Pitching Our Way Back into the Olympics

Today's blog is a guest post from high school student Lydia Dunbar. She had a high school assignment to write about something important to her. She chose softball, specifically why it should be brought back to the Olympics. And unlike C and R, she even provides the links at the end where she got stuff. And unlike C and R again, she actually edited it carefully and there are NO typos! Such a change of pace! And really unlike C and R, she listens to All Things Considered on low volume instead of watching reality TV.

Okay, here's more from Lydia.

"The reason I wrote an article about softball in the Olympics and why it should be reinstated is because softball is a topic that is very important to me. I have been playing since I was six years old (I am seventeen now) and I remember how exciting it was to watch the USA Olympic team execute perfect plays in the infield and make spectacular throws from the outfield. I just think that Olympic softball players provide an inspiration for younger girls to become better softball players. Jennie Finch, the starting Olympic pitcher, is a phenomenal player and I remember when I was growing up I really wanted to pitch like her. I don't pitch anymore, but I still love watching how fast she throws the ball."

After removing all her nice MLA formatting, here is her article in its entirety:

Pitching Our Way Back into the Olympics

Jennie Finch and Cat Osterman are two of the best pitchers on the United States Olympic softball team. Of course that was not always the case. Like many other celebrities, they grew into fame by becoming increasingly better athletes. These two women inspire many people by their admirable dedication to the sport of softball and how they represented their country when softball was an Olympic sport. For that reason, softball should be reinstated back into the Olympics because it provides opportunities for females, life lessons, and an occasion for equality in the Olympics.

Softball, which was an Olympic sport from 1996 to 2008, was full of the best athletes during its time in the Olympics. The US team for example, won the Gold Medal every year except when Japan won Gold in the 2008 Olympics. The dedication these women put into the sport is admired by many young girls who dream of playing the sport as well. It gives girls and women opportunities to participate in a sport they love and want to compete professionally. In some countries such as Afghanistan where female inclusion is less common, softball “has been instrumental in allowing women and girls to play a sport in some of the most restricted countries” (Zinser). Without softball in the Olympics, there is less inspiration spreading to younger generations of girls who dream of playing professionally. Softball in the Olympics has been proven to be motivation for thousands of girls to participate in the sport, therefore it should be returned to the Olympics.

Like any other sport, softball requires good sportsmanship, teamwork, and dedication. The US Olympic softball team is full of athletes who exemplify these qualities. The coach of the US Olympic softball team drilled into the athletes’ heads that they were going to dominate. “That’s all we were going to do is dominate. And that’s what we did” Crystal Bustos says in an interview on All Things Considered. The fact that the US team had the determination to win the Gold every year from 1996 to 2008 is admirable, and lots of girls and women look up to the “dream team” of the Olympic Sport. Softball is an inspirational sport for many athletes determined to play for their country.

Softball and baseball are two very similar sports with just a few differences. Both were in the Olympics at some point in time, which offered an opportunity for minor league athletes of both genders to play in a world event. If for instance the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to put only one of the two sports back into the games, that would draw back from gender equality, which is one of the focuses of the IOC, according to Kelly Whiteside in her  article Why 3 Key Sports Will (or Won’t) Make Games. By having one sport, baseball or softball, reinstated back into the Olympics, that would draw attention to the lack of the other one. If that is the case, the IOC should strive to reestablish both sports to the 2020 Olympic Games.

The Olympic Games consist of sports that do not seem as popular as the American past time. There is synchronized swimming which does not seem nearly as well-liked as Softball. Other female sports, such as tennis, gymnastics, track and field, volleyball, and more are a big deal for girls and teenagers who dream of representing their country. People love watching these sports because they are a competition of the best female athletes. Whether it is a team sport or individual, it is still an exciting event, therefore softball, a team sport, should be put back into the Olympics because it is another one of those sports that is exciting to watch and aspire to be.

In conclusion, softball should be added back into the Olympics because it is inspiration for athletes to try to play and represent their country in a world event. Softball is a sport that motivates women and girls to participate in extracurricular activities, and it strives for gender equality and teaches people life lessons. One way for the IOC to see the impact of such sport in the Olympics is provide programs for children to work on their skills and encourage them to continue to their best of ability.

