Argument Proposal

For my argument paper, I am interested in writing about violence in sports. Sports violence has been around for as long as sports have been going on and it is always a problem. I plan on discussing the murder of a soccer player after he cost his national team a chance to play in the World Cup, the Michael Vick controversy, and the New Orleans Saints' bounties from recently. I plan on discussing whether I feel like Vick should've been allowed back into the NFL after what he had done, and whether being paid to hurt players is right or wrong. All of these have an influence on the people that watch sports, and can also affect how they feel about particular things.

Here are my sources:

The Andres Escobar Murder
Sports violence is within us all
Prosecute Excess Violence in Sports
Is Violence in Sports Inevitable?
Michael Vick sentenced to 23 months in jail

I haven't looked into backup topic sources but if I didn't do the topic of violence, I would be interested in talking about the debate between who the better football player is, Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. Another topic would be which sport has the best playoff format.

Memoir

            Playing sports is a big hobby of mine. I enjoy playing pickup games of baseball, throwing the football around, but most of all, playing basketball. Basketball is my favorite sport, to play and watch. I’ve been familiar with basketball since I was in my teens and it grew more and more on me as the years passed. I’m a huge Boston Celtics fan! Watching them play on TV or in person if I get tickets to a game, makes me want to go out and play basketball even more.

            Although I never played sports for my middle school or high school, I love playing pickup games of basketball with my friends. We usually get a total group of six to eight people to play when we make plans. If we have six people, we play games of three on three against each other. If we have eight people, we play games of four on four against each other. Surprisingly enough, the basketball court at BCC is actually what I call my “home court”. I consider it this because this is the location where we play 99% of the time. On my days off from work, I always try to get a group of us together to play if the weather is nice enough to do so.

            Even though we’re just playing for fun, our games do tend to get intense and competitive. We actually run seven game series, similar to the NBA, where one team has to win four games to win the series. I’ll never forget one of our series though, where I would make the game winning shot. In each game, we play up until eleven points and your team has to win by at least two. Thus, if the score is eleven to ten, the team with eleven still has to score one more time in order to win that particular game. Now in this series, each game was intense and came down to the wire. The two teams were matched up evenly, and competition was the best that it could possibly get.

            The first two games were won by my team, and our confidence was building as we only needed to win two more games to win the series. The next game would be won by the opposing team, making the series two games to one in favor of my team. In the fourth game, my team was up ten to six and looking great in taking a three to one series lead. But we blew it! We couldn’t hit a shot to save our lives and the opposing team would come from behind and win that game. The fifth game came along, and the other team squeaked out a victory. They had now won three games in a row and were one game away from clinching the series. Their confidence was now through the roof, and it showed with the “smack” they were talking for winning three in a row against us. Although we had lost some confidence, we never gave up, and with them talking smack, we were even more determined to make a comeback. We would go on to win game six and tie the series up at three games a piece and take it to a deciding game seven.

            It’s game seven; all or nothing, winner takes all and gets bragging rights against the other team. Tired legs and fatigue is hitting all of the players on the court from all the running around from the past six games. It comes down to this. We all agree to play up until fifteen this time, since it was the final game we’d be playing that day. The defense was tight throughout the final game, and the score showed it. At first, both teams were struggling to score. Once the defense lightened up a bit, we started getting some points on the board. Half way through the game, the opposing team was up ten to eight and inching closer and closer to victory. Eleven to eight..twelve to eight, we needed to make a comeback fast! I would score a two-pointer to make it twelve to ten and give our team some hope. We tightened up our defense and tied the game at twelve before the opposing team could score again. It’s now thirteen to twelve and the pressure is rising. We tie it up on a basket from one of my friends. We go for the game winning two-pointer, and miss! The opposing team grabs the rebound and then they try a game winning two-pointer and miss as well! I grab the rebound and slow down the game before it got out of hand. I look around to my teammates and fake a pass, throwing my defender off guard, leaving me open to shoot. I shoot a two-pointer, and sink it! We had won the game and the series, and I fist pumped in happiness!

            My team had gained the bragging rights and pretty much confirmed with the other team that a rematch was inevitable after a series as amazing as that one. It’s pretty crazy how a pickup game can make you feel like you’re playing professionally. The emotions that run through everyone makes it that much more fun. I love going to BCC and playing basketball, and definitely plan on continuing to do so for a very long time.

