Sports at NU

I was at lunch this morning with two other athletes and a non athlete and we were talking about our seasons and what we had to do in the spring to train for the fall. Then the girl that was with us who doesn't play sports asked why there wasn't any sort of announcements or a newspaper that lets the general population know about when there are games and matches other than football. We thought about it and because we all live with different sport athletes we just naturally know about games that are coming up but there is nothing to inform the rest of the student body about when we play. Then one of the athlete says "it's because they don't care" i think that is a HUGE part of why we don't have newspapers and flyers everywhere, the student body doesn't go to our games. A volleyball match may have 200 people in the stands on average, wrestling, half that. Football naturally has more but even then it's nothing compared to other schools.
Why is that?

Iron Cat

There are standardized tests that collegiate atheletes preform at the end of a conditioning period that test your over all athletic ability. You do not have to be good at the actual sport or any aspect of specific play, you just have to be an athelete. I may not be the best volleyball player in the nation but I consider myself extremely athletic. We had this debate in class about physical athletes looking better and being better at the sport than fundamental athletes. When we tested I proved that I was an athlete but that does not necessarily translate to me being a great volleyball player.
I don't think that it's fair to say that to be good at a sport you must be athletic. It may "look" asthetically more pleasing but may not get the job done.

losing and still having fun?

I don't know if I could play a sport and never win. We were having a little conversation on our end of the table and Demos says "Matt no one even knows what Rugby is" and Matt replied " I would rather play a sport that no one knows and win, than play a sport that everyone knows and watches but suck" and sadly I almost agree with Matt.
We didn't have the best season this year and the team became catty and snippy. It just wasn't fun and our season only lasted for 4 months, so I can't imagine going through years and years in a "slump" it takes the fun out of the game. Everyone likes to win

what is a sport and whats not

I personally would think it would be cool to analyze a sport that we've never played before to see how we see a sport from an "outsiders" point of view. I know that when we talk in class and people are talking about baseball and track and even rugby I can't relate or sometimes even feel the same way they do about a topic because I've never experienced some of the things they talk about. I think it's really hard to discuss how one "game" is more of a sport than another if it's never been tried. Something may seem easy but in reality it's REALLY not.
i.e. We're in our off season right now and all we do is condition and lift. We have this running "punishment" where you have to snake through the stair separating the bleachers there are 8 sets of stairs going up and all you have to do is run up one come down the next and so on then sprint to where you started and go again. It doesn't sound like it's that bad and we only do 4-6 but when you actually do them it is incredibly hard.

Hero

My hero is Oganna Nnanami. She is a volleyball player that played for Stanford for four years and is one of the best players that ever came through they're program. She's an amazing force on the court but she also makes you want to play your hardest for her. I believe that if you have a hero that you can see and you can talk to that it will make you work so much harder to make sure that you do not dissapoint them. Even though they may never be dissapointed in anything you do it's hard not to feel like you let them down. She really made me want to excel in volleyball and be as good as I could be to get the recognition that she has and had. That is what a hero means to me

Sports and Art

I think that there are people that would say sports and art are very similar. For many people they both can evoke strong emotion and thought. But I also think that it is a completely subjective. If you like art AND sport than it may be a lot easier for you to see the connections between the two more readily than someone that likes one or the other. I have seen art and thought "wow that's beautiful" and I have also seen plays made in sports and thought the same thing but I think that the two beauties are different and are comparing beauty rather than the fact that a sport is art or not.

We were kings

I thought that Ali was a great fighter. He had what it took to instill fear into his opponents. He would never show it but he was terrified to fight half the men he was put in the ring with. But by sheer egotisitical "slashing" as we've learned is the Austrailian term he was able to get into the heads of some of the greatest boxers in the nation.