-Lydia Dunbar

Bio
My name is Lydia Dunbar, I am a high school junior. I am currently enrolled in AP English 11 which focuses on the English language. I do enjoy English very much, but my favorite class is science. I enjoyed writing this article because it is a topic very close to my heart. When I was younger, I wanted to be an Olympic softball player and I always admired Jennie Finch, the starting pitcher for the United States Olympic team. I hope people are inspired by my article to see the importance of reinstating softball back into the Olympics.

Works Cited
"Baseball, Softball Still Taking Swings for 2020 Olympics." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/2014/05/31/Baseball-softball-still-taking-swings-for-2020-Olympics/stories/201405310115

Baseball Softball Hopeful of Reinstatement to Olympics." FOX Sports. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/baseball-softball-hopeful-of-reinstatement-to-olympics-012314


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Reachup With Brandi Chastain in Celebrity Soccer Game in San Jose

Hey Bay Area Women’s Soccer fans, mark your calendars for September 22, 2012, for Soccer Legend Brandi Chastain’s All-Star Celebrity Soccer match for charity and post game Radio Disney Concert at San Jose Municipal Stadium (home of the minor league baseball team the San Jose Giants) in San Jose. Akin to the retirement party Brandi threw for herself in the fall of 2010, Brandi has asked her friends to come play soccer and raise some money for her Reachup! Foundation.

And what friends Brandi has. Scheduled to come are Soccer legends Kristine Lilly, Julie Foudy, Tisha Venturini Hoch and Leslie Osborne. Other non-soccer players scheduled to attend are Kristi Yamaguchi and her husband, some guy named Bret Hadican. Think he skates or somethin’ (just teasing you Bret and Kristi, Bret Hedican played over 100 games in the NHL for various teams and is now does NHL analyst for the San Jose Sharks).

Also scheduled to come are: Joe Nedney (San Francisco 49ers kicker), Kristy Leskinen (skier), Leanne Pelosi (snowboarding) Mike Ricci (also NHL hockey) and a former Stanford volleyball player and Olympian by the name of Ogonna Nneka Nnamani, currently studying to be a doctor, and you know we love anyone named Nneka!

Other soccer women include: Sissi (Brazil soccer superstar, must be if she has one name), Meagan McCray (soccer), Meghan Maiwald (deaf soccer goalie), Veronica Zepada Cashman (soccer), Carrie Dew (soccer), and Lisa Nanez (soccer and Middle School Directory, so if anyone can order you around, it will be her).

And you can’t have great soccer players without some coaches, although these guys get to put their money where their mouths are, as they have to play. Scheduled to appear are Paul Ratciliffe, (Stanford Women’s Soccer Head Coach and defending National Champs, and I know his mom, so if her gets out of line, I’m tellin’), Jeff Leightman, (San Jose State Women’s head soccer coach) and Neil McGuire (Cal Berkeley Women’s head soccer coach). Sissi also coaches, but C and R still think of her as the great player she was.

You can find more info and bios on these great people here: Although the link worked on my newer laptop, it would not on my older desk top, so good luck.

About Brandi Chastaisn Reach up Foundatoin, formed with business partner Joan Oloof, from the press release:
“What Dr. Oloff and I have come to realize is how young girls continue to crave inspiration and connections with mentors. The ReachuP! Foundation was created to provide a community where young girls can be inspired, empowered and challenged to reach beyond what they feel their limitations may be,” said Chastain. Proceeds from the all star match will support the ReachuP! Foundation. We produce content and programs that encourage girls to develop the skills necessary to make healthy lifestyle choices, become true champions and challenge young girls to reach for their dreams. The all star match will also support like-minded organizations in the local community.

A new wrinkle will be an after game concert, hosted by Radio Disney. From the press release:
Radio Disney AM 1310 will be on-site with interactive entertainment and Radio Disney’s Ultimate Field Day activities encouraging kids and families to be active through a variety of organized, recreational activities including Soccer Goal Kick Stations, Miniature Golf Put-Put Holes, Jump Rope Village and more. Radio Disney AM 1310 will culminate the day of fun starting at 5:45 p.m. with on-stage entertainment from the Radio Disney AM 1310 Road Crew. Then, at 6:45 p.m., popular Radio Disney artists will take the stage for performances and Q&A sessions. Damian Otchere from the popular musical talent competition “N.B.T.” (Next BIG Thing) will take the stage first followed by a headline performance by singer, actor, dancer, songwriter and star of Disney Channel’s “Good Luck Charlie.” Shane Harper. (And what are they going to do when that baby starts getting older in "Good Luck Charlie"?).

