Superman Rivalry

In their third meeting this season, the Orlando Magic finally took care of business and beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 101 to 95. The game on Sunday February 21st at 1 pm was commentated by Mike Breen, Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy. 

One of the main topics that the announcers focused on was the recent NBA trades. 

I knew about the rumors that LeBron might be thinking about going to the Knicks next year, but by watching this game and listening to the announcers I learned a bit more about the evidence that would prove these rumors true. 

General manager Donnie Walsh took over the New York Knicks in 2007. Since then it appears he has been trying to clear cap space for the 2010 off-season. They explained that the reason they wanted this monetary flexibility is because the 2010 off-season features superstars like Cavaliers forward LeBron James, Raptors forward Chris Bosh and Heat guard Dwayne Wade. 

New York made a few adjustments to their roster. They traded Jared Jeffries and Jordan Hill for Houston’s Tracy McGrady, and traded Nate Robinson and Marcus Landry to Boston for Eddie House, J.R. Giddens, and Bill Walker.

These trades cleared an additional $9 million in the Knicks’ salary cap space, bringing their total salary cap space for 2010 to somewhere between $31 to $32 million. This could actually allow the Knicks to sign not just one big time free agent, but two. 

Throughout the game the announcers did I nice job of explaining all of this to the viewer. Before watching the game I knew that there were rumors about LeBron going to the Knicks. In fact, my parents are good friends with Coach D’Antoni. We live in the same town and my younger brother is his son’s friend. I always try to get information out of DAntoni, and I do know he is very interested in getting LeBron, but that’s not new or shocking information. 

By providing this information the announcers added to the game and made it more interesting. Along the same topic of trades they discussed how the Cavaliers just acquired Antawn Jamison. They were talking about what kind of player he is and the strengths he has to offer. He has the ability to post up and be a strong presence in the paint, but he can spot up and shoot the three as well.

I follow basketball so I know why his versatility is valuable, however they still explained to the viewers how he continue to fit into the team’s dynamics very well. 

And of course the announcers talked about the “Superman Rivalry.” Before the game I did not know that Shaquille O'Neal had called out Magic’s Dwight Howard just a few days ago for calling himself Superman. Everybody knows Shaq is Superman! Hasn’t Dwight seen MTV Cribs? Shaq sleeps in a round bed with a huge superman logo on the comforter. 

The announcing of the game’s play by play was standard. They followed the action and kept the viewer in tune with what was going on. They didn’t give the time and score too often, but I could just see it on the screen.

If I had announced this game I definitely would not have done as good of a job. These guys knew what they were talking about but didn’t talk over anyone’s head. Sometimes when someone has so much knowledge about the game, it is hard to speak to such a wide audience. Jargon and names come so easily to the knowledgeable, however in this situation, the announcer must make sure he or she is putting things in layman’s terms. Breen, Jackson, and Van Gundy did an excellent job of keeping the viewers informed. The way the announced definitely added a much-appreciated facet to the game.

(Photos by Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images)

Sexy Superstar Athletes

Introduced to the Olympic Games in 1924, speed skating can be traced back to England in the mid-18th century. Even before that, the sport's birthplace is most often considered to be the Netherlands, where skating was actually a common mode of transportation.

Today, speed skating is ranked fifth on YourTango.com Top 5 Surprisingly Sexy Winter Olympic Sports. 

Not only is it sexy, it is extremely difficult. On curves, the skater is constantly being pushed outward by a centrifugal force of 60 kg in the inner lane, 52 kg in the outer. In order to counteract this force the skaters must lean 45° when in the inner lane and 49° in the outer! 

The two racers skate counter-clockwise around a 400-meter oval ice rink changing lanes once per lap, to equalize the distance covered. Skaters can get up to 35 miles per hour. 

The 12 separate speed skating events will span over the course of 2 weeks. 

So far, the Netherlands has done their part to make the sport sexy. Sven Kramer was favored to win the 5000m, and that’s just what he did. In the 2006 games, he took silver in the 5000m race, but worked his way up to a gold in this year’s Olympics. He is also favored to win the 10,000m race on Tuesday, February 23rd. 

Kramer is a celebrity in the Netherlands, where speed skating is extremely popular. In his native country he is known as the "ambassador of bread." He is actually the spokesman for an anti-junk food campaign to encourage Dutch children to eat more bread, instead of junk food. An awesome athlete who cares about kids… how sexy is that?

Another sport on the top sexy Olympic sports is freestyle skiing. The act of skiing is pretty hot, but are some of the athletes acting a little too sexy? The top American Alpine Skier was recently featured on the front cover of Sports Illustrated, and blogger Nicole LaVoi claims that the photo on the cover is just another example of women being “sexualized” in the media. 

Go to your local newsstand and take a peek at the cover. You may be surprised that someone even thought to call this picture “sexy.” While Vonn looks excellent, she doesn’t exactly fulfill my idea of Sports Illustrated “sexy.”

