PRIORITY REGISTRATION

Another great topic has popped up again in my Sociology of Sport class. Wow. Dr. Evans sure does like causing som heated discussions. This one was what people thought about priority registration.

Priority registration allows athletes to register a day earlier then students.
The kids in the class of course put in there ten cents with statements like, "They are just lazy, they are taking the later classes, " We have work, that is getting us through college."

Most of the athletes have to take the later classes because they are working there butts off since the sun went up. And a majority of the athletes have there sport but are also working on the weekends for some extra money.

Everybody just needs to take a break on putting down there athletes, because a student athlete is a full time job in itself. Priority registration is a little payback for what we go through.

PRIVACY

Have you ever heard of myspace or facebook. Well your'e not the only one. I guess my coach has gotten a hang of it as well.
Facebook and myspace are meeting places on the internet to get in touch with old and new friends, post pictures of the weekends and have people laugh at them the next day.
Well I am in college and some of the stuff I do on the weekends does not need to be seen by my coach. I give him all week and one day on the weekends. I keep my grades up and compete with one hundred percent. I am twenty years old and need a little fun.
I do not need my coach watching over me in my private life.
How much rights do the coaches have. I feel like this is an invasion of privacy.

CROSS TRAINING

Cross training. Believe me as an alumni of the injured group I definitely know how important it is to cross train.
Cross training consists of activities that do not cause pounding to your legs such as bicyling and swimming.
My boyfriend, who is also on the soccer team, is going through an injury. He just does not understand the importance of staying strong while recovering. I was never use to cross training before I came to college, but thank god for it. My coach would have me sweating like I never sweat before on the eliptical.
An aqua jogging they say will keep you in the shape you left in up to six weeks. So believe me cross training does pay off. He is just going to have to suck it up and do it. A1A is georgous to bike ride down anyways.
Just to prove it to you, when I came off my stress fracture, it only took me three weeks and I ran my second to best time in the 5k ever.

Gambling

Have you ever thought that your college team couldn't be beat. Then you got a crazy idea to place a little bet. Well bad idea. Every semester college athletes have to go to these things called workshops. And the workshop that I decided to go watch was on gambling.
Gambling. Yes it happens. And colleges are not prepared to deal with probelms associated with this growing fad. The guy that led the seminar was a recovered gambler himself. He was once a football player in college that made a stupid choice.
I have personal experience with this. One of my dear friend's from high school and scholarship football player at USF was kicked off the team last year and out of school for making a bet on one of his games.
It is a stupid mistake college kids think they can make to make quick money. But really it is just a stupid mistake to make quick jail time.

What really matters

This week the Florida Atlantic University track and swimming teams competed in the SunBelt conference. After long hours, blood, sweat, and tears, the teams were ready to compete.
But some people over looked the determination and my teammates looked unhealthy. Anybody could of noticed this, but did my coach say anything. No. This was one of our top runners. When it comes to conference all that matters is placing first.
Then you have us injured runners, that are trying to get better and in shape. Once the week of conference hits, we are like ghosts. We might as well be taken off the roster. My injured teammates and I would have to make up are own schedules because somehow someway are training logs got erased in the mail or something, we guess.
But that's ok, are coach thinks. All that matters is what happens at conference. Right?

