The Student Section

                In every sports contest there are plenty of fans that come and watch. Then there is the student section. They are very loud, rowdy, and are screaming at the top of their lungs the whole entire game. Some of the things they do are just to support their team, and some of it is to get into the heads of the other team. Laura Ulrich writes an article on dealing with the students at high schools harassing other teams with body paint or signs, and talks about how alcohol may be the cause of this.

                This is a big problem that high school administrators and athletic directors have to deal with at their games. Many schools have policies that the students must abide by or they will be kicked out of the game. They also have a drinking policy which is not allowed at the tailgates.

                I think this problem is something that can be solved very easily. The first thing you need to deal with is the drinking at the tailgates of high school games.  No student in high school is 21 and old enough to drink, so it shouldn’t happen, but it does. All high school facilities should have a policy where there is absolutely no alcohol allowed on its grounds. Even the parents shouldn’t be allowed to drink either. It should be treated just like school. You don’t want a parent visiting the school to bring a beer inside, so why allow it at the high school sporting events. Next is you need to have administrators  all around the student section and if anything inappropriate is being said that person should be taken out and the other students will see there is strict policy.

                I don’t think the student section should be any quieter or not be as excited as they are, but there is an appropriate and right way to do it, which can still be fun.

 

Ulrich, Laura. “Battling Booze and Body Paint.” Athletic Management (2007)

http://www.athleticmanagement.com/2007/10/29/battling_booze_and_body_paint/index.php

Facilities Expand Throughout Neighborhoods

            Many schools these days want to expand and upgrade their athletic facilities. There are many of repercussions to doing this though. First it is going to cost a lot of money. The second thing is you have to choose where in your county or city you are going to build the new facilities.

            When getting the money to build a new facility, it has to come from someone. It can come from your boosters. It can come from the people of the town. Or it can come from an outside source. When trying to pass a proposal of a new facility to the people, the town there usually has some type of vote that the city has to have to decide. That way they have a say if they want this to happen and know what will happen to the town if it goes through. They also will know how much money they will be spending if any at all.

            This brings me to my second point on where will the facility be built in the city. Some facilities move into the neighborhoods and people may lose their homes. So the vote that they have may help them have a say in people losing their houses or not.

            This is a great topic that athletic facility supervisors or any facility supervisors may want to think about when wanting to build a new facility. I would also recommend to them to read an article by Kelley Povero called “There Goes the Neighborhood?” which has a lot of interesting situations on this topic.

Kelley, Povero. “There Goes the Neighborhood?” Athletic Management (2007).

http://www.athleticmanagement.com/2007/07/26/there_goes_the_neighborhood/index.php

Athletes and Social Media

          In the article “Twitter Gone Bad”, the Athletic Management website informs the public on an issue with student athletes using Twitter inappropriately. In this article they describe how 6 football players from a high school in Oregon, were suspended for tweeting inappropriate and racist comments about a player that recently transferred to another school. They received the suspension for cyber bullying which was a state law that was put into place for the schools. Their coach was interviewed for the article and basically said it was a bunch of stupid comments that his athletes made, and the problem was that in this day in age the way that people communicate is viewable for the whole public to see.

            First off I would like to say that the students should have never made these comments to the player that transferred. Next the students need to understand that communication via Twitter is viewable for all of the public to see. The final thing I would like to say on this issue is all schools should talk to their students about this issue. I don’t know if the coach ever had a talk or if the school ever had a talk to their students about social media harassing. I know that my high school did and it was very clear, that you need to watch what is on your social media sites. But I would recommend any coaches or school to make sure that this talk or a meeting about this situation is put into place so their students understand.

            I think this a great article and a great lesson that not only student athletes can read and learn about but also any student can read and learn about. This is a type of bullying that a lot of schools have issues on, and is something that can be prevented.

 

“Twitter Gone Bad” Athletic Management (2012)

http://www.athleticmanagement.com/2012/03/09/twitter_gone_bad/index.php

Should Pre Workout Drinks Cause Suspensions?

