Immediate Post-Olympics Reactions

It seems to me that in years past I felt the urge to watch far more of the Winter OLympics than I did this year. They just weren't that exciting. I even had the sense that studio hosts like Bob Costas and Al Michaels were just going through the motions, that which is expected of them every four years. It isn't that the Games are too commercialized exactly, at least not in terms of the numbers and kinds of commercials. But there is a sense--or at least I had it--that false excitement kept getting pushed by NBC. Certainly they had reason to do that, given their huge financial investment in the Olympics. Vonn and Ohno going after gold just didn't have that compelling feel to it. Despite looking like he is barely 20, Ohno seems to have been around since at least Squaw Valley. It is almost always better to have excitement growing form the grass roots.

One problem with the Winter Games--though this existed four years ago and all times before--is that there are few events with head-to-head competition. The most compelling sports are usually those where you can watch the contenders facing off, not going after each other hours apart on a downhill ski course. The Winter Games needs more of this, and the snowboarding and skiing events in which multiple athletes go at the same time were genuinely exciting. It just isn't that compelling to watch a single athlete do something by themselves--even in skating, maybe for the first time, I found the Pairs and Ice Dancing to be more interesting than the Ladies competition.

Discipline in College Sports

Am I alone in finding it absurd when college coaches levy "punishments" on their players for significant violations of the social compact? How can an individual who is so self-interested in having his players play, in winning, in preserving his job, possibly take the right action? The latest indication of the silliness of this phenomenon appeared in the newspaper today--Florida football coach Meyer is suspending one of his star linebackers for one half of a game they should win anyway for attempting to gouge out the eye of an opponent. Now gouging is not something that anyone in our society should be encouraging, or allowing to happen, and I don't think most football players would condone it. While the player in question will likely be unhappy about sitting out one half, that's not much of a consequence for taking that inappropriate action on the football field. Why not at least suspend him for the entire game--because the coach may be afraid he would lose? All the way up into the professional ranks, commentators decry the coddling of great athletes to the point where they never suffer negative consequences for much of anything, except bad sports performance on the field of play. The half-assed messages we send with discipline like this can only lead to potentially bigger social misconduct later on in life.

Debut

In this blog, we are going to perform just as the display name suggests--by articulating reasonable positions on a variety of issues and advocating for others to join me in taking them and acting on them. I am writing this blog in the belief that there are few well-informed opinions being expressed out here in the ether--not that my opinion will always be "Right" but I will attempt to bring to the public discussion some effort to clarify matters and make it easier for others to see the value in supporting certain courses of action. I would love to have others of similar "reasonable" mind engage with me.