Script Draft: ASU Athletes

English 101 project due at midnight, presentation to be ready for tomorrow at 10:00 AM in WPC 101, and a CIS 101 exam due; these are the least of a college athletes worries. They also have to worry about representing roughly 60,000 students on the field, ice, or court. The life of a college athlete is one of the most demanding careers a teenager could ask for, and they do not even get paid. There are hundreds of millions of dollars that are made by the Universities of these modern day (maybe a little extreme)slaves. You might ask yourself why anyone would ask for such a brutal routine in college and I am here to talk about why that is. As a freshman myself I know how hard it is to stay on track even without playing a sport; tests, assignments, and exams due every week. I could not imagine what it would be like to add an activity that is just a time consuming as being a student, like these student athletes have done.

Sports over the past hundreds of year have had the ability to bring people together all over the world. Imagining a  universe today without the presence of sports and their athletes is a very different place. During the 2004 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Ivory Coast, was able to suspend their civil war in order to bring the country together to cheer for their home; the civil rights movement had a great impact by sports after allowing blacks to play on the same field as whites. We have every athlete in the world to thank for keeping these sports alive, but most importantly we can thank our Arizona State University athletes for keeping the dream alive. If not for these athletes unfortunate children living in inner-cities all across our country would have nothing to look up to. That is why everyone at ASU should see what it really takes to be a college athlete and why it is that they do it. 

Here I have Jason Kuta who plays for the Sun Devils ice hockey team talking about what it is that makes him want to practice and spend his time representing Arizona State. “I have really always loved hockey and no matter how demanding, it is always a pleasure to be able to go out on the ice and be able to skate. I have always watch the Chicago Blackhawks growing up and I realize that I will never be able to play at such a level, it is nice to be able to represent the Sun Devils and just being able to tell people that I am on the Arizona State hockey teams is enough for me. I am just grateful that Arizona has been able to provide a club hockey so I wouldn’t have to stop playing hockey anytime soon.” Even though club is not as extreme as playing a D-1 sport here at ASU it is still very demanding. The teams have to sacrifice vacations to travel all across the country to play different collegiate teams. 

There truly is nothing like being a football player at this school. Every single player on the team could have continued their careers playing football at some other college, which is way it is something special on its own that they decided to come here to the Arizona desert heat to represent the Sun Devils. This year their hard work is really starting to finally pay off; they beat their rivals University of Arizona, finished 5th in the Pac-12, and they will be playing in a bowl game this year. All these are great achievements are nothing to be overlooked and will be making the school a lot of money. Each player knowing that they will not be making any money after knowing how much money is being made off of them, would definitely be affecting how much effort I put in at practice and in games; but these kids are all out practicing at 6:00 AM everyday  for the love of the game and a college education. (football players interview here)

Even though there is a argument that these colleges are in a way extorting all these student-athletes, it is all for the greater good. At some schools football makes enough money to pay for all the other sports. That is why it is such an extraordinary process, the colleges give every sport a chance which gives any athlete a chance. Talking to Nick Bettancourt who plays for the ASU club baseball team it is clear that these athletes are just happy that they are able to play a sport in college. “I have played baseball all my life and was just not ready to give that up. Playing for a college team has given me a chance to meet a lot of great kids and and continue my baseball career and I am pretty happy about that.” College sports are a blessing to this country. It is one of the biggest industries in the world and employs millions of Americans who without these sports would not have a way to keep putting food on the table for their family. It gives kids hope for a better life making more money then they could ever dream of and doing what they love. If not for all these hardworking, unselfish, athletes who are still seen to many as young men then the dream would be over. At Arizona State University the student body should be thankful for all the student athletes at the school, because there is not other people I could should that represents us better. 

ASU reacts: Election 2016: Too Soon?

In the NPR article I discussed, the topic was about how it is never too early to start talking about the next presidential election. After such a close election just a few days ago there is already talk about who the next candidates will be in 2016. The speaker, Ken Rubin, shares his knowledge about who would be chosen and why for each political party. For example, he assumes that Republican party could choose Marco Rubio based off of how Mitt Romney did in this recent election. The latino vote was one of the major reasons Romney lost Florida, one of the most important battleground states, and Rubio having great response from the latino voters as the senator could have a better shot with that state. Rubin also has sources in the democratic party that thinks Hilary Clinton could have the best shot at the democratic nomination even though it usually goes to the vice president which would be Joe Biden. Biden would be 73 years old for the next election which is seen as many as too old to take office. 

