OMarah

** A Pre-Game Warm-up **
 * Winter/Spring 2012 Mr. Dunne **

What do sports mean to you as an athlete and as a fan? New England sports have always been a big part of my life. I have always been a huge supporter of all the Boston sports teams and I follow every season religiously. However my career as an athlete hasn't been successful, though I have had shown some ability in playing sports it doesn't click with me or fit with my personality.

What has been your experience with youth sports? Describe your best and worst experiences. At a very young age I began playing sports with my father often as the coach but I never really enjoyed it, and now I am more focused on music than sports. I find that people are too often forced or obligated to play sports when they get no joy out of it. My best experience was probably scoring the game winning goal as time expired in a youth lacrosse game. And my worst experiences were probably practicing for NESLL at 7 in the morning.

Do athletes make good role models? Identify one or two professional athletes to make your case. Some do and some don't. For example Tom Brady works hard to achieve his greatness, shows respect to opponents after wins and losses and always strives to be better. But other athletes such as DeMarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings are not. Cousins has great natural talent and if he put in the time he could be a truly elite player, yet he rarely plays with intensity and feels entitled even though his work ethic is weak.

What sports/teams do you pay attention to the most? How much time do sports occupy in your life? How do you spend that time (attending, watching, reading, talking, participating)? I pay an enormous amount of attention to the Patriots and slightly less to the Celtics. I can rarely watch the Patriots play because I get to nervous but I spend many hours of my typical days reading about or learning about the Patriots. As for the Celtics I am a bit of a new fan but I do strongly support them. I make an effort to watch all of their games on Comcast Sportsnet and I find it a lot easier to bear a Celtics loss because there are so many games in a season. I spend most of my time with my sports teams looking at statistics of players, finding who is better in which situations and learning about the team.

What sports-related issues would you be disappointed //not// to cover in this class? Why? I would be disappointed if we didn't cover the Patriots' Super Bowl chances and the Celtics' age as a factor in the shortened season.