I like these commericials

I saw these commercials in my Sports in Society class and I think that they send some powerful messages that should be heard. I'd say that these videos are pretty self explanatory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9It24cN3_E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvLCGUhoigA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjVxyWXaUdE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4yDSbPjNJI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y65qn4L2o10&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ_XSHpIbZE

A great movie that I saw in class was Heart of the Game. I would definitely recommend seeing that. It's about a Women's High School basketball team in Washington and their journey under a new head coach.

A lot of female athletes that I have spoken with want things to change when it comes to the support for female athletics. I usually don't discuss the financials with them, because I don't understand the financials. I usually speak in terms of fans and the perception of female athletics because that's what I probably understand best. I hope female athletes realize that this task is possible, over time and with a lot of work. Change is never easy, especially when most of society needs to change.

At one point I didn't understand female sports, or even cared that they existed. Then I started to watch them and I saw how hard they worked and I saw some great games and I thought to myself "This really isn't bad at all." I found myself not understanding why my impression of them were so bad. The female game has a lot of good stories, good people, college graduates/people who study, hard workers and team play. All of these things are things we look for in the men's game.

The media looks so hard to find all these things together in male athletics. The media portrays a lot of truly rotten people as angels. I read an article recently about how a male athlete has matured so much and is always going to class. I thought to myself...yeah right...where did you find those facts? Stories that we spend so much time looking for in male athletics are easily found in female athletics. On top of that female athletes are usually more than happy to talk about their accomplishments for hope that it will gain respect for their game. On top of that not only are they more than happy to talk about it, but they are actually understandable.

Don't get me wrong, their are a lot of great male athletes, and great people who are male athletes. We don't hear enough about the female ones. They are there, but the stories aren't told very well...or aren't allowed to be told because they don't get enough ratings.

I get so annoyed when I here guys talk about how female athletes aren't as good as guy athletes. It is correct that the numbers show that the world's strongest male can out bench press the world's strongest female. What is being ignored is two things. The work that it takes to be an elite female athlete is the same work that it takes to be an elite male athlete. The same obstacles that guys have to overcome to play college sports are the same obstacles that girls face...plus girls have to face prejudice by some that sports is not where they belong. On top of that college female athletes are all much much better athletes than any of the guys who consume games by watching them on television or by buying tickets to games. If you don't want to believe me than challenge a girl to a competition. They will gladly kick your ...you fill in the rest.

Emeka Okafor was a fantastic athlete at UCONN. Good person, great athlete, worked hard, studied harder. He graduated in three years and won a National Championship. Everyone in the media spoke about him. Everyone raved about him. They should have. Everyone should know who Emeka Okafor was. From my observation there are probably more well rounded people who are female athletes than male athletes. People name their children after a guy like Emeka, but can't even name one of the many female athletes like Emeka in the female athletics.

I don't know whose fault that is. It's a societal problem. The media has a lot of work to do and they are getting better at following female sports.

In order to change you need to have a positive attitude and you need to be willing to work. Knowing that there is a problem is different than solving a problem.

The work that is done now will hopefully allow female athletes in the future to play in front of the crowds that female athletes now dream of.