“I think it is definitely to early to already start thinking about who the next president will be, but this article does do a good job at showing who the future candidates could be. I feel comfortable that Rubin knows what he is talking about when it comes to politics because the way he is introduced as a political junky.” 

This has a very clear argument pertaining to who the presidential candidates will be in 2016. That being said the article could do a better job stating its sources to give the listener more confidence that the speaker knows what he is talking about.

Genre Evaluation: Election 2016: Too Soon?

Election 2016: Too Soon?

In the article I chose to listen to the speaker, Ken Rubin, gives his opinion towards what the election of 2016 will most likely look like. After these last few weeks of non-stop political talk with the election between Romney and Obama, the speaker takes a different route and uses sources to relay the ideas of who could be considered by each party to run for president in 2016. He does not use sources to tell exactly who each party would be choosing in the next election but instead states the information taken from a source and draws his own conclusions towards who the parties would most likely be considering. For example, Marco Rubio a senator from Florida is consider as a top choice for the republican party because of the fact that Florida is one of the most important state in the election which is always very close, and his ties to the latino community could really help the republican party. Rubin drew this conclusion because Romney did not receive as much of the latino vote as the party would have liked which in the end cost the electoral votes in Florida and maybe the election. Another conclusion that was drawn by the speaker was how instead of the usual vice president running for president after the end of the president’s term the democratic party could instead decide to go with Hilary Clinton. The speaker heard from sources that Joe Biden could be considered too old to be considered for the presidency job and Hilary Clinton would be the obvious choice for the party. Rubin does not do a good job when it comes to citing his sources though, in the article you pretty much just have to take his word for it because he just talk about inside sources in each political parties but doesn't define his exact sources. It is easy to tell the Rubin is consider by the host of the show and himself as a political expert. In the beginning of the show he is introduced as a “political junkie” which makes the listener confident in the Rubin knowing what he is talking about. It is obvious that the information and statistics given by the speaker is provided to help support his opinions on which candidates will be chosen in 2016. The thoughts were expressed very simply, Rubin started with an introduction on how the democrats won this year and what the republicans did wrong; then talked about what the republicans choice of candidate should be, followed by the democrats choice for the election, and finishes with a short expectation of the 2016 election. This article did do a good job on shedding light on what the next election will look like, personally I think it is too soon to already start predicting the next election but for someone that is interested it is an interesting article. 

I am still not 100% sure on what my topic for project three will be, because I was not in class on Monday I am still going to wait on more information on the project. That being said I think it could be interesting to do a project on playing a sport at school, being a business student, or being a part of greek life. 

Project 2 Reflection: Dorms

There are a couple different things that I thought I did well on in this project. The first thing I thought I did well was prepare for this project, I usually wait to the last second to do all my projects but during this project I was able to write a good draft that really helped me make the best possible final project I could. During the first project I didn’t do a rough draft and I think that really hurt my grade in the end. Another thing I think I did well was finding as much information I could to do the best possible evaluation I could. I learned as much as I could on eat dorm so that my evaluation would not be bias in any way. Something I struggled with in this project was my initial evaluation of each dorm. I don’t think I really understood what a true evaluation was until I was able to talk to Professor Linthicum and get his feedback from my first draft. After getting the feedback I was able to really improve my project which I did not have a chance to do during my first project. Another thing I struggled with was the work cited, it was difficult to find a good source for my topic so I think I might have settled with an average quote for my project. I learned how to really produce a true evaluation during this project; you have to take the good and bad of each subject and really evaluate which is better based on sources and reason. I do feel that I was able to craft a good evaluation, I took everything I knew and researched about each dorm and based off of studies and valid sources found out which dorm could be considered the best at Arizona State University. I came to the conclusion that Hassayampa Academic Village was the best place to live as an incoming freshman based off of all the good thing and bad things and comparing it to the other dorms, but not only comparing based off of my opinion but finding valid sources about what would make a dorm room good or bad. I could use this work probably every day of my life whenever I need to make a decision. Whenever I am forced to choose between different choices all I have to do is remember what I learned in this project to find the good and bad about each choice to really find out what would be the best choice for me.