Don't Win, Don't Talk

At East Aurora High School, the boys’ basketball team coaches have a rule: after a loss, no talking is permitted on the bus ride home from the game. 

However, on the ride home from a hard-fought loss, some of the boys from the sophomore team were talking. This infuriated assistant coach Arnie Hubbard so much that he put a 16-year old player into a choke hold to the point where he couldn’t breathe.

Luckily, Head Coach A.J. Harris saw what was occurring and was able to stop the violence before it got too out of hand. Coach Hubbard no longer is working at East Aurora High School.

Eric Zorn, a blogger for the Chicago Tribune, wrote a short post on this topic. He focused less on the insane act of a coach choking a player, but more on the enforcement of an “idiotic rule” like players not being able to speak after a loss.

What I found especially interesting about this was not the post itself, but the comments. While I agree with Zorn’s view on this team rule, I was shocked by the number of commenters who strongly disagreed.

Some commenters just ripped Zorn apart. One woman said that Zorn didn’t understand the importance of winning in high school sports today. She writes, “Coaches get fired if they don’t win. Zorn is out of touch on this issue.”

Another man expressed the same sentiment, adding: “[It is a] good rule… it teaches discipline and respect, which is actually more important than the fundamentals of basketball.”

A third person felt the same way. “If you lose, you don’t chatter like a bunch of idiots on the ride back, you think about why you lost.”

As a high school athlete, I understand the level of commitment and seriousness a high school sport entails. New Trier focuses a huge amount of attention on athletics, and winning is undoubtedly an important aspect of New Trier sports. However, I have never heard of rule this outrageous and demeaning. This rule focuses too much on the outcome – winning or losing - and undermines what I personally think are the more important values: hard work, good sportsmanship and learning from your mistakes.

I agree 100% with what Zorn has to say. “It’s a stupid rule to treat every loss as though it’s some occasion for reproachful introspection and gloomy silence. It’s a game.”

What do you think?

The full story can be found here.

"Lin-sanity"

In the past 14 days, Asian-American Jeremy Lin has gone from benchwarmer to global basketball star. Starting his career in the NBA only 2 weeks ago, Jeremy has led the New York Knicks to 7 consecutive wins. Lin, an Economics major at Harvard, has been seemingly overlooked as a basketball player since high school. Now, he is the very first American-born player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent in the NBA, and he is finally receiving his long-deserved chance.

The question that so many College and NBA coaches are asking themselves right now is, “How could I have missed such a talented and gifted player?” Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education and former Harvard basketball player, believes he knows why Lin’s extraordinary talent flew under the radar for so long:

"This is classic low expectations, and frankly stereotyping," Duncan said. "He was underappreciated and under-recognized. The fact that he's Asian-American, those two things are absolutely linked."

Lin agrees, saying that race has always played a factor in his basketball career. Asians in America tend to be stereotyped with over-achievement in education-oriented pursuits, not athletic ones. This may have contributed to the reasons why Lin had been so overlooked through his years playing basketball. In high school, Lin had excelled in his studies, as well as on the court. However, given the lack of Chinese or Taiwanese players that played college basketball and ultimately made it to the NBA, Lin was rarely considered as athletic scholarship “material.”

Things have seemed to shift in Lin’s favor starting when Knicks’ Coach Mike D'Antoni desperately expressed a need for a new point guard because his were all injured. Lin, still undrafted, was invited to try out for a spot. Since then, Lin has continued to succeed and thrive in his new role as an NBA star.

Lin’s unexpected success has not only had an impact on the Knicks’ record, but also on Asian-Americans, and other minority groups for that matter. Lin is proof that you don’t need to fit a stereotypical checklist, other than ability and willingness to work hard, in order to make it in the NBA. Lin hopes that his recent basketball achievements will open the doors for other young, basketball-aspiring Asian-Americans, comparing it to how Tiger Woods introduced watching and playing golf to new demographics.

With such a sudden burst of popularity, it would be easy for a new player like Lin to come off as cocky and arrogant. However, Lin remains humble and modest; he is incredibly grateful for such a wonderful opportunity.

In this video, Lin describes this entire experience as a “blessing,” and his appreciation and love for the game is evident:

Google's New View on Privacy

Last week, Google announced some changes to its privacy policy in order to better merge its many services: Gmail, YouTube, Google Calendar, Google+, Google search, among others. According to Google, it's so it can create "a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google."

As of right now, Google is limited in terms of what they can see of your personal information using their programs. Google is able to scan all of your email if you're a Gmail user; if you're a YouTube user, Google can track all of the videos you search. While they can see an awful lot, they cannot see everything… yet.

In Google’s new privacy policy, going into effect March 1^st, Google will be able to monitor and scan virtually all of your emails, appointments, and searches on both Google search and Youtube. With this information, Google claims they will be able to enhance their customers’ experience through ad placement tailored specifically for each user.

Google produced a video that shows exactly what the new policy will entail:

 In the video above, Google uses the example of a user searching the word “jaguar.” Judging by the history of the user’s previous searches and e-mails, Google can predict that the user is looking for information on jaguar, the animal, rather than a Jaguar, the car. By using specific pieces of information from our personal online activities, Google claims they are able to create an easier and more enjoyable experience for all users while significantly limiting the search results solely to links that specifically apply to your needs.

While better predicting search engine results sounds good in theory, it’s important that we don’t just agree impulsively without considering the consequences. In American Studies class, we have continually talked about the importance of sustaining our civil liberties.

