Transgender Athletes

1) How should the authorities in the MMA handle a fighter like Fallon Fox?
2) Do transgender athletes have a distinct advantage in sports? Why or Why not?
3) Put yourself in the position of her opponents (or any opponents of transgender athletes). How would you feel competing against transgender athletes? Would it motivate you to work harder or discourage you from competing?
4) How should this be handled in the future?

Prefontaine Questions

1) How is Pre portrayed as a person and as an athlete?
2) Does he appear to be a likable character?
3) What arrogant thing does Pre do to one of his teammates?
4) What lesson does Pre teach a 9 year old boy?
5) What current controversy with college athletics is introduced in this movie?
6) What was one of Pre's goals in High School as a runner?
7) What are the living conditions in the Olympic Village? What do these conditions remind us of?
8) What Olympic scandal took place during the Munich Olympics?

Unionization Question

Mark Emmert rips NCAA unionization

Updated: April 6, 2014, 3:13 PM ET

By Dana O'Neil | ESPN.com

               

Collegiate Sports At A Crossroads

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Change is coming to the NCAA, but it's not necessarily the sort of change athletes would want entirely.

In a wide-ranging press conference at the Final Four, NCAA president Mark Emmert and other college administrators discussed pending change to the governance structure that will likely include cost of attendance and autonomy for the power conferences.

The notion of using a union employee model to address the challenges that do exist in intercollegiate athletics is something that strikes most people as a grossly inappropriate solution to the problems. It would blow up everything about the collegiate model of athletics.

-- NCAA president Mark Emmert

But the group drew a line in the sand at the thought of unionization for athletes.

"To be perfectly frank, the notion of using a union employee model to address the challenges that do exist in intercollegiate athletics is something that strikes most people as a grossly inappropriate solution to the problems," Emmert said Sunday. "It would blow up everything about the collegiate model of athletics."

The National Labor Relations Board recently ruled that it agreed with a filing made by Northwestern football players that they qualify as employees of their schools and can unionize.

It is the first of what many anticipate will be a long, drawn-out process filled with appeals and dialogue from both sides -- but still a decision that has the potential to significantly alter how college athletics have been run essentially forever.

But those who would be on the other side of the bargaining table, so to speak, are clearly prepared to fight such significant change.

"There's some things that need to get fixed," Emmert said. "They're working very aggressively to do that. No one up here believes that the way you fix that is by converting student-athletes into unionized employees."

What Emmert, the attending presidents and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby did agree on is that other changes need to come to the NCAA, and come quickly.

The Division I board of directors is expected to vote in August on major governance changes that could include awarding cost of attendance to athletes and would also allow the so-called power conferences to operate under a model slightly different than everyone else.

That last change has been met with some resistance by smaller schools, worried that it would only create an even deeper chasm between the haves and have-not schools in Division I.

But Emmert and the committee members said that they believe the resistance is not so strong and that they fully expect the proposals to be met.

"I think that most of Division I memberships see that we're standing at a fork in the road," said Kirk Schulz, president of Kansas State University and a member of the Division I steering committee for governance. "What we're going to put out there is not perfect, but I believe the vast majority of members recognize that we need to do it rapidly.

"So I'm very optimistic that we're going to have some no votes. But I think at the end of the day, there's a realization that if you don't do this, that we could be in some real trouble."

1) Should college athletes be allowed to unionize?

2) Should college athletes become employees of the college they attend and receive a salary?

3) If they are making money (earning a salary) should they still be allowed to earn a degree? 

Email

dianenewell@norton.k12.ma.us

Straight Lede vs Feature Lede

The Straight-Lede Game Story

The straight-lede game story is the most basic story in all of sportswriting. It's just what it sounds like: an article about a game that uses a straight-news type of lede. The lede summarizes the main points - who won, who lost, the score, and what the star player did.

Here's an example of this kind of lede:

Quarterback Pete Faust threw thre touchdown passes to lead the Jefferson High School Eagles to a 21-7 victory over crosstown rival McKinley High.

The rest of the story follows from there, with an account of the big plays and playmakers, and after-game quotes from coaches and players. Because they often focus on high school and small-college teams, straight-lede game stories tend to be fairly tightly written.

Straight-lede game stories are still used for coverage of high school and some college sports. But they're used less nowadays for pro sports. Why? Because pro sports are seen on TV and most fans of a particular team know the score of a game long before they read about it.

The Feature-Lede Game Story

Feature-lede game stories are common for pro sports. Readers usually already know the score of pro games as soon as they're done, so when they pick up a sports section they want stories they offer a different angle on what happened and why.

Here's an example of a game story feature lede:

It had rained all that day in the city of brotherly love, so when the Philadelphia Eagles took the field the ground was already a soggy mess - much like the game that would follow.

So it was somehow fitting that the Eagles would lose 31-7 to the Dallas Cowboys in a contest that was one of the worst of quarterback Donovan McNabb's career. McNabb threw two interceptions and fumbled the ball three times.

The story starts out with some description, and doesn't get to the final score until the second paragraph. Again, that's fine: readers will already know the score. It's the writer's job to give them something more.

Delayed-lede game stories tend to be a bit more in-depth that straight-lede stories, and as a result are often longer.

Boston Bruins fans... Racist??

Over the past few days, a lot of noise has been made over racist comments on twitter in regards to PK Subban. Do the comments of a few fans deserve as much attention as they got? As a fan base should we be labeled as racist? How often does this happen in sports? How can twitter become a reliable news source now?

I could go on about this topic for hours. How do you feel about this issue? Respond in 5-10 sentences to this topic. Twitter = Real Life. Twitter = News. A few racist fans=Racist fan base/ City

What is a sport

Sports Reading & Writing – Debate Question – WHAT IS A SPORT

In a well-developed essay, describe what you think the definition of sport is.  What qualifies an activity to be called a sport?  When is an activity just an activity?  Is football a sport and yoga not?  Is ping pong and curling sports because they are in the Olympics?  Do you have to have a ball for it to be considered a sport?  Write a thesis and prove your thoughts.  Minimum 3 paragraphs.  

Ken Ross Response

 I wanted to give you all a Question to ponder. Yesterday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver issued a lifetime ban from the league and a $2.5 million fine against L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling for racist comments he made to his girlfriend in private which were later broadcast on TMZ and then exploded in the national media. Silver also urged other NBA owners to force Sterling to sell his team.

The commissioner’s actions have generally met with enthusiastic agreement from everyone from players to team owners to political figures to ordinary folks, but some have questioned whether it’s right to take someone’s property for views they expressed in private, no matter how repugnant. For example, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said: “… regardless of your background, regardless of the history they have, if we’re taking something somebody said in their home and we’re trying to turn it into something that leads to you being forced to divest property in any way, shape or form, that’s not the United States of America. I don’t want to be part of that.” After Silver handed down Sterling’s punishment, however, and said it was based only on the audiotape and not Sterling’s history, Cuban tweeted that he agreed with the decision “100%.” 

So the Question to you all is, “Do you agree with the punishment handed down by the NBA against Donald Sterling?”

As always, have responses to me by 9 a.m. Monday for consideration for The Page, and keep them to 50 words or fewer.

If you want to read the entire AP story on this, go to http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2014/04/30/racist-views-exile-sterling-from-the-nba/8500731/.

Oh, and have a great rest of the week and weekend!.