essentially be grouped together and considered the same because everyone has different experiences.  Although something that can relate to all participants and spectators of sports is that their numbers have grown.  Due to advances in technology, or the availability of resources more and more people are surrounded by the world of sports no matter what type of person you are.

Sports as a Part of Life

"Three-Man Weave" by Chuck Klosterman expresses the memory of a certain game that is largely forgotten.  Although there are few who remember this game, most of these people were first account witnesses or participants.  To the rest of the world, it is as if the game doesn't even exist.  "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio" by James Wright expresses sports, particularly high school football, being a part of many people's lives.  No matter who you are, sports can have some sort of effect on your life.  This effect can vary whether it's something your interested in watching, a way to relieve yourself, or anything else.  "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio" particularly expresses that high school football can effect the "Polacks," "Negroes," workers, and even fathers who eventually have to go home to their wives and families.  This range of people that high school football can effect can relate to sports being universal.  Now when people think about sports, many memories are associated with this thinking.  These memories can already be in existence or can be that which one strives for.  When I speak of that which one strives for, I am talking about someone longing to make a memory.  Memories can serve as a way to reminisce on sports or to strive to succeed in sports.  In my experience with sports, memories served both as a reminiscence and as a goal.  When I played softball in high school, I recall a district tournament game where my coaches and everyone who was supporting us tried to fire us up by saying that it was our time to shock the world.  Our school's softball team had not won a district game in somewhere close to 9 years.  Even though we were looked down upon, we used our doubters as motivation to succeed and ended up creating a memory and winning our first round of districts in years.  This particular experience and even experiences when I first began to play sports relate to "Three-Man Weave" and how UT rose up from being the underdog.

The Beginning of My Everything

Sports and games have always been a big part of my life.  I remember when I was young I always wanted to make a game out of everything.  Whether it was eating, swimming in the pool, or even going down the street to my friend's house, I would always want to make my activities a little more interesting by turning them into games.  At dinner I'd have eating competitions with my friends, in the pool I'd gather everyone up to play "Marco, Polo", and when I wanted to walk to a friends house I'd race to see how fast I could get there.  Everyone else would just say I was too competitive and always wanted an opportunity to win something, but to me turning things into a game just made everything more fun.  Before I actually began to play any sports, I remember just being in my neighborhood playing "Hide n' Seek" and having a huge rush of excitement any time I made it to base or was caught in a one on one with whoever was "it."  I liked everything about playing games, sometimes even when I lost.  It was after these games that sports came into my life and my parents decided to sign me up for a recreational soccer team when I was 5.  They said that their intention of signing me up was so that I wouldn't get fat, but soccer turned into something more than an activity I would do simply to stay fit.  Soccer, among other sports became part of my everyday life.