Pratt

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

What do sports mean to you as an athlete and as a fan? As an athlete sports have helped shaped me as a person through team building, friends, motivation and drive to accomplish. Playing sports have allowed me to meet countless people and some of my best friends. Through sharing a common goal of winning a game, tournament or championship team members share a bond that can rarely be achieved else where. While being a part of a fan base is also very likely to allow you to make friends through sharing a common goal there is nothing like winning after working so hard after an entire season or your entire life. There are moments in sports that are the apexes of dedication, whether it is through supporting your favorite team as a fan or pushing beyond limits in the gym, on the field or in the rink as an athlete, and these apexes are few and far between and that is why I love sports.

What has been your experience with youth sports? Describe your best and worst experiences. As a child I always grew up playing sports. Before coming to Thayer I played on 5 different teams, including hockey, lacrosse, soccer, baseball, and track. After school I was almost guaranteed to have at least one if not two practices and I loved it. The highlight of my youth sports experience came when I was playing with the East Bridgewater travel soccer team. There were two travel town teams and we were always pitted rivals. When it came time to select the teams the other team had been deemed the "A" team and us the "B" team. The first season our team was in shambles with next to no wins in the fall and going into the winter season in the Bridgewater Dome league. As the rotation in the league went we hadn't played the "A" team at all until the final game of the Bridgewater Dome league season. With next to no wins we had no chance at making it into the playoffs, but the "A" team did and they were only ahead by one point in the standings. With many wins under their belts over the course of the fall and winter they were expected to roll over us. Instead our team fought a hard game and we ended up tying them, an impossible feat on our behalf! They ended up losing the league by one point after the second place team had won, and we were proud to have knocked them out of first place. This was the turning point because after that year we went on to win the Bridgewater Dome League three years in a row and assume the title of "A" team at all the tournaments following.

My worst experience in youth sports came while I was playing for the South Shore Eagles, a town hockey team out of Abington. We had regularly switch the goalie every game as most youth teams due and it finally came to be my turn. It was a warm spring and the week before the game I did nothing but play street hockey outside with my father and friends with my brothers old Mylec street hockey pads. I had nothing but great expectations about how I would block every shot and make the game winning save, so that the coaches would pick me to play as the goalie during the playoffs. Unfortunately I didn't do that well and ended up giving 4 goals in a game where the score was 4-3.

Do athletes make good role models? Identify one or two professional athletes to make your case. I definitely think to a certain extent athletes provide good role models. I say that athletes are good role models to a certain extent, because ever person has their flaws including athletes. I think sometimes we forget that even athletes make mistakes and do things they aren't supposed to based on the laws of society, including steroid use and other socially unacceptable actions. Even if today's athletes are being filmed almost all the time on and off the field, they are still private individuals and we cannot expect to know everything about them. Therefore they are good role models to exemplify sportsmanship, camaraderie, community service and leadership, but don't expect them to be the perfect individuals and role models in all aspects of life. After all they are paid to do is play sports, not be role models for today's children. An example of this is in Tiger Wood's case. An exceptional athlete and a seemingly loving husband to his wife and family, yet a scandal ruined his reputation on and off the field, regardless of how great of an athlete he truly was. So do we truly care whether they can play well, or do we become attached to athletes not only based on their performance, but also their likability and personable character. Another example is Alex Rodriguez's scandal involving steroid use. Before the scandal Alex was an exceptional baseball player and some of today's youth favorite baseball players based on his incredible skill, but after the scandal people labeled him as a dirty player hurting his reputation regardless of his accomplishments. Even though we label him as a dirty player we still refuse to test the majority of MLB players, because we want to remain ignorant to the rampant steroid use throughout the professional leagues. So in some ways athletes can provide great role models, but we should only expect so much from them, instead of labeling them as perfect people, because sometimes the incredible actions under the spotlights are not always what they seem from behind the scenes.

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 would say playing lacrosse, hockey and cross country would be how I spend the majority of my time interacting with sports, but i also love watching the bruins, patriots and occasionally the celtics and red sox. I would say sports take up the second largest amount of my time out of an activity behind school. I also love to watch college football and other college sports. When deciding where to apply the majority of the schools I have picked allow me to get involved with college sports some how.

What sports-related issues would you be disappointed //not// to cover in this class? Why? I have always loved the Olympics and if we didn't discuss the many major events in world history that occurred during the Olympics I think we would be missing out on some of the major examples of sports and its interaction with the world.