FOOTBALL! it is not the only sport in your school

As I walked into the training room last week, I had a football player next to me. We both sat down at the same time and I swere all of he trainers flocked to him. Not one even turned to me to ask what was wrong. Then I was standing outside the laundry room, and it felt like I ot barricaded by an army of men. The football players did not even care that I was standing there. They will sit outside the Oxley, hitting and whistling at all the girls that walk into the Oxley. Ewww. Come on guys. Grow up your'e not in high school now. For a team that went 4 and 7 last year, I sure would not be walking around with my nose in the air. The volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball, and girl's soccer teams all won conference championships last year. And the track team placed third. The football team did not even make it into the playoffs. So I asked the training room, why do they only care about them? They repied: They are the ones that bring all the money into the school. Haha. Are you serious? Have you been to the games? They can not even fill up a high school stadium. They explained how the football team actually got paid five hundred thousand dollars for going and playing Clemson. Even though they got killed 54- 6 , that was Clemson's goal. It's like the Circle of Life. Clemson gets money for winning because the Alumni will donate the more their team wins. Then FAU gets awarded because the team paid them to go and get pounded. I guess if humiliation gets you money then why not. Maybe eventually the football players will learn that they are not all that and it definitely is not cute. The percentage of college athletes to the pros is so minimal. So maybe everyone in the athletics department should work together in bringing team's to other team's event's and those football boys will put their noses down and walk next to say a cross country runner.

DRUG TESTS

CAPTION: Pictured above is positive drug user, and professional baseball player Barry Bonds

Steroids. Pain Killers. Drugs. They are so common now in the sports world it is ridiculous. When somebody breaks a record now and days, you can't help to wait to see if it was a legal win or not. Last year, the Tour De France winner, Floyd Landis had to give down his tophy for testing positive to two drug tests. Barry Bonds, a baseball record holder is fighting to prove that he was innocent in his drug tests. Some other postive testers in baseball were Mark McGuire, Jose Canseco, and Darryl Strawberry. Then you look at sports such as track and even basketball. World record holder Marion Jones had her olympic medal taken away for drugs two years ago. It is sad. So sad. That these professionals can not just be great. They have to be great but cheat to get there. How does that make us feel that have looked up to them since we were little and are in college competing so one day we can be just as good as them or even better. But why would we want to be like them since they are just a lie. This is why the NCAA performs random drug tests each couple of months. And the target sports are always track and baseball. It just stinks. But it is something all of us college athletes have to do. Wake up at 6 in the morning and pea in a cup. But who cares. If that is what it takes to prove to younger kids that they can get to the professional level by pure talent. Just working hard and doing what is right and not taking the easy way out.

WEIGHT TRAINING

Last week, Shalane Flanagan broke the 5k record at the US championships. She said the one thing that she changed since college was her strength and training workouts. She got a coach and started knowing changes in her times dramatically. So of course once our coach found out about this, weight training was on the top of our list. Every Tuesday and Thursday we go to the gym at 9:30. Ugggh! Sometimes I hate it. I do not understand why we have to lift weights if we our cross country runners. I do not want to look like a discus thrower when I step onto that line. Some of the exercises that we do, I do agree with. The fab 5 and the triple threat are all ab workouts and I love a good six pack. But with weight training your body hurts the next day. So if I go on Tuesday to lift, I am sore on Wednesday, then we lift on Thursday, then again, I am sore on Friday. And I swere are weight coach has no clue about running, he is an ultimate fighter. But I guess are coach will not quit on this weight trainging program, since last week, five of my teammates broke school records at the Boston Invitational. The team has conference in two weeks, so we will see how good everybody really progressed.

Sociology of Sport.

The other day in my Sociology class, Professor Evans decided to have a debates, students vs. student athletes, on who has it better. Right off the back all the regular students were like, "Athletes get a curve on grades", "Athletes get free tutors", "Athletes get what they want," "Blah, blah, blah." So this got the athletes fired up. Well the students are at home sleeping in until their class, a majority of the athletes are at practice or lifting weights before the sun comes up. One of the students said that we are babied when people check on us if we are in class. Well I bet that the student athletes have much better attendance then the regular students for sure, so who cares if somebody is checking up on us or not. Then their are the athletes like me, that are on scholarship, traveling, interning, school full time, and working a job. DO you still think we have it easy. Each athlete has to carry at least a 2.0 GPA to stay eligible so failing is not an option. Do students realize that alot of the events that go on at school are because of the funds their school teams brought in. You can't tell me that when one looks at a school that half of them do not look at their athletic teams. One of the most popular school in the nation is the University of Florida, and that's because they just on two national championships in one year. So give me a break and stop whining. It's a hard job but somebody has to do it.