The timeline goes something like this (Still a little unclear):
Noon to 2 PM, free on Ultimate field events (the Disney thing?)
Brandi Chastain will host a soccer clinic-taking place at the stadium from 2:00 – 3:00 PM.  Participation in the clinic requires separate tickets which cost $50, and can be purchased at www.reachupworld.com.
Then soccer game at 4 PM (Time is a little unclear).
5:45 PM starts on-stage entertainment from the Radio Disney AM 1310 Road Crew.
6:45 PM, popular Radio Disney artists will take the stage for performances and Q & A.
Will pass on more info as we find out. If you are in the Bay Area, come on out.

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Olympic Hang Over

Now that the Olympics are over and there’s been some time to digest, I feel a little disappointed about the Olympics. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to be proud of if you follow American women sports.

What has C and R so rankled was NBC and their coverage. Their choice to not show events live really dampened the experience that we were all watching together. Isn’t the Olympics supposed to be a global experience? When we started watching previous Olympics years before the Internet, the events were not broadcast live, but we didn’t have any outlet to get advanced results. Now with the Internet and social media in particular, you could know the results before they happened. Yes, one could stay off the Internet, but the fact they showed the East Coast the events first and then the West Coast later made it really maddening. Couldn’t the USA at least share in the experience like Monday night Football shown in all time zones at once? Plus the “Prime Time” viewing of 8 PM to 12 Midnight made for bleary-eyed hours the next day at work. Couldn’t NBC have cut their crappy syndicated reruns at 7 PM and let us go to bed at 11? And…and, the coverage was so scant for most events. Pole vaulting and long jump maybe got 10 minutes each. Plus, each extended moment was sliced and packaged with commercials at just the right spot to draw out the “drama”, that it made us sick. Sports do not need any more help with drama from you, NBC, thank you very much. Let them run as they unfold.

Don’t get us wrong and paint us as a Gloomy Gus, there was a lot to cheer about, such as:

American women outnumber their male counterparts for the first time in like, forever, and out-medalled them, too, winning 59 medals, 29 of them gold to US men’s 45 overall, 17 Golds. If the America women were their own country they would have come in third on Gold globally, and fifth overall for medals.

And it is not just the statistics, it’s the way they dominated. Women’s gymnasts, track and field, and swimmers were outstanding. Women’s Soccer gave us thrilling come-from-behind wins and avengied their World Cup loss to Japan. US Women won a water polo Gold for the first time ever, behind a 19 year old who has yet to play in college!! (Maggie Steffans, and yeah, she’s going to Stanford!). Women’s basketball won a record fifth-straight Gold Medal, something never before accomplished by any women team sports in the Olympics. Women’s beach volleyball, a team of two, and the same two, Misty May Treanor and Kerri Walsh, won three Golds in a row. Do you know how hard that is to stay on top for 12 years?

Women got to participate in the sport of Boxing for the first time in the Olympics, yay! C and R hate boxing as a sport as the winner is the one who inflicts more physical punishing and bruising of their opponent. What other sport can claim that? Boo. Plus the building evidence that it greatly contributes to later brain damage of the participating athletes men or women, further makes us not be able to get behind the sport.

At first it was announced that for the first time ever, all attending nations were sending women athletes. Then it turns out after the Olympics that tiny Nauru did not, so much for that hyperbole. But, everyone else will point out, international pressure got Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei to send women for the first time. Yay! They had to wear heavy attire that covered their whole bodies and heads, could not walk unescorted without a male escort and could not talk to other men. This is progress? By “allowing” these women athletes, these countries want you to forget that women back home are heavily oppressed, and in Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive, walk freely, or legally exercise, let alone play on sports teams. Boo. Think about that as you grab your ball and water bottle and head out in your shorts and tank top to go do your sport.

Saudi Arabia in particular did not support, nor want, or even acknowledge their two women athletes, one who was an American college track athlete, Sarah Attar. Attar runs track for Pepperdine University in California. It really galls C and R that when Saudi Arabia announced Sarah Attar as one of their athletes, at the same time the International Olympic Committee pressured Pepperdine to take photos of Attar competing in shorts and tank top off of their school website. Why did they give in? This is America, not Saudi Arabia? It’s okay to show your skin here.

