Interests

From the very start i knew my favorite teacher was going to be Mr. Gus.  Some where in his fifties, balding, and old man glasses he definitely looked the part of a middle school science teacher.  But before becoming a teacher Mr. Gus lived an exciting life as a Mechanical engineer for Northrop Grumman, a military and civilian company specializing in state of the art projects that push the limits of technology.  Naturally being the twelve year old nerd I was, I immediately wanted to know about everything he worked on and got to see at work which unfortunately he could talk very little about due to the military nature of the projects.  Regardless of my constant prying and questions he encouraged me, as soon as we met, to join his after school robotics club the school sponsored and i was immediately hooked.

Robotics were always fascinating to me and being part of the club allowed an early introduction to the complicated world of building a robot.  The club met three times a week and would work on small line following robots or some that would have a gripper arm to pic up pencils and throw them around the room.  Despite al the fooling around that went on with the builds everyone knew why we were there, to compete at the end of the year robotics competition at the local high school.  Teams form all over the state from many different age levels and groups came to compete in the various categories.    Our schools team was competing in a competition called the obstacle course where a robot had to drive across a room without touching any obstacles and making it to the other side without any human input,  naturally we wanted to win.  Without Mr. Gus  there would have been no chance in us going to the competition let along making a robot that can navigate complex rooms on its own.  Mr. Gus introduced me to the world of robotics, he showed how intricate, unique and difficult to build each one is.  Even after leaving middle school I know without him i would not be pursuing a technical field today or still have such a deep love for creating.

A Societal Split

As I sit here trying to think of what to write about I can come up with a bunch of topics that bother me but not many that can turn into a full length paper.  I went back through my old blog posts for inspiration and I feel inclined with college basketball just around the corner to write about my blog post that is tied with this video.  The video is a bunch of UCLA students discussing in a very persuasive and passionate tone, the problems with college athletics and recruiting to African Americans.

The universities are not the only cultural pressure that encourages the stereotype, but because college is the easiest way for an athlete to go professional, minus Lebron, this is the main source I will look at.

The stereotype goes that the power sports teams in college (Football, Basketball) are comprised of mainly African American players.  My claim is that this is due to problems within the Universities.  They have engrained the idea in young black males that if they want to succeed they must go on to play sports in their life.  Using the statistics presented in the video along with other research I will find, I will show how a white male and a black male are being pushed by society and major universities, in opposite directions from day one.  A white man towards a career outside of sports and a black man pushed towards a career in sports, thus affecting their goals and priorities from a very young age.

I will either write the paper or attempt to make my own version of the show, Numbers Never Lie’s whiteboard segment.

Paper Proposal: Analysis of fan loyalty in the NFL

As I sit back watching my New England Patriots crush the Broncos, I feel inspired and obligated to write about my favorite team in sports. Ever since my 7 year old self watched Adam Vinatieri’s historic game-winning field goal 13 years ago, my fanaticism has consumed me – never missing a game since.   For most people, a paper about a team that’s not their favorite may not strike much interest, but I plan on doing something quite different. Using various pieces of media that study what makes a fan, I intend to analyze fan loyalty and the numerous factors that affect it. In addition to examining personal experiences of being a pats fan, I intend to take an academic stance on the subject by looking at research.

With an obvious bias that Boston is home to the best fans in the world, I began my research to see if this hypothesis held any value. Not after long, I found a 2013 study conducted by two Emory University professors entitled “2013 Best fans in the NFL“. Looking at team box office revenues relative to team on-field success, market population, stadium capacity, median income and other factors, a statistical model was created to account for all of these important components. In an ordered fashion, here are the teams they found to have most loyal and supportive fan bases.

Not to my surprise, the Patriots ranked very highly coming in at the number 2 spot overall. Growing up in the Boston area ingrained extreme passion and intensity towards the team, making these findings quite believable. Since coming to college I’ve fans of nearly every team, and I plan on discovering what drives their passion. Why is it that the Jets –  a historically terrible team amasses the third best fan base in the league? Beginning with this article as a preliminary starting point for my research, I plan to look more into the aspects of NFL fanaticism, and theorize what factors have made me the crazy Pats fan I am today.

The Stigma of eSports

The phenomenon “eSports” is becoming more and more popular in America. eSports, also known as professional gaming, is becoming more and more popular each day. The most popular eSport streaming events pull in viewers in the tens of millions. In fact, last year the 2013 League of Legends (currently the most popular eSport worldwide) World Championship entertained more viewers than the most successful game of the Stanley Cup, the World Series, and the NBA finals. Sports are quickly falling behind eSports in popularity and revenue for two reasons: eSports access an international audience, and they are marketable to a much broader collection of people.

