"Final Reflections"

Before taking Introduction to Critical Sport Studies I always just viewed sports as entertainment and a way to stay in shape. I played sports all through high school but once I arrived at college, they just became entertainment, nothing else. Sitting around with friends watching football all Sunday and eating pizza pretty much sums up sports for me. This class interested me because I wanted to learn the sociological components found within sport culture. Now that class is about to come to an end, I would definitely agree that my understanding of US sport culture has changed through taking class. I learned about so many topics that impact sports such as gender, race, disabilities, violence, LGBTQs, the sport ethic, paying college athletes, and more. Paying college athletes stood out to me the most because it was something I used to be completely against but after doing research, a class debate, and writing a paper on the topic, my opinions changed and this does not happen to me very often. I will definitely start asking more critical questions about the US sports world. I also would highly recommend this class to any of my friends because it provides very interesting and useful information about sports.  

Why The "Man's Game" is an Insult to Men

Currently, sports are not a safe space for LGBT athletes. They never have been and hopefully they will be in the future. The documentary "Training Rules" is a great example of this because it examines how women college sports are controlled and influenced by homophobic practices and how many talented athletes lives are destroyed due to their sexuality. Rene Portland, the old women basketball coach for Penn State made 3 rules, no drinking, no drugs, no lesbians. Portland would make it her goal to destroy any athlete who was gay and therefore many of her athletes could not come out. However this is not the only instance of homophobic behaviors in sport. Athletes are constantly afraid of coming out because they fear what their teammates would say, what other teams would say, and what fans would say. Robbie Rogers expresses that the only way he could come out was by leaving football. He also said that many of his friends and teammates support him but he is terrified about how is fans will act. Often times people will say something negative towards you but you can shrug it off because they don't know you personally. Well expressing your sexuality is something very personal and it is hard to deal with if someone attacks it. There are constant stories about athletes who want to come out but cannot because they are afraid of this. Yeah we could implement classes and educate athletes but not everyone is going to agree with LGBTQs, that is just our society currently. In my opinion it will just take time. Our current generation has progressed so much so far and I truly believe that it will only continue to progress, it will just take awhile.