Rugby

In 1862, a new sport was introduces to South Africa. The sport was called Rugby. It is often referred to as the “father” of American football. Rugby is a fast pace game with very few stoppages. The game can be played with either 7 or 15 players. All players must be able to pass, catch, kick, and tackle. The field is 100 meters long and 70 meters wide.  The ball is made of leather and is oval shape much like a football but doesn’t have laces.  The match starts with a kickoff and the players can only advance the ball forward by running with it. You can only pass the backwards.  You could kick the ball forward and after the ball is kicked any player from either has the right to the ball.  You get 5 points for a try which is like a touchdown in American football.  2 points for a conversion much like an extra point.  3 points are awarded for a made penalty kick and for a made drop kick. This is not a drop kick that you would see in professional wrestling. If the ball goes out of bounds a line out is how you would restart play and that’s much like a throw in during soccer.  A scrum is most known rugby formation and is only formed after minor rule violations.  After a player is tackled a ruck is formed and play can continue after the passer passes the ball to another player.  Rugby tackles are much more violent than a football hit because there is no padding worn on the players.  If rugby players did wear padding it would create a false sense of invincibility like football players have due to the facemask.  The most known rugby team is the New Zealand All-blacks.        
http://www.allblacks.com/

The "Boatload Mentality" and Language Barriers

Did you know that 25% of MLB rosters are Latino or have Latino roots?  These players are also some of the best of in the league.  These players come from overwhelming poverty with no running water and little electricity.  Do you know what the “boatload mentality” of MLB organizations is?  This mentality is where you can sign 10 Latino players $3,000 each instead of signing one American player for $3 million.  The Athletics acquired Tejada’s talents for $2,000. Tejada’s American teammate, Ben Grieve, signed a contract with $1.2 million guaranteed.  The Texas Rangers also acquired Sammy Sosa in 1986 for $3,500. That’s the exact amount the Brooklyn Dodgers paid to sign Jackie Robinson in 1946.  These players often get mocked because their poor English skills.  Many Latino players are called “moody” or “hot-tempered”.  When it comes to Manny Ramirez, it’s just “Manny being Manny”.  Yet, for most Japanese baseball players they have interpreter by their side during interviews. Now, most MLB organizations are making players of different ethnicity take English classes before even stepping foot onto the baseball field.  I believe that the “boatload mentality is fair practice and that all players from outside the states should be taught English and have to use it.  Is the “boatload mentality” exploitation or fair practice.  Should all players have interpreters or be taught English?

Nadal's Watch

At the 2010 French Open, Rafael Nadal played his first match after reaching an agreement with French timepiece maker Richard Mille.  Mr. Mille doesn’t make just any watch. He makes very expensive watches.  Mr. Mille had reached an agreement with Mr. Nadal to wear his $525,000 watch during his matches.  The ESPN commentators made a big deal about this.  It turned out to be a big deal like the Venus Williams panty flashing. The watch weighed in at a total of 20 grams.  The commentators were saying that the 20 gram watch was going to throw off Nadal’s balance.  The commentators forgot that it used to be common for tennis players to wear watches during their matches.  Brad Gilbert had a contract with Ebel in 1986 and he was calling match Nadal’s match.  Despite all of the criticism over this watch, I do not believe that a 20 gram watch will affect the play of Rafael Nadal.

The wonderful world of Cricket

On Thursday, September 30th; Dr. Adrian Turner came into my Sports and Globalization class to talk the game of Cricket.  Dr. Turner went over the basics of the game with us.  There are 11 players on each team and each team takes a turn a batting.  The player throwing the ball is called a bowler.  The ball is made of a leather material and has one side smooth as the other side of roughed up a bit.  Two players at a time are batter but only of them is actually trying to strike the ball.  A run is scored when both players successfully run from wicket to wicket without getting out.  If the batter hits the ball and it bounces over the boundary they score four runs for their team.  If the ball flies over the boundary much like in baseball or softball they score six runs.  The batter can be called out a number of ways.  The ball being caught, the ball hitting the wickets, the batter hits the wickets with the bat, the wicket keeper catches the ball and hits the wickets with the ball before the batter leaves the batting crease, a run out or the umpire calls the batter out for blocking the wickets with his/her legs. 