Reading Journal #3

The NFL's Bad Boys

This article the NFL's "bad boys". Listed and discussed in the article are Michael Vick, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and OJ Simpson, former NFL player and Hall of Fame running back. They're listed as "bad boys" because of the trouble they have gotten into throughout their careers. Michael Vick had recently just been released from prison because of participating in dog fighting, and now is a part of a 6 year $100 million dollar contract with the Eagles. Ben Roethlisberger had a sexual assault charge against him that caused him to miss a few games in the 2010 season, but he still led them back to the Superbowl that year. OJ Simpson, as everyone knows, was accused of murdering his ex-wife and another man. All three are listed as the "bad boys" of the NFL but Vick and Roethlisberger have overcame their prison time and charges and continue to play in the NFL.

Reading Journal #2

Harvard School of Basketball

This article from 2010 talks about future NBA player Jeremy Lin and his success through college. He attended Harvard University and during his senior year, he was hyped as the possible first Asian-American player to be drafted in NBA history. After college, Jeremy Lin moved onto the NBA and currently plays for the New York Knicks. He just recently got a chance to start and has made significant contributions to the team. He came from under the radar and exploded onto the basketball scene. His stellar play even has him trending on Twitter, as people have been calling his play "Linsanity". We'll see throughout the rest of this season if he can keep up his good play and lead his team far into the playoffs.

Reading Journal #1

Person of Interest: Blake Griffin

The main topic of this article is it highlights NBA player Blake Griffin. He plays the power foward position for the Los Angeles Clippers and the article talks about how he had recently completed his 100th career NBA game, when the article was published on February 2nd. Blake Griffin has already become a fan favorite and is known for his thunderous dunks. He has created many highlights for sports shows such as Sportscenter. Sportscenter has their own "Top 10" plays of every night in sports, and Blake's dunks have highlighted the number 1 spot of the show on many different occasions. He is already being called a top 10 player in the league, although I think that's a little high. His career is still very young and he still has many years of basketball and entertainment to show the basketball nation.

Killing Chickens

Excerpt: "Killing Chickens"

Three specific details that seem effective:

• "Holding her neck hard against the floor of the coop, I take a breath, set something deep and hard inside my heart, and twist her head."
•  "I turn her head on her floppy neck again, and again, corkscrewing her breathing tube, struggling to end the gasping."
• " My anger and fear center like a tornado on having to kill this hen."

The main idea of the excerpt is that she's angry and afraid to tell her children about the divorce she's going to have from her husband, and she shows this anger and fear when she's killing the chickens. She uses a lot of descriptive words to show her anger and emotion in killing the chickens. I think she has a good writing style because her descriptive words attract the reader to continue reading more of her essay.

Rhetorical Analysis

      The above advertisement is an old Nike advertisement. It features former basketball player, Michael Jordan, in the air about to finish off a slam dunk. In the top right, it shows “Michael Jordan: 1, Isaac Newton: 0” this shows that Michael Jordan is basically defying gravity by being that high up in the air. Thus, this goes against Newton's law of universal gravitation.

      I think this is a great advertisement by Nike. They are advertising that if you buy their product, you can be like Michael Jordan and jump as high as he does. Because of this, I would have to say that Nike is trying to promote their sneaker products in this advertisement. I have bought plenty of Nike sneaker products throughout my lifetime, and they are a great product. But, they do not make you jump as high as Michael Jordan and be able to defy gravity as its shown. For people not familiar with Nike, they can look at this advertisement and maybe think that they can do that and it'll make them want to go out and buy that particular Nike product.

      To be “Like Mike” is something that pretty much every person familiar with basketball would want to do, including myself. Michael Jordan, to me, is the greatest basketball player to ever play the game. He has 6 championship rings, and put basketball as entertainment right on the map his entire career with his flashy dunks and amazing play on the court. I think Nike made a great decision in having Michael Jordan in this particular advertisement. If you're familiar with basketball in general, you can clearly understand the point its trying to get across to you. Even if you aren't familiar with basketball, almost everyone recognizes Michael Jordan and knows somewhat of his accomplishments as a player. It just shows how important of a sports figure he was throughout his career.

      The comparison of Michael Jordan to Isaac Newton is also well done in this advertisement. Not only do most people know about Michael Jordan, but they also know about Isaac Newton. Everyone knows about Newton's three laws of motion. It's just something that's known, mostly from being drilled into your mind while you were in school and it's just something you don't forget. As soon as I saw this advertisement, I knew the comparison that was being made of Michael Jordan defying Newton's law of gravity.

      Overall, I would say that Nike accomplished a lot in this advertisement, and did a great job doing so. They had good comparisons, the advertisement was short, and it got its point across with a visual and words beside it. If I had to guess, I'd say that this advertisement definitely helped them sell more products, especially sneakers.