I would like to write my paper about the stigmas surrounding eSports versus traditional sports. Aspiring youth athletes that devote themselves to their sport are described as dedicated, motivated, and other positively associated words. When the same level of work ethic is applied to someone who is sitting in front of their PC at the end of the school day these words aren’t applied. Gaming is and always has been associated with anti-social stigmas, and this is the only thing holding back eSports from becoming a household mainstream name. I believe that the upcoming “eSports” world is going to blow conventional sports out of the water. eSports have access to an incredibly broad audience. In fact, anyone with a PC and viable internet connection can be a competing member in the world of eSports. Furthermore, these access an international audience. American football, hockey, basketball, etc are American sports that are broadcast to a primarily American audience. Only sporting events like the World Cup and the Olympics can compete with eSports on an international level.

In additional to the accessibility, I believe eSports are as spectator friendly and intensive as conventional sports. The level of competition between the worlds best eSports competitors and the worlds best sport competitors is identical. I think that eSports convey each and every single aspect conveyed by conventional sport except for the athleticism, which to me isn’t a necessary aspect of “sport.” Many Olympic sports, curling for example, are seen by the general public as “sport” enough to be a part of the Olympic Games, yet is largely un-athletic.

The “image” I’d like to focus on is a collection of images from each season of the League of Legends World Championships. Here is a collection of audiences for the international finals in the four years its existed. The growth this game has experienced is beyond exponential and is blowing expectations out of the water.

I’d like to write this to an audience that isn’t aware of the world of eSports. I think it would be fun to write a paper aimed at people who play and love eSports, but I think it would be more useful to write a paper to an audience that doesn’t participate in this social niche, to reveal to them the merit of eSports compared to conventional sports. As technology improves so do our video games, and they’re only going to get better. The draw they have internationally is astounding, and I think that soon they will eclipse the viewership of conventional sport all together. This is what I’m choosing to write about for the extended piece.

The Wolverine, The Lion, or Long John

There once was this golfer that was considered the original “frat-star”, the bad boy of golf, or the wolverine; that golfer’s name is John Daly. He wore pastel colored clothes and drank… a lot. He started like any other golfer and worked hard to make it on the tour after that he blow up and didn’t give a shit about what people thought about him. In an interview with his last swing coach, the coach said, “all he cares about is getting drunk”. He eventually cared so little he got put on non-exempt status in 2007, which means he cannot be a professional golfer on the PGA until his status is lifted.

One of the reasons I feel I connect with John Daly is because of golf. I played golf in high school for three years and my last tournament on the third hole I got put on suspension from the rest of the tournament; because the official went through my bag and found two beer cans in there. I tried my hardest to tell him that they were old and i have not been drinking today, but he didn’t believe me. I bring up this point because of John Daly (the drink). You know Arnold Palmer had his drink lemonade and sweet tea, well John Daly would spike this with vodka and drink while playing on the PGA. I have dabbled in the game of golfing with John Daly and believe me it is the best way to play golf now. The drink has become a favorite of many golfers, it has also locked in John Daly for the renegade cowboy of the PGA.

John Daly had a good amount of success on the golf course, but he also had a lot of bad time both on and off the golf course. One of the biggest issues John Daly had is gambling, in his autobiography he said he has lost 50-60 million dollars in 15 years. He claims, “I have bet on everything from dogs to the casino and have lost more times then not, and my biggest lost was 1.5 million that I spent on a 5000$ slot machine”.

John Daly is a perfect topic to do paper on American culture and sports because there is so much information that ties him both to sports, as a professional golfer, and being part of the American culture, he had a gambling problem and was also an alcoholic; there is a story that John would drink 26-28 beers a day, but now he only drinks 10-12. There is more about his life with his family and the European tour, but you will have to read my paper in order to see those details of the life of The Wolverine, John Daly.

For the last time, “Get Stuffed, Go Buffs!”

In a league on their own

In front of a large screen TV surrounded by day old pizza and empty mountain dew two litter bottle hardly seems like the environment to find a world class athlete in.  Yet, with all jokes aside, this is were many call the training grounds in the world of professional video games.  As with any sport, gamers have all the luxuries, training practices, and fames and fortunes as other world class athletes, the only difference is that gamers rely not on physical ability or brute force, but their finely tuned reaction times and critical thinking skills to dominate.

In the world of professional baseball or football we see players going to preseason training or summer camp to help improve their skills  before the season starts. Almost every sport has this sort of mentality, you can’t be a top tier competitor in your sport without working for it, professional video game players are no exception.  With live streaming performance pulling in more than 32 million viewers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Legends_World_Championship)

across the world and sold out shows at popular sports venues its no surprise that the competition is fierce between players to make it to  the top.  In the world of professional gaming there is no preseason or summer camp to practice and fine tune the skills needed to win, no, there is something better, the worlds top players live together in gaming houses and practice for upwards of fourteen hours a day.  Now thats commitment.  While some would say sitting in front of a computer screen is hardly training like an athlete, studies have shown theres more than meets the eyes for video game playing.

