Category: Uncategorized (Page 8 of 34)

Train Thoughts: Jordyn Wieber, The Arbitrary Nature of Gymnastics and The Biased Nature of Media Coverage

30 July, 2012 / Kat

Train Thoughts are long sports related rambles I write on my commute into my full-time job. They aren’t the most concise pieces of writing I’ll ever write, but hey, at least I’m writing.

Jordyn Wieber’s failure to make the Olympic women’s gymnastics all-around has dominated the last 24 hours or so of Olympic gymnastics coverage. The reigning World All-Around champion had the fourth best All-Around score of Sunday’s meet, but had two US teammates finish above her (Boston’s Aly Raisman in second and recent phenom Gabrielle Douglas in third,) bouncing her out due to an two gymnast per country rule.

Said rule also came to the detriment of the Russian team, who also had to drop a high ranking All-Around gymnast (Anastasia Grishina.) A version of this rule has been around for a while – before it was two gymnasts, it was three, and it was in place to keep one country from dominating competition too much (Russia and China, the rulemakers were looking in your direction.)

The rule may not pass the smell test, but it is not unique to gymnastics. Countries are limited to a certain amount of participants in a variety of events – U.S. swimming has a boatload of strong swimmers who leave their international counterparts in the water, but they’re left home because they’re only third in their own country. Such rules work against countries with an embarssament of athletic riches, but for nations who don’t have the economic climates to produce such a bounty. Continue reading

What Should We Call Kat

11 June, 2012 / Kat

By now, I’m sure you have seen the What Shall We Call Me Tumblr and all of its spinoff sites. Clips from popular culture are captioned, GIFed and provided as a way to describe something that we all go through in young adult life.

This weekend, a few things happened that totally deserve the “What Should We Call Me” treatment.

1) I went to the Boston Red Sox vs. Washington Nationals game Friday night, and there was a young lady under the influence who thought it prudent to start the wave in the top of the second inning.

At first I was like:

And then I was like, “Girl, puh-leeze.”

"It's not going to happen."

2) On Sunday, I had to drive Route 95 by myself for only the third time in my life. Every time I drive 95, I feel like this famous Clueless scene (without the making out of course):

3) There is this ongoing petty argument between WEEI.com’s Kirk Minihane and Comcast SportsNet New England’s Joe Haggerty. And it’s taking everything in my power to not tweet at both and say, “You know, there are tons of hard-working writers toiling on beats who would LOVE to be in your shoes, so why don’t you let them take over for you both while you’re fighting like two high school girls fighting over a dream prom dress.”

Every time I see this stupid and depressing argument resurface on Twitter, I’m all like:

Sarcastic excitement.

After day four of this ongoing argument, I did this:

(If the animations don’t work at first, click on the image and they will. I’m trying to fix that.)

Tim Thomas: The Negativity Of Success And Plotting The Escape

4 June, 2012 / Kat

Tim Thomas announced Sunday that he would take the 2012-13 NHL season off. On his Facebook page (Thomas’s equivalent of Martin Luther’s doors to the church,) the 38 year old cited three F’s for being the reason for his absence: family, friends and faith.

When read the news, the first immediate comparison I had was to singer Mariah Carey in 2001 (and I tweeted as such.) For those who feel that the comparison is crass or silly, I beg to differ. Both had actual issues with celebrity and the claustrophobia success can bring. Their declines hit public consciousness in very public forums – Carey on the set of Total Request Live (TRL), where she exhibited eccentric behavior while promoting her film Glitter; Thomas when he made a very public issue of declining the Boston Bruins’ trip to the White House.

When one struggles with the inability to reconcile their success with the expectations of that success, they may start to feel like they are falling down an endless manhole with no end in sight. They know what most of the public’s bare minimum for living a content life is – family, friends and a roof over your head – but success leaves them unable to enjoy those basics. Life becomes much more complicated, be it through things the celebrity or athlete can control, or forces that they can’t stop.

And while some who have achieved grand success can take just a week off to recharge and re-motivate, others can’t seem to stop falling down the manhole. Thomas seems to be one. He’s a journeyman who suddenly didn’t have to journey anymore. That end goal he had for himself to motivate him through years of discouraging European hockey was achieved, and as much as a second Stanley Cup and Veniza Trophy could be motivation, that’s like going back to get a second undergraduate degree in the same subject. The experience still could be meaningful, but the practice itself is repetitive. You’re not building upon anything, and there is no opposition to motivate your fight. Sure, other teams would get in your way to another Championship, but to anyone who explicitly says, “You can’t,” you have the hardware to bust out to prove that you did.

Thomas’s cure to the lack of purpose and the mounds of expectation that success brings – taking the season off – appears selfish. It is. He has a contract with the Bruins that he needs to fulfill. But the act of escape is one that every elite athlete or other successful person who has reached their life goal has wished they could do at one point or another. In an 1981 interview of Olympic gold medal winning figure skater Scott Hamilton, Hamilton frankly complains about having to stay motivated after winning his first World Championship, especially with having to deal with the negatives and expectations that came with it. “I was really hungry for (the championship) before. Now that I’ve got it, it’s really hard to stay hungry.” Hamilton continued on to say that not just the repetition of preparing for something he already achieved bugged him, but that now experiencing the cons of success made the success somewhat less desirable.