What is it going to take

So I am just coming off of an injury, and my legs are getting kind of mad with all this new pounding that I am adding to them. I figured that I could just walk up to our equipment manager and I would get what I need: new shoes. Last week, I went into the Oxley every day after practice, yellling for Adam, the equipment guy. No response. A couple days later I was like this is ridiculous. So many people on my team were running around with new gear. I know I was injured but I am still a part of this team. Does coach want me to be injured again for running in bad shoes? So finally this morning, Linn, one of my teammates and I walked back to Adam's office. What we found was a guy in boxer shorts and a sweater opening the door, with sleep in his eye. You got to be joking me. I simply said, "It has been a few weeks that I have seen people with new gear, and coach said you should have brand new shoes for all of us, do you have what I need." Adam replies: "Oh no. I just ordered all new shoes, they should be in next week, and I have no gear." Right then, I knew that was pure laziness. I have seen that equipment room, and there is always something to give. This is a division 1 school, and the hard work we put in, we deserve better from the staff.

OVERHEARD THIS WEEK

I thought of a new post that would be fun to do each week. Many things are seen and heard in the Oxley. So the best quote that I hear will be the subject for the post.For those of you who do not know the Oxley is the athletic center at FAU where one can find locker rooms, a training room, study hall, and conference rooms. Well this weeks subjects are a couple of swimmers and their coach that I walked past during a conversation. The swimmers were complaining to there coach that they felt sick because of the cold weather, rain, and 6 a.m practices. To my surprise the coaches reply was a simple, "That's just a myth. Cold weather does not make you sick". I was shocked. Are you serious? Do the coaches care about our health? So I decided to do some research on the very reliable search engine google. At pioneerthinking. com I could not believe what they had written. Is it fact or fiction? Well the website replied: Fiction. Cold weather has nothing to do with catching a cold. Many people become ill due to the fact that we tend to spend more time indoors in close contact with other people in heated homes. Because of the heated close quarters, germs are more easily passed from person to person. Well I still don't believe it. Come on, if I was to sleep in the cold weather by myself, you can't tell me I will not feel like I have some sort of cold.

COACH or FRIEND

When does a coach go to far on the friendship level. I have been running for many years and have seen many coaches. Some I would call just a coach and some I could also call a friend. My freshmen year of college, I still had a very close realtionship with my high school coach so I thought I would automatically have one with my college coach. I made a close bond with him and thought that he was like a second father becuase my dad was all the way on the other coast, and when he brought me over her he promised to take care of us when we signed a scholarship. Then I started to have a rough season, and the one person that I thought would be there for me, wasn't. It was my fault I was not running well and he did not understand. I got so frustrated and so betrayed I almost quit. But I sucked it up because I truly do love running and stuck with it. I came out of my little rut and this year kept the relationship strictly on a coach and teamate level as did many more of the athletes on my team. That is all we are there for right? If we do our job then we should be ok.

PUSHING IT TO FAR

Last week, one of the soccer coaches told one of their athletes that they needed to lose ten pounds. Sure the athlete could be out of shape, but what if it is said to the wrong person. Being an athlete in a sport like track , eating disorders are very prominent. Athletes want to be number one and they will do whatever it takes to get there.Does the coach have a right to decide ones weight. What if one does take it to far, does the coach have the right to tell that person to eat more. In the past year on my team, I can tell who has a problem. What do I say to them? You are under alot of pressure, but there is a difference between determination and obsession.

HEY BATTER BATTER!

February 2nd is right around the corner, and your local baseball team is ready for a winning season. But if you can't can make it on the second, don't worry. Fans now have other options to watch the game. Games will now be posted over the internet at www.fausports.com/gametracker. Tickets to the games are free for students and six dollars for everyone else. Last year FAU went 30-28 and just fell short in the A-SUN championships.