The immersive nature of video games leads the players to have to process information much fast than would be necessary in normal situations.  “Playing action video games—contemporary examples include God of War, Halo, Unreal Tournament,Grand Theft Auto, and Call of Duty—requires rapid processing of sensory information and prompt action, forcing players to makes decisions and execute responses at a far greater pace than is typical in everyday life”.  This study done by the National institute of health states that video game players are able to process information about the game and their spacial surrounding at a much fast rate than non video game players are while still maintaining the same level of accuracy (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2871325/)

The studies finding are incredible in the fact that the correlation between video game usage and reaction times and information processing are remarkably strong. To play a video game well, especially at the level of the pros requires a professional level of skill. Major league gamers have trained their mental abilities and fine tuned their reaction times to those comparable to fighter pilots in the United States Navy.  It must be noted that this is only the beginning of research into this field and “Thus, unlike what has been reported in the majority of the literature on the training of speeded responses, the learning that occurs during action-video-game experience generalizes well beyond the act of playing games itself.”

White man syndrome

One of the most frequently used excuses by white athletes everywhere is, “Well it’s cuz they’re black.”  This provides a reason for a lack of height on jumps, lack of speed and lack of endurance running compared to their black counterparts.  Is there a truth to this excuse though?  The article “The African Runners Phenomenon,” published in The Journal of Sports Medicine in May of 2014, offers some evidence that the excuse may be valid when referring to long distance running, (sorry white men complaining about jumping in basketball).

The first case study in the article discusses how as of late, distance running has been dominated by African Americans.  The study looks at how, “In the 1980’s… Of the top 20 runners worldwide, 50% were from Europe, and only 30% were from Africa.” (Vancini, 1)  Today we rarely see a long distance or middle distance race dominated by a white athlete, in fact the article says that today, “…The percentage of European runners among the best in the world has fallen to 11%, while that of African runners has jumped to 85%.” (Vancini, 2)

Why the change?  It’s not like the white athletes stopped training and just gave up.  So how did these, predominantly Kenyan African Americans gain such an advantage?  “Several factors in the complex interaction between genotype and phenotype have been proposed to explain the particular success of African runners, or the “African runners phenomenon…However, evidence for a genetic component in physical performance is mounting, and more than 200 identified genetic variants may contribute to the observed variations in physical fitness..” (Vaccine, 4)  The article highlights just one of the genetic factors that could be linked to athletic prowess.

These African runners tend to show a more favorable gene expression of the genes ACE and ACTN3. which allows them to start with a “greater capacity for performance in power testing, aerobic endurance tests, cardiorespiratory fitness, maximal oxygen uptake, and high altitude tolerance”. (Vancini 6)  There are three possible ways this gene can be expressed that can give certain advantages.  Everyone has the gene, it is just a matter of how the gene is expressed.  I.e. The ACE gene is sometimes found on the 16 intro on the 17th chromosome, expression here leads to “greater cardiorespiratory fitness and tolerance to altitude or increased musculoskeletal fitness for power athletes”(Vancini,10).

There are many factors that influence your running ability and the article doesn’t answer all of them.  It does however offer an argument as to how the world running circuit is dominated by African Americans in favor of genetic differences.  This is just something to think about the next time you hear the excuse, “It’s cuz he’s black”.

Genetic Testing: the future of scouting athletes?

In today’s market, a scout for the sporting industry can earn nearly $70,000 a year, but with genetic testing for athletic ability becoming a growing science, the future of recruitment may be in for a big change. In part five of the book Genetic and molecular aspects of sports performance by Bouchard and Hoffman, they discuss genetic advancements in science and how it may affect talent selection in the near future. Although genetic testing clearly has ethical and social implications associated with it, further discoveries relating genetics to athleticism could surely improve the art of scouting.

Throughout the book the authors analyze the most important qualities related to athleticism, and they find that endurance is key. Currently there are 23 identified genotypes that are linked to endurance performance, allowing us to better understand what top notch athletes are genetically made of. After studying the frequencies of these genotypes across different populations, Bouchard and Hoffman were able to predict the percent chance and odds ratio of carrying these endurance enhancing traits. They believe that with a current world population approaching 7 billion, no more than two individuals on the planet carry 15 of the 23 genotypes.

With the sporting industry becoming more profitable every year, I think it only makes sense to predict that genetic testing will become widely practiced and accepted over time. Though it may seem like a futuristic and utopian idea, the benefits of genetic testing could be immense. For example, if a simple test could identify certain genotypes known to propel athleticism, a young child carrying these traits could be targeted for sport-specific training. Maximizing performance could eventually become a reality, thus spawning an age of super-athletes.