Thomas wanted to win a Stanley Cup. He wanted to prove others wrong. He did that. Now that he has achieved what he set out to achieve, what is the point of enduring the cons of success when you seemingly don’t have to? Contracts be damned, Thomas is going off to reclaim the bare basics of happiness. He has the resources that many others who need such a refocus don’t have – the luxury to.

And while fans can hate it, teammates recoil in it, and media gossip about it, there is some legitimacy in it. Thomas reached the pinnacle, found the spotlight too bright and now wants to avoid it in a cave. It’s the adult equivalent of hiding in the deepest confines of the closet as a kid when you wanted to get away from your parents fighting or your teething baby sister’s wailing. It was the only quick fix you could think of at the time, and provided you had a closet in your house, you had the resources in which to find the escape.

But eventually, you had to peak out of the closet to face reality (which as a kid, was either boredom or hunger motivated.) And Thomas will eventually have to peak out of Colorado (where he allegedly has moved) to face reality.

To Live Life For

28 May, 2012 / Kat

I didn’t originally write this for Memorial Day, but it’s rather appropriate for a day in which we remember those who fought and lost their lives for our country. It’s also appropriate because I think of my Grandpa (a two time veteran) the same way I think of my Nana.

———–

My Nana and I 30 years ago.

This year, I ran out of things to say to those who had lost a loved one.

Sadly, in my mere eight years working in higher education, I have had to counsel and react to too many student tragedies. And this semester, I finally ran out of words of consolation. The loss of those words came when my own internal consolation no longer worked. Before, I just knew these losses and life detours were a part of humanity. But this year, my internal chalking-it-up-to-the human condition no longer worked within me.

That is, until I was coming home from working a candlelight vigil that remembered the lives of three deceased students the night before Mother’s Day. It struck me as I was walking to the train in Kenmore Square.

You can’t explain it. You don’t have to be okay with it. But the best thing you can do is live life for the person you have lost.

In a way, I have been doing this for over a decade. I live life for my Nana. It’s the little things – I always stop and watch any time I see Kelly Ripa on TV, because my Nana always told me she was “going to be a big deal” when I would watch All My Children (with a teenage Ripa) with her. I kept taking Latin because my Nana lamented it being phased out of the schools. I always turn up my nose at Our Lady of Mercy High School because Nana attended school there, but always recalled the nuns were too mean.

And whenever I get depressed, discouraged and convinced that I should just quit everything I do and go work at Dunkin’ Donuts or Target, I remember that Nana would be horribly disappointed in me. She wanted me to succeed. She held me to the highest standards anyone has ever held me to, and continues to do so thirteen years after her passing. Living up to them would be what she would have wanted.

I live life for her, which is the best tribute I think I could do for her.

So to my colleagues, students and anyone else out there trying to make sense of a loss: live your life for them. Live your life like they would have wanted you to, or how they would have if they were still able to. Because in living your life, you’ll do great service to the memories and foundations they gave to you while they were alive.

The Balancing Act (Or Why My Current Career Path Is Like The 80s Cartoon Jem)

11 April, 2012 / Kat

When I was a little girl, I adored the 1980s cartoon Jem.

Jem was a popular animated cartoon and series of dolls about a woman named Jerrica. Jerrica spent her days running a music related company and running a home of foster children. But at night (or whenever she touched her magical holographic earrings and called upon a Great Oz style machine named Synergy), Jerrica became Jem, mid 1980s pop rocker with bubble gum pink hair and the very thickest of eyeliner. Only those closest to Jem – her all-female band with equally bright hair and horrid 80s fashion taste – knew she led this double life.

Five year old me loved the idea that you could be great at two careers and just seamlessly glide from one to the other without too much conflict. Sure, the Jem/Jerrica charade did get tricky at times, but in the interest of good TV, it was always figured out without anyone who didn’t need to know finding out.

Fast forward 25 years, and living a life like Jerrica’s is not too far fetched. During the day, I am a higher education administrator, caring for 16,000 undergrads and another couple thousand grad students. When they succeed, my office rewards them, and when they fall hard, my office punishes them. Increasingly over the years, my job has included handling external interests when students fall hard and trying to promote the much good the unnoticed majority are doing.

At night, I am a sports writer – or at least I try to be. Writing and communicating was the one thing I knew I wanted to do since I was twelve years old, but the foundation was laid long before: I had been writing stories, making handmade books and creating newsletters since I was four.

For a while, I was able to seamlessly glide between working in Student Affairs during the day and being a writer at night. It was fulfilling and felt even glamorous in a way to get out of one job and frantically run to the other. “I just expelled someone and ran a town hall meeting for students, but wait! – a half hour later, I am covering a lacrosse game!”

Just like the cartoon I loved as a child, I was doing two meaningful careers – one that I loved, and another that helped others. And the two lines didn’t cross. The rare times conflict arose, I was able to deflect or solve it before anyone who didn’t need to know knew.

Until lately. Continue reading