Burke’s Guide to Rookie Quarterbacks

The NFL Draft marks a college football players movement into the NFL and with this transition often comes a lot of discussion about whether certain players can actually be successful in the NFL. During the draft you will hear dozens of analysts speculate as to whether certain college players are ready to make the move up to the NFL.   With a different style of play, a large increase in game speed, and better competition, this shift, and the handling of it, becomes a major concern for all coaches when looking at potential players.

The NFL Draft marks the turning point for all rookies

The handling of this major change is most apparent at the quarterback position and coaches have many theories on how to handle the transition. Some coaches take the baptism by fire approach and throw their newfound quarterbacks immediately into the starting spot and hope for the best. Others believe it is best to sacrifice a few years and keep rookie quarterbacks on the bench for the beginning of their careers and allow them to learn the system and slowly adjust to being in the NFL. Both of these theories have their pros and cons but if Edmund Burke were a quarterback coach how would he handle the rookie quarterback dilemma?

BASE jumping and The Harm Principle

After reading the article, It’s More Like a Suicide Than a Sport written by Ed Caesar.I wanted to know  why anyone would put their life in danger, and then the thought came into my mind; how would Mill react to the riskiness of this sport. I Google  searched for the information and found many articles. Ed Grabianowski in his article explains that the name “BASE jumping” is an acronym for the four types of objects that people jump from. “BASE” stands for Buildings, Antennas, Spans or bridges, and Earth. BASE jumpers jump from various cliffs and high man-made  buildings, towers, bridges, and airplanes, at low altitudes with only a few seconds to deploy the parachute. There is no time available for jumpers to deal with problems or malfunctions.

Down with Burke: Up with Mill!

Robinson playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers

Jackie Robinson is notoriously known for singlehandedly changing the course of sports in the United States and in the world. Unlike any other African American athlete to have “broken the color barrier”, Robinson was most widely associated with the term. As depicted in the 2013 film 42, Robinson was the first African American to ever play in Major League Baseball.

Burke and the Art of Fandom

Over the past two months, I have had the opportunity to attend two sporting events, namely a Cleveland Browns game and a Michigan Basketball game. At both these events, I went through the full experience. At the Browns game, I tailgated with traditional stadium foods like hot dogs and hamburgers, a greasy start to a fun afternoon. For the Michigan game, I came early for the opportunity to sit in the famed “Maize Rage” section, right behind the bench. After a full game of yelling and cheering, I barely had my voice left, but i did get the full experience of being in the student section of a basketball game, a wonderful opportunity that every student should pursue.

Edmund Burke

For the Love of the Game

This past week, I had the privilege to attend two LSA Theme Semester Events, the showing of Miracle with an introduction by UM instructor John Bacon and the Values of College Sports Conference, where Amy Perko and Taylor Branch commented on their reasoning of why college sports should stay around.

Stamp depicting a shot by Rob McClanahan, a player on the 1980 US Mens National Hockey Team, against the Soviet Union

During both sessions a general idea began to form. People played sports because they enjoyed it. They won because they enjoyed the journey to winning, playing the game. Kids want to continue playing the sport that they love so they work their way up the proverbial ladder of levels of play, each with varying levels of competition.

Reflections on the state of modern sports

Edmund Burke’s reaction to the recent rule changes in sports today.

My news feed was covered in shared articles. It was like Kony 2012, but worse. What could have caused this massive influx of outraged teenagers? It could be none other than the recent NCAA changes to division I collegiate tennis; the fact that half of my facebook friends were tennis players had finally come back to haunt me. There had already been harsh reactions from many about the possibility of abolishing service lets about a year and a half ago, but additional new rules formed to speed up the play of matches have both high school, collegiate, and even professional players wondering what ridiculous rule changes are next. Now, I do not, nor will I ever, consider myself a conservative, but perhaps Burke was right in his reasoning in Reflections on the Revolution in France: change can be dangerous, leaving the institution it was trying to improve mutilated and almost unrecognizable.

Game Changers

Reading an article by Marc Tracey about when rule changes in professional football go to far made me upset. Football is a game of controlled violence, yet in recent years safety has taken priority over protecting the necessary conditions of what make American football football. I’m not against making the game safer, but taking kickoffs out of the equation corrupts the sport, maybe beyond recognition. These all seemed like reasonable thoughts to me, and some of you other football lovers probably felt similarly. Unfortunately, we’re all wrong.

Conservatism, Football, and the Constitution

The proposed NFL rule changes lead some to question if “football” will still be football

What is football? Being an avid sports fan in America, football is my favorite sport – I spend just about every Saturday and Sunday watching it. Part of what makes football so unique is that it’s our only major sport not played in other parts of the world. Basketball has spread to Europe and Asia; baseball is huge in Japan and Latin America; and hockey is much more popular in Canada and Scandinavian than in the US. But, football is just ours – it’s our one solely American sport. The prospect of not having the NFL to watch is so terrifying I don’t even want to think about it. Recent discoveries and research of severe brain damage among former football players is a problem for the game’s future. I just saw a story on ESPN about how LeBron James won’t let his kids play football, because it’s too dangerous.   Things like this bring about difficulties for football, as they try to retain the cornerstones of the game while also making it safer. And, akin to the ideologies of Burke and Tracy – though traditions of football must be upheld, the game must also conform and progress like everything else.

Club Vs. Varsity – What They Stand For

I recently attended two different sporting events here at Michigan: a varsity hockey game and a club rugby game. The hockey team was up against the University of New Hampshire, and ended up losing a tough battle, 5-1. The rugby team was playing good ol’ little brother, Michigan State, who they ended up dominating 34-7. Not to my surprise, both games brought different crowds. The two events had similarities and differences, all of which kept me thinking about the roles of these two sports, and on a broader level, their respective levels’ (club and varsity) roles to the University.

I found a plethora of connections to Eric Dunning’s The Dynamics Of Modern Sport. Dunning discusses the roles of the sports for many different participants: spectators, populations, and the athletes themselves. All of these are relevant here, we have student-athletes, plenty of fans go to games, and the population in this case would be the University as a whole. Dunning discussed the “interdependant polarities” of sports, mainly between spectators and athletes, and what the intentions and purpose of sports are.

LeBron’s State of Nature

In the summer of 2010, the whole world was captivated by the news of LeBron James announcing his shock decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that drafted him first overall out of high school, for the Miami Heat. Not only was LeBron the unquestioned leader of a Cavaliers team that through seven years had gone from one of the worst teams in the league to annual title contenders, but Cleveland was also his hometown team. LeBron James was an icon that the state of Ohio could claim as their own, making his subsequent departure all the more shocking.