But the comments on LaVoi’s blog got out of hand! People were attacking her instead of trying to explain why they thought she was wrong. LaVoi made some valid points. She explained:

“Over the last 60 years researchers have shown that about 4% of all SI covers have portrayed women.

When females are featured on the cover of SI, they are more likely than not to be in sexualized poses and not in action–and the most recent Vonn cover is no exception.”

This might all be true. However, people are still entitled to their opinion. Perhaps the media is just using Vonn as “the likely poster girl of the US Olympic Team” because she “represents the “norm of feminine attractiveness,” but is that the worst thing that could happen? People like to look at things that are nice to look at. Oh, and along with her good looks, she also offers her ability to win gold medals for the USA. 

Apolo Ohno has a similar affect in the media. Every country has those celebrity athletes that people like to follow and enjoy to cheer for, like bread man Sven Kramer in the Netherlands. Apolo appears to be calm, humble, and attractive! The media is not just covering the Olympic games to inform the world of what’s going on. There are profits involved. Covering the Olympics is all about info-tainment. There are so many back-stories, interesting twists and exciting competition! It’s a gold mine (no pun intended).

In an article by Jonathan Mathis he writes, 

“Girls are attracted to sporting figures, but even more so to Ohno. It seems the kid is hip and sexy enough to make them scream and cheer. Ohno has a certain sex appeal to fans that often overshadow his achievements.”

But that’s just the risk that these athletes run by putting themselves in the lime light. During the Olympics each country wants their own athletes to win. But sometimes it is just about how sexy the sport or the athlete competing is. 

Here is a list of the top five most intriguing athletes to watch this Olympics, according to the students over at Tufts University. 

Vonn and Ohno both made the cut. Also on the list are speedskaters Shani Davis and Katherine Reutter, and snowboarder Shaun White. 

February 8th Compare Articles

Two articles about the same game can be very different, and can clearly demonstrate the way writing styles can affect an article. 

They can also show the difference in the style based on where the article is being published. 

There are several articles about the UConn victory over Louisville on February 7th. ESPN and the Hartford Courant published the articles I chose to focus on. Right from the get go the reader can see the difference between these two articles. 

ESPN: No. 1 UConn Tops Louisville Again, 84-38: Title game rematch proves mismatch as No. 1 UConn tops Louisville, 84-38 by Associated Press Writer Jeffrey McMurray 

Lead: “Tina Charles had 20 points and nine rebounds as No. 1 Connecticut breezed by Louisville 84-38 Sunday in a rematch of last year's national championship game.”

The Hartford Courant: UConn Women Crush Louisville; Streak At 62 by John Altavilla 

Lead: “By now it's clear the UConn women do not play normal games that follow familiar scripts. Truth is, they play games that are caricatures, the features super-sized, exaggerated, larger-than-life. You almost need 3-D glasses to watch them play.”

The ESPN article gets straight down to facts, and the entire article follows suit. On the other hand, the Hartford Courant’s article is more opinion based, and evokes emotion from the reader. The ESPN article was written with the intention of being able to be published all over the nation, while the Courant article is more localized. Hartford is the capital of the state of Connecticut, and if you’ve even been in Connecticut when a UConn basketball game is going on then you know that the amount of Husky pride is overwhelming. So it is not surprising that Altavilla goes ahead and claims that his Huskies play “larger-than-life.” 

The ESPN article informs its readers much quicker than the Courant’s article. It follows more of an upside down pyramid outline, including the information and facts at the top, and going on to expand on the background and minor details about stats and significance of records and standings. 

The second sentence of the ESPN article: “The victory was UConn's 62nd in a row, extending the second-longest streak ever in women's NCAA Division I basketball, trailing only the 2001-03 Huskies' mark of 70 straight.”

This information did not come out until the seventh sentence in the Courant article. However, what the Courant article had that the ESPN article lacked was quotes from the players and coaching staff. Including quotes made the story more personal and more of a human-interest story. The people in Connecticut want to feel connected to the team, and they feel like they are part of the franchise. The readers in Hartford and around UConn want to know what the players and coaches feel and think, because they want to feel with them. 

The ESPN article is not meant to entertain or stir up some laughter or emotion from the reader. Instead it is meant to stay neutral and inform the reader about the game. Of course the Courant article has all the same information in it, but the author of the article is clearly proud of his Connecticut team. 

When explaining the difference between this year’s and last year;s Louisville team, Altavilla wrote: “This time, there was no Angel McCoughtry, no Candyce Bingham and no Deseree Byrd. Oh yes, this time things were very different.” The article doesn’t go into much more detail about the Lousiville team while AP’s McMurray expands on the details a bit more. He wrote 3 paragraphs explaining how the Cardinal’s McCoughtry graduated to the WNBA last year, and how injuries have affected several other key players.  

The photo slideshow feature on the Courant’s website was a great supplement to the story. These women can jump!