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Archive for July, 2009

Why College Paintball Made Me Respect Video Games

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Video games are lame. This has been a long maintained opinion of mine. Lame because people talk about the sports they virtually play without specifying that they’re not actually playing baseball or soccer or even standing up for that matter.

Recently, I’ve come to realize that these games do have value however, and those who play them are not all useless. In fact, it seems to require some skill, or at minimum superior hand-eye coordination. I guess what inspired this change of perception was the realization that it could be a lot worse. If video games and online Texas hold ‘em weren’t already driving forces behind the declining birth rate, we now have a new source of birth control: College National Paintball. college sports

With apparently not enough Simpsons episodes to re-run, FOX College Sports has announced plans to air the 2009 College National Paintball Tournament. The National Collegiate Paintball Association hosted the 2009 National Championships at Central Florida Paintball in April. Believe it or not, teams from all over the US flew across the country, paid for by their colleges to play for free.

Paintball may just be the only televised sport where you can neither see the tiny balls or people being hit. And the commentary irreplaceable: describing play-by-plays for the 50 virgin college students who actually know paintball regulations. Favorite commentator comment from the clip: “Its gonna come down to raw talent”. What else is it coming down to when you’re hiding behind a giant blow-up pyramid that those in the sport refer to as a Dorito? Athletic endurance? Check out the first point in the 2009 NCPA College Paintball Championship matchup between Purdue and Ohio State.

Either Fox College Sports needs to stop existing or they need to find something better to put on TV. Is it really more fun to watch this than women’s sports? How bad is women’s softball that college paintball- utterly incomprehensible -can usurp its TV spot?

Paintball’s really fun to play. You know that saying, that some things are way more fun to play, and just plain boring to watch?(It’s a quote that I just said). Anyways, paintball is one those things. Like video games and watching people play video games. It’s just one of those things that way more fun to participate in than to watch. Anyway, shout out to Fox for giving me another reason to cancel my cable.

POSTED BY Bloggin' with Robin IN Uncategorized
07.23.09
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College Recruitment and Sports Scholarships: What You Need To Be Doing Right Now

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Your an athlete about to enter your last year of high school and training is probably set to start sometime in the next few weeks. Playing college sports is an incredible opportunity. As an athlete you are challenged at an entirely different competitive level. As a student, you are automatically enriching your college experience with college sports in a way that most people never have the chance to.

Getting into the college of your choice by levering you athletic skills requires some self-marketing. Yes, there are recruiters, but you may not be on their radar. Yet. There are also thousands of sports scholarships out there to help you pay for college. Here are a few tips for college sports  that you can get started on right now, if you haven’t already.

Put together a highlights tape. You should do this after your junior year. Good highlight tapes display your versatility during play and at practice. There’s probably someone at school who’s offered his services in putting these videos together. Whether you outsource or cut and edit the video yourself, you should be integrally involved in its creation. You want the tape to show your most impressive plays but not you doing the exact same thing over and over. Make it compelling to watch. Include stats, or any pertinent and impressive information that you think colleges should know. Show it to your coaches for feedback. He might have some good insight. Post it on your Takkle account and on YouTube. You can’t have too much exposure.

Another reason why you should show this tape to your coach is that he is going to be very important for connecting you with college recruiters. Start talking to your coaches now. Make sure your on good grounds with them. If there are new coaches coming in for this season, make the extra effort to get to know them. Hopefully in the last few years of play you have established a relationship with your coaches so when it comes to asking them for help applying to college and getting scholarships they’ll be more than willing to.

Do scholarship research. Find out when the applications for all the scholarships you may be eligible for are due and put them in your calendar. Once you have your highlight DVD, start preparing packages for the college coaches and for scholarships (if applicable). Having all of these things prepared will allow you to pursue the more important tasks of establishing connections with coaches at different universities.