Dr. Turner also talked about a player by the name of Glenn Mcgrath who Dr. Turner refered to as the “Tiger Woods” of Cricket.  Here is an internet article on the top 10 bowlers in the history of Cricket.
http://top-10-list.org/2010/03/16/ten-bowlers-list-cricket-history/

Hooliganism in Football (Soccer)

Hooliganism has been around for many many years and the debate on whether the "war" on hooliganism is successfull is an ongoing topic.  Hooliganism refers to unruly, destructive, aggressive and bullying behavior. Such behaviour is commonly associated with sports fans, particularly supporters of football (soccer).  The term can also apply to general rowdy behavior and vandalism, often under the influence of alcohol and or drugs.  These "fans" congrigate in "firms" and use thier cell phones and the internet to meet up with other "firms" at agreed locations to fight. This is not just happing in football nations but also the USA.

May 29th, 1985. Liverpool vs. Juventas, Heysel Stadium.  Liverpool fans broke through a police barrier thinking they would be met by Ultras which is a Juventus hooligan firm they ran into Italian families who then tried to run away and in doing so, forcing a wall to colapse and crushing those beneath it.  This inceident of hooliganism cause 39 deaths.

Ghana, 2001. Fans stampeded to the exits after police caused panic by firing tear gas in to the crowd after some trouble began with just five minutes remaining of the match. The panic caused by the police caused the fans to charge out of the stadium, crushing 125 people and injuring many more.

July 2008, Columbus, Ohio.  The Columbus Crew were hosting West Ham in a friendly match over 100 Crew and West Ham fans clashed before the game.  In that same weekend, members of the Empire Supports Club (ESC) who are the supporters for the New York Red Bulls, where permanently ejected and banned from football matches. They clashed with NJSEA security force over what the ESC believed to be unfair and repeated mistreatment.

The use of security cameras in the venues and the use of police force has cut down on hooliganism in football nations.  Will hooligamism ever go away or will the acts of hooliganism pick up?  Only time will tell because such behavior would be appropriate in the 1950's but not in present times.

1976 Winter Olympics in Denver, CO....NOT!

On November 7th, 1972 the state of Colorado held a vote to see if tax payers were willing to host the Winter Olympics in their state.  Nearly 60% voted NO!  Before the vote the state promised to spend no more than $5 million on the games and 80% were against it.  The people of Colorado had learned that it cost California $13.5 million, Innsbruck in 1964 $20 million, France spending $14.7 million on facilities alone and that Japan was going to spend more than $17 million on facilities for the 1972 games.  So, the IOC had to move the games to another location that had just hosted the games 12 years earlier.  The host city ended up being Innsbruck, Austria.  Just two and a half years earlier a group from Denver who returned from a meeting with the IOC were praised with a motorcycle ride through downtown and with a brass band playing as they arrived.   


The people of Colorado said that the promoters never asked how they felt about hosting the games and tried to imply that they lacked patriotism if they were not for the games.  Other issues was that it was going to destroy the natural beauty of Colorado by tearing down trees and such because Colorado was planning on using up a 166-mile distance, which is from Denver to Steamboat Springs.  It was also thought that more people were going to move into Colorado because of snow-capped mountains and wide open spaces that were already attracting newcomers.  Mike Moran said "I don't think the likelihood of any city in America hosting the Winter Games is probably practical until after 2020".  Well he was obviously wrong because Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Games in 2004 due to many controversies.  

Inroduction

Hi, my name is Jacob Westmeyer.  I am 20 years old.  I go to Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio where I currently rank as a Junior.  I am majoring in Sports Management, in hopes to become a high school athletic director.  I'm from a Wauseon, Ohio which is 30 minutes West of Toledo, about an hour East of Indiana and 45 minutes North West of Bowling Green. 

My decision to come to Bowling Green wasn't a tough one.  I had heard a lot of good things about the Sports Management feild and that it was well respected at BGSU.  I also had a friend graduate from Bowling Green with his Batchlors in Science of Education and then went to the University of Conneticut and got his masters degree. 

My favorite sports teams are the Dallas Cowboys, Colorado Avalance, and the Toledo Mudhens.  My favorite baseball player is Ken Griffey Jr and now that he his retired I don't follow baseball much.  My sports interest are action sports, football and hockey.  I played football for three years in high school and I have been playing hockey since I was 6 1/2.  I just recently started skating vert.  I would like to go the X-Games and watch the BMX Flatland portion.  If you don't know what Flatland is click on the link and be amazed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2LTVhqHAdo