We as Americans are granted the right to privacy in the Constitution. Is Google’s new policy giving them access to all of this personal information a violation of our civil liberties even if they let us know in advance and claim it is necessary to create a more effective search engine? Do we even have a choice to opt out? With the dependency society places on Google programs, is opting out even a realistic alternative?

What do you think?

Paterno's Legacy in a New Light

Earlier this semester, I blogged about perhaps one of the biggest scandals in college sports history concerning Penn State Assistant Football Coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing young boys. When I first heard the story, I was dumfounded and disgusted by the decisions (or lack thereof) that head coach Joe Paterno made when he was first made aware of evidence many years ago that Sandusky had been taking part in these activities. Paterno, after telling a few "higher-ups" about the information he heard, never followed through with the accusations and, as a result, the news was kept only to a select few. When the accusations were made public last year, I, along with many Americans wondered if the news was held secretly because Paterno feared that getting rid of Coach Sandusky would negatively affect the team's performance. In my first blog post about this subject, Who is Really Winning?, I questioned his own morals, and ours as Americans: when did personal success become more important than our core American, let alone human, values?


With the death of Joe Paterno last week, I have begun to rethink my harsh original reactions to the story. Yes, Paterno's decision not to fully disclose what he knew about to Sandusky was a horrible decision on his part, but should that one bad decision completely blacken his entire reputation? What about the 46 years Paterno had coached at Penn State as a well-respected and beloved coach? How can all those years of his professional life be entirely overshadowed by one grave mistake?

David Haugh, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, helped shed some light on this issue that I've been struggling with. He says, "In the context of Paterno's memory, it isn't an either/or proposition. It isn't either he was good or evil; innocent or guilty; success or failure. It isn't either he symbolized the best of college football or the worst."


I think Haugh brings up a very good point. Morals cannot simply be viewed as black & white; there are always gray areas that often we as Americans tend to overlook. We are so quick to judge people, specifically celebrities, because we subconsciously feel that since they are famous, they should be held to a higher standard. However, the reality is that they too are human, and while it may seem that their celebrity persona makes them immune to making mistakes, they do screw up too. And when they do, there is no doubt that they are significantly more publicly criticized for mistakes they make than we are.

So, in response to my earlier questions, with new insight thanks to Haugh, I believe that the years of Paterno's professional success cannot be disregarded. He was a great coach and his students loved him; these facts should not be forgotten. He made a significant error when not following through with an investigation of Sandusky; this shouldn't be forgotten. He was a good man who clearly made an unfortunate error in judgment. "The weight of those positive influences remain too heavy to negatively tip the scales."

Meta-Blog

When Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor first announced that for our American Studies course we would be blogging weekly, I have to admit that I was a little skeptical of the idea. My first concern was if I would even have an audience-- who would bother reading a high schooler's blog for class? I have countless times seen the shirt that says "more people have read this shirt than your blog," and in all honesty, I was fearful that this would be the truth. However, what I now realize after a semester of weekly blogging is that these primary fears were completely irrational. I have not only come to appreciate the blogging world, but actually enjoy the process too! I've come to realize that this is a wonderful opportunity to enhance my writing skills, expand my literary horizons, and discover new interests as well.

Looking back on my blogs from first quarter, I see how necessary it is to tie a post to a text or a video or something like that. In my first three posts I talk about topics I am interested in, but don't link to a specific piece of work. I occasionally throw in a picture here and there with little to no explanation as to why I put the picture in the post. 

For example, in my second post, written right after the ten year "anniversary" of 9/11 titled What Will We Remember?, I talk about the memories I have from 9/11/01 in comparison to my parents' memories from JFK's assassination in 1963. I believe this particular post has potential to be an interesting idea, but it was poorly executed in the sense that I did not quote anything, did not tie it to any text, and simply threw a picture of an American flag in there for no reason besides just to have a picture. 

However, I think that the post What happened to "failing with honor" over "winning by cheating?" is a prime example of how anchoring a post to a text worked. I clearly site an excerpt from the podcast I discuss, and then analyze the part I quoted. Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor have stressed the importance of not just providing evidence, but analyzing it too. Although it has taken some time to learn, I think that I now understand what they mean. 

Another issue I noticed from my posts are the lengths. My posts tend to be long and wordy, and I often try to cover too much in one post. In fact, Mr. O'Connor's comment on my post The Serial Quitter reads, "This post could be more focused (i.e. you could cut it by half)."  Mr. O'Connor is right in that this post lacked any coherent focus. The ideas were there, but they were all jumbled around and it was overwhelming to look at and read. Reading back on my other blogs now, I notice that many of them attempt to cover too much ground and lack focus, and that is why the posts seem to drag on forever. 

Another common theme I notice throughout my posts is that I continually mention the ways in which American values have negatively affected society. I talk about the stress Americans put on themselves to win and be the best in roughly five of my posts. It is not until my most recent post, World Peace Headed Uphill, that I tie in the more positive American value of America being known as the “melting pot.” Although it does have its faults, America does have many positive values, and in the semester to come I plan on including more of these in my posts.

The first semester is coming to a close, and as I look back on my blogs, despite the numerous mistakes I’ve made along the way, I am proud of the work I’ve done. I feel like I have come a long way in terms of using my voice as a writer, and also linking my posts to a text. I know there is still room for improvement, (there will always be room for improvement), but overall I am satisfied with my work and am pleased to say that this weekely blogging is no longer viewed as a burden but as something to look forward to.