One last piece of advice: keep your marks up. Off the field is just as important. College coaches and recruiters look for individuals who are well-rounded. Show that you’re good for something other than scoring goals, or whatever it is that you do. You can lose NCAA eligibility if your college marks are no good. Recruiters don’t want to waste space and scholarship funds on someone who won’t even be able to play. Your job is to be amazing. Now you just have to market yourself so that everyone knows you are.

POSTED BY Bloggin' with Robin IN Athletics and Admissions, College Baseball, College Basketball, College Conferences, College Football, College softball, Scholarships, Uncategorized
07.16.09
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College Sports Draft Rules Stir Debate

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

One of the college sports topics that we keep seeing come up on our radar over and over again is the debate over different policies for drafting young athletes into college sports. Specifically, our college sports search tends towards the theme of whether or not the NBA’s 1 year-of- college requirement is legit. But the argument goes deeper. Here’s the gist of the problem people have: college sports

So, both the NBA and the NFL have a requirement that an athlete needs to be out of high school for a certain number of years before they can be drafted and turn pro. For the NBA this minimum is one, although some people in the NCAA are trying to make it 2. For the NFL, this minimum is three. The other two major North American team sports (in terms of revenue) are hockey and baseball. The NHL and MLB respectively do not have any such requirements on years out of high school for the athletes they draft. As a result very few players and managers and coaches (since most of them started their careers as players) have a college degree.

On the surface, the reasoning behind the requirements in the NBA and NFL is that its a good thing because it forces athletes to get an education. Second, it lets the players get better and play in a more competitive environment so that a pro team drafting them will feel better about investing millions in a rookie. If the college- drafted player can’t cut it at the pro level, at the very least, he can fall back on a college degree.

This hints at the real reason for minimum requirements for drafting into these two sports. College athletes, poised from the start to turn pro are essentially celebrities. Their skills can give the team an entirely different competitive edge. Some of these guys are as close as it gets to celebrities, with the eyes of national sports fans avidly watching where they might end up (especially in basketball). Having these stars on their teams brings in millions of dollars for the institutions involved and the coach. Think of all the merchandise sold for USC with OJ Mayo’s name emboldened on back. The players don’t make a dime. Entering here is the whiny response, that at least they get a free education. Besides the fact that restricting players from turning pro violates a slew of anti-trust laws about fair competition, these policies really speak to mechanics of professional sports, which, for those in charge, is driven by money (not that we blame them, this has been the prevailing ideology of our society).

People take up a lot of blog and print space discussing if and how to change the one-and-done system for college sports in football and basketball. Many are against the idea of paying the players while they’re in college because that would even further remove the traditional idea of a college athlete (by the way, what exactly is the typical traditional college athlete? Just out of curiosity?).

One blog writer Clay Travis at Fanhouse.com suggests that the reason for the draft age requirements in the NBA and the NFL have to do with the deep rooted racial paternalism. Where 65 to 80% of players in both sports are black, compared to about 2% in hockey, his argument goes that the rules were put in place due to a paternalistic view that black athletes should go to college first because they weren’t prepared enough to make career decisions yet. Of course this ties in nicely with the whole indentured labor concept of NCAA athletes for soon-to-be pros. I think this argument is spurious, however thought provoking it may be.

This is an issue with no obvious solution. And the beast that has become football and basketball college drafting has proven to be a tough one to tame. Even when the NCAA decides to involve itself in various scandals and schools suffer penalties, those receiving the penalties are the other team members. Without looking too deeply into it though, I’m inclined to say, let’s keep the status quo. It’s hard to feel bad for unpaid college athletes who essentially get a free ride and unparalleled career opportunities. Either way, we’d love to hear what you think.

Next up, we’ll discuss the bowl championship series. This serious issue was recently brought up at a senate hearing. It’s just not fair that the financial crisis should take away from this defected championship system.

POSTED BY Bloggin' with Robin IN Athletic Associations, Athletics and Admissions, College Baseball, College Basketball, College Football, Race and Sports, Sports News
07.09.09
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