Conclusion - Tyler Jester

I found Sport and Gender to be one of my favorite classes to go to each week. A lot of information I had background knowledge on but having this class really enhanced my knowledge and allowed me to expand on what I knew about all of the different topics we discussed throughout the class. One article I found very interesting was the one dealing with the Athletic Director’s Dilemma. It was interesting to see how athletic directors solve problems about what sports to keep based on revenues toward the university. Basically, this gives the small male sports team hardly any chance to succeed. Everyone knows football and men’s basketball bring in the most money for universities but it was interesting to see how universities tried to comply with the Title IX requirements having so many scholarships available for those two main sports. This was not the only article that I found useful. Each and every article along with the discussions in class were helpful for me to understanding each topic being discussed. A few of my other favorite topics were Kobe and LeBron, and Magic Johnson dealing with AIDS. As a Lakers fan, I was automatically drawn to the articles dealing with Kobe and Magic but anything dealing with basketball definitely drew my attention.

Writing a blog did a couple of things to help me. The first way is that it kept me accountable. Posting a blog held me accountable because I needed to make sure I posted something each week, and if I didn't then everyone in the class could see which weeks I would have missed. The other way writing blogs helped me, was that it made me think before I wrote entries and posted them. Knowing that the blogs will be on the Internet and available to the public made me proofread and rethink my thoughts before posting, just so I know I was being politically and grammatically correct on each entry.

I believe each group presentation had its strengths and weaknesses but I really enjoyed everyone’s presentations, especially the presentation on Jeremy Lin. I thought it was interesting to see how we would have portrayed a female version of Jeremy.

The main thing I will take away from this class is to try and make sure that everyone is treated equally and fairly, no matter the gender, sex, race, or sexual orientation. All anyone wants is an opportunity and it should not matter who you, everyone deserve an opportunity to succeed at something they take pride in.