Conclusion - Ollie Goss

I thought this class was very interesting and educational compared to any other classes I've taken at BG. This class was made enjoyable because of the discussions that were debated in class such as if we still hated LeBron or was Serena's "crip" walk offensive. During this semester, I learned all the benefits for women that Title IX produced and how that law has boosted women's sports in the U.S. to the best in the world. We learned this when we talked about the olympics and how the women won the United States the medal count and most golds.
I also learned that Billy Jean King was one of the most important figures in advancing the equality of women's sports in America. I had never heard of her match with Bobby Riggs and didn't know the massive impact her victory in that match had on the sporting world. I also learned about how difficult of a time transgender athletes have had attempting to compete in sports.
I found the entire sections on Title IX and budgeting useful because I would like to become an athletic director upon graduation of college and being knowledgable of the budgeting processes and dilemmas will help me in the future. I thought the athletic budgeting we completed in our groups was a great simulation of how hard it is to be a collegiate athletic director.
A few of the articles I found interesting were the ones on "cool pose", athletes the pros would pay to see, and sister act VI. I thought the "cool pose" article was interesting because it showed how the NBA gained culture from the hip hop environment and a sense of swagger to NBA superstars. The prime example of cool pose was Allen Iverson and how he dressed like rap artists. Another article I thought was interesting was "Who the pros would pay to see". The article was a little outdated but I still thought it was interesting how the female athlete everyone wanted to see was Serena Williams, but not for her amazing tennis game, but because of her sex appeal. It was also interesting to see how many athletes would pay to be Tiger Woods' caddy. I also thought the Sister Act VI article was interesting because I had never heard of the incident that occurred at Indian Wells and was shocked that tennis fans would do that. I could see fans from Philadelphia or New York do that, but tennis fans who are supposed to be proper and more courteous yelling racial slurs is unheard of.
Keeping a blog helped me write about discussions in class as well as provide more information on current events that dealt with the controversial issues debated in class. The blogs provided a way to expand on some of the discussions talked about in class and really functioned as an educational tool.
Presentations about figures in tennis or basketball were more interesting to me than our presentation about hockey because I'm not really a hockey fan. I am a pretty big tennis and basketball fans and watch the sports whenever they're on tv. I rarely watch hockey and when I do, I watch during the playoffs so I wasn't too interested in the presentation on Sydney Crosby.
As I previously stated, some of the activities that I will take from this class was the budgeting activity during the athletic director simulation as well as the unit of Title IX. Being in compliance with Title IX is a necessity the school I work at.