In the past semester I have attended two live athletic sporting events: a University of Michigan soccer game against a top-ranked Notre Dame and a high-school Catholic league championship between Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice and Orchard Lake Saint Mary’s. Both events turned out to be great matches. Continue reading
Upon reading Mika LaVaque-Manty’s The Playing Fields of Eton, Equality and Excellence in Modern Meritocracy I was sparked with the memory of working the Special Olympics when I was a young boy with my Canadian side of the family. Continue reading
Hello Readers, here’s a candy-bar of a blog to help you get the shredded ideas from bizarre articles out of your mind. But since you’re not doing your mind any favors by loading up on junk like this, feel free to suck down some ideas from high-vitamin, astronaut blogs while you read on. Wait, there isn’t any gravity in space so I suppose you gotta suck it up and bear with me as I give my impression on the first hockey game I’ve ever seen or attended. (Also, I’ll stop using “Boy Meets World” quotes).
My First Hockey Ticket!
To be fair, the only sport I really follow is soccer. Unfortunately, football has games at better times and Everyone goes to experience the Michigan Difference. But what about the soccer difference? What about the hockey difference? Boy, when I walked into Yost Stadium for the first time, I didn’t even know how to get to the students section. But the setting wasn’t the only thing that was new for me. Walking into Yost to see my first hockey game ever was like walking into a whole new world with its own set of rules, customs, and manners! You’ve read this far, now come along for a story! (cue sit-com intro music)
Over the course of this semester I’ve had the privilege of attending several Michigan sporting events. At the beginning of October I went to a Men’s Soccer game against Notre Dame, the #6 Ranked team in the country at the time. That game was the first non-football UofM sporting event I attended, and it did not disappoint. Michigan won in exciting fashion after a goal in the final minutes of play gave Michigan the win, 3-2. I also had the pleasure of attending the Men’s Basketball team’s first game this past Monday. That one was a little less thrilling, but it was still fun to see the team out there again in a pre-season win over Wayne State.
In PoliSci 101, we’ve discussed growing competitiveness in sports today, and the controversy over whether college athletes should be paid or not. While I’m still unsure about the issue of paying college athletes, the growing competitiveness in college athletics is clear. For the fans, however, I think the experience of watching college sports is still as fun and special as it always has been.
Cliff Keen Arena- home of the Michigan Volleyball team. The view is from the Michigan Student Section
I recently had the opportunity to go to a Michigan Women’s Volleyball game vs. Eastern Michigan and a Michigan Men’s Soccer game vs. Bowling Green. Both games were exciting- Michigan Volleyball won in three straight sets, but unfortunately Michigan Soccer lost a nail biter 1-0. As I sat there at both events watching these teams both with the Block M on their jerseys representing Michigan, I wondered about what would happen if the NCAA decided athletes should be paid. Everyone likes to consider the major revenue sports like football and basketball in terms of paying athletes, but what would happen to the smaller revenue sports if the NCAA decides to pay it’s athletes, and what should happen? While Soccer and Volleyball charge $3.00-8.00 per game (depending on the seat) and make some money for concessions, these sports are very far away from what major sports like football and basketball make for the University of Michigan.
If we observe the sports and pastimes that we could define as “American”, very few would place soccer in this category. Perhaps this is justified; a majority of the world refers to this sport as football, or some variant thereof.
American “football”; A much more common choice for an American pastime
We are heavily in the minority in referring to the sport as soccer, choosing to reserve the term football to denote a much more prototypal “American” sport and pastime. So why have I chosen soccer as an American sport and pastime worth discussing? Many would scoff at this notion: saying that baseball, football, basketball, or possibly even lacrosse are much more “American” than soccer ever will be. But if we examine the more recent history of soccer in the US, we could argue that recent developments make soccer nothing but American.
International competition has the unique ability to unite the world, often even in times of unrest. For some reason, sport is one of the few facets that allows entire nations to forget all of their wars and hardships, even if it’s only for ninety minutes.
A Serbian Player Pulls Down the Albanian Flag
Often this is the case but there are certain circumstances where tensions are too high for even sport to make a difference. Tuesday’s Serbia vs. Albania Euro 2016 qualifying fixture was going relatively well, considering it was Albania’s first visit to Belgrade since 1967, until just before halftime tensions boiled over.
Touchdown Theory 
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