          The Athletic Management website wrote an article describing how Wisconsin high school athletes were suspended for using energy drinks/ pre workout drinks. In this article they explain how 10 athletes were using legal energy drinks, and pre workout drinks that they bought at the local GNC. The drink that they were using was a Creatine Nitrate product called C4 Extreme that contained Synephrine, a substance banned by the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association. The students explained how they were just buying a pre workout drink like any other athlete would for their workouts, and had no idea that it contained Synephrine. They then said if they would have read the label and saw that it was banned, or their coaches would have reminded them that it was banned they would have never used it.

            So the real questions I am getting from this are, Should the students really be suspended for this? Is it their fault, the coach’s fault, or GNC’s fault? I honestly think that it is not the students fault at all. The first thing that the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, should have done is inform the coaches on the banned substances that they have and make sure that they inform their athletes. This way the athletes know when going to buy a pre workout what they are limited to buying. Also the GNC store is at fault too. They should have bold letters on their products that say “contains Synephrine and is banned in some states.” This would have prevented the situation from happening at all.

            I think this article was great and all student athletes should read this, so they know that they are limited on pre workout products that they put in their body, and if they are unsure they should contact their coach and find out what is banned.

 

“Energy Drink Leads to Suspensions” Athletic Management (2012).

http://www.athleticmanagement.com/2012/07/16/according_to_the_eau_claire/index.php

Athletic Departments Turning the Corner

            To address all of the types of situations that athletic departments go through to keep their programs alive, Laura Ulrich published an article named “Turning the Corner” for Athletic Management in the fall of 2008. Laura Ulrich is currently a contributing writer for Athletic Management. This article describes how athletic departments had to deal with all types of issues that made them look bad, but they find a way to overcome them. Ulrich wrote this article to explain what athletic departments have to go through just to keep their program afloat.

            In this article, Ulrich used 6 different types of situations that have happened to explain how athletic programs have overcome some type of crisis, and how it is possible to overcome a crisis. I will be explaining 3 of them I was really interested in.

 She first uses a situation at Montana State. In this situation student athletes were being charged of a violent crime and also being charged of drug dealing.  This caused the school and athletic program with have a very bad reputation.  Ulrich then explains how the athletic director at Montana State gets a group together to get this situation solved. They use a SWOT analysis, which stands for "Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats," to solve this situation. It only took two years for the program to turn this situation around and have a good reputation again. Which I think was a good strategy, because you need to get everyone together and find some solution to bring the program back to where it needs to be.

 The second story involves a high school having to deal with one of their student athletes being photographed drinking and doing drugs at a party, then the images being uploaded on Facebook. The school doesn’t know what to do about this situation because they never had any rules against it, but they were getting a lot of negative media about it. This situation ended up making the school have a policy on social media sites and pictures, which eventually spread throughout other school’s policies too. I think this is a big problem that happens in a lot of schools these days, and I know social media can cause a lot of trouble for people. So there needs to be some type of policy for student athletes and their social media.

 The last story I’m going to talk about involves a Title IX problem, where a female student athlete felt like she was being mistreated compared to the male athletes. So the school ended up asking her what she felt wasn’t fair, and came up with a solution were the women athletes were getting the same opportunity as male athletes. This is an issue that all schools must take into consideration, because Title IX can cause a lot of issues and a may cause a bad reputation for your school if you don’t watch it carefully.

            Ulrich explains these situations very well in this article. Her argument on how athletic programs have to deal with a lot is explained great by all of the situations and stories that she explained.  I really enjoyed reading this article, the stories that she provided were great and I honestly couldn’t stop reading until I found out what they did to fix the situations. I would recommend this article to basically anyone that likes sports or are involved in some type of sport. This deals with the crisis that programs have to go through sometimes, and there is always some type of problem that comes up. This article would be a great reference for people to read and try and deal with problems they may have in their sports.

 

Ulrich, Laura. "Turning the Corner." Athletic Management (2008).

http://www.athleticmanagement.com/2008/08/24/turning_the_corner/index.php