It was reported the Saudi Arabian women received death threats from their own countrymen, and a twitter hashtag described the two athletes as “Prostitutes of the Olympics.” Other Internet articles stated that the hard-line clerics of that country are more resolved than ever to keep women from participating in sports, and have effectively made things worse (don’t know how much worse it can get). Still, the flip side of the coin is "every step forward counts,” says one Saudi journalist.

So it was a bit of a mixed bag for C and R to “watch” heavily edited, taped-delayed, prepackaged, heavily commercialized, pro-American Olympic events, even if it usually resulted in an American woman getting a medal draped around her neck.

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Twitter Olympics

Welcome to the Twitter-lympics. Wish C and R could say they coined the word, but a quick Google search shows a lot of other people are picking up that the most important story about the 2012 Olympics is the social micro-blogging site, Twitter.

First, we had the American broadcaster responsible for showing the games on TV, NBC, make the boneheaded decision to not show the opening ceremony live. Then when they did show it on the East coast hours later, they further fractured the US by delaying it to start in prime time in each time zone. Poor Hawaii was still watching it when competitions began the next day.

Worse, NBC responded to the resulting criticism for the opening ceremony delays by saying they needed to edit it to provide context. The inane chatter from Bob Costas and Matt “Rwanda seems to have put that genocide behind them” Lauer had to hurt their case more than help. That and 200 commercial breaks right at peak times further hurt their position.

Many complained that day, on Twitter of course. All of us did, but one got singled out.
One journalist, Guy Adams, complained so hard about NBC that Twitter suspended his account. To be fair to Twitter, they said Adams posted the email address of an NBC executive, and private info is not allowed to be tweeted. Adams said he came up with the corporate email address by using Google and figuring out the complicated pattern of using first name, a period, then the last name, and “@nbcuni.com”. Then twitter unsuspended him. Conspiracy theorists have a field day saying NBC “forced” Twitter to censor him. Someone on Twitter gets the last laugh by creating “NBC Live Fail” and gets 1,000 followers in about an hour. They don’t get suspended.

Meanwhile, Twitter keeps giving out real time results and NBC keeps pretending you don’t know. NBC asks, “What will happen next?” and “Will the United States win a medal?” and “Can we set a record for how many times we mention Michael Phelps in one breath?”

So many people were using Twitter during an Olympic bicycle race that media officials couldn’t get the GPS signals of where the bikes were, and hence had scant coverage. Bet they could have just sent a Twitter post and asked everyone on Twitter where the leaders were.

Twitter even got at least two athletes (at this writing) banned from the Olympics. Granted they were making racists remarks about other countries on Twitter, but still. The Greek Track and Field woman’s comments were just downright bigoted to Africans and perhaps should have been used as a teachable moment instead of being kicked out of the games. But the Swiss soccer player tended to incited violence by saying he wanted to “beat up” South Koreans and that they should “burn.” Yeah, maybe he shouldn’t be in the Olympic Village.

And what about US athletes, who have the whole freedom of speech to fall back on? Well, of course America wouldn’t be America without a Twitter controversy. US Women’s Soccer Goalie Hope Solo tweeted some downright rude comments to “national treasure” Brandi Chastain, because Brandi as a commentator made disparaging remarks about the defense, in particular Rachel Bueler. Brandi did have a point about Team USA’s defense, and said it was her job as commentator to comment. Hope Solo was a might sensitive and went a little nutso on Twitter. Mainstream Media, who follows Hope Solo not so much for her athletic performance but because she is so darn attractive, took great notice. Within 3 hours there were 20 articles about the feud. Eventually, the Women’s Coach pulled Hope in and gave her a slap on the wrist and no punishment. By the way, Australian Basketball Star Lauren Jackson, who plays in the WNBA, took umbrage to commentator Lisa Leslie’s comments during a game and some Twitter comments flew back and forth. No one in the mainstream media noticed, as no one was named Hope Solo or has those smoldering eyes. (Poor women’s basketball, always a distant second). --And just Google the women to find out what they said.

But for all the other American athletes not named Hope Solo, they are super burned by the so-called “Rule 40”. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) bans any Olympic Athlete from using their names or likenesses for advertising during the games. The rule is in effect from July 18 to Aug 15, three days after the closing ceremonies. They even amended the rule to say you can’t mention any sponsor of yours on Twitter. However, official sponsors that give money to the Olympics may be mentioned and are encouraged to be mentioned on Twitter. So you can mention sponsors, but only the official ones. So no saying thanks to the organizations that actually got you to the Olympics. Many America athletes have taken