Genetic testing may be open to much scrutiny, but the science behind it holds high potentials for the future. We’ve seen much evidence already that people groom their children to become athletes as they grow up, and I think with more scientific advancements, genetic testing will only expand this trend. Time will determine humanity’s stance on the issue, and the methods of talent selection may be changed forever.

Strength Training in Men and Women

The topic of bodybuilding and strength training has always been a more masculine than feminine trait in America. In American culture men are traditionally expected to protect, to provide, and to be tough. These “masculine traits” are often associated with bodybuilding and strength training. While female strength athletes do exist they are few and far between, and conventionally they are not held in the same high regard as men in the same situation. However a study I looked at revealed information that seems contrary to mainstream beliefs about gender and strength.

A study published in “Isokinetics and Exercise Science” in 2009 looked at strength gains after an eight week training program with over 30 male and 30 female participants. Several different exercises were used and subjects were performing resistance repetitions at 80% of their one rep max (1RM). In addition to overall strength gains, the study also looked at fatigue resistance between the subjects.

What the study found overall was that though improvements in strength and fatigue resistance were made by all subjects, the women in the study actually obtained “greater adaptations” than the men. In fact in the initial test women lifted between 51-57% of the weight lifted by men depending on the exercise. After the eight weeks was over this number rose to 54-60% of the weight of the men. A result that shows women are better at building muscle than men goes completely against mainstream belief in American culture.

This is a powerful statistic in today’s age. In modern gyms one will usually find the “free weights” section to be almost entirely male. Similarly the cardio machines are used almost exclusively by females. This difference is entirely attributable to social constructs. People grow up thinking men need to be big and strong, so men lift weights. Women believe they need to be thin and firm, so they do cardio. Studies like this, studies that contradict mainstream beliefs (which are entirely cultural and in no way scientific) are a necessity in changing the popular opinions in a culture.

While current fitness trends are more female friendly (CrossFit for example is gender neutral; women perform the same exercises as men) there is still a very distinct difference in male vs. female workout habits and fitness trends. This study showed that not only do women benefit from heavy resistance training the same way that men do, but ultimately they benefit even more.

It is true that there are intrinsic biological differences between men and women, but maybe they aren’t as defining as we tend to believe. When you turn to the media you see things like “Men’s Fitness” magazine with a strong, defined individual doing bicep curls. Or you see a trim, fit, firm woman in yoga pants talking about how the elliptical machine changed her life. The differences in media are blatant. The differences in science however don’t seem so set in stone.

Gurjo, A. L. D., Avelar, A., & Cyrino, E. S. (2009). Effect of eight weeks of strength training on fatigue resistance in men and women. Isokinetics and Exercise Science, 17(2), 101-106. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.libraries.colorado.edu/docview/290525749?accountid=14503

HGH good or bad?

There has been many studies done on Human Growth Hormones (HGH) or performance enhancing drugs, but are they all as bad as the media makes them seem? Many doctors have given HGH to patients that suffer from short bowel syndrome or muscle wasting disease and it has proved time and time again to work. The drug also works in a negative way if you are not approved to take them you can get muscle or joint pain, edema and/or carpal tunnel syndrome. Since 1985 every patient that has needed HGH has shown remarkable recovery and had the chance to live a normal life again, but every person that was not approved has contracted one of the numerous negative symptoms. This suggests that HGH is a good thing when in the right hands.

Many of the cases about HGH we know are the baseball, one of the most recent players to get in trouble for HGH was Alex Rodriguez, he is the third baseman for the New York Yankees. But he wasn’t always the powerhouse third basemen, while he played for the Texas Rangers he was a quick playing short stop and hit the ball in gaps not over the fence. He just came back to the game after six month probation, in which he clams his doctor gave him HGH without his knowledge. One of the prime examples in his case is his brace on his left arm which is strange because he throws right handed. How did he suffer from joint pain on his arm if he doesn’t throw with his left hand? As mentioned before joint deterioration and pain can be on of the symptoms that is caused by HGH.

Adding to the baseball juicing tradition would be current homer record holder Barry Bonds. Bonds played outfield for both the Pirates and the Giants, he was a speed outfielder for the Pirates and then became a power hitter for the Giants, in what seemed like over night. How was this possible? Barry Bonds was never convicted of using the drug but many doctors have come out and said they gave the “future” hall of famer HGH and he knew about it. One of the reasons experts say Bonds juiced was because his head got bigger in size in a couple months, which is also a side effect of HGH.

Many doctors have given out HGH knowing what it does to the human body and also how it can help many people that actually need it. The fact that baseball players use it to shortcut hard work and dedication is selfish and sets a bad example for many young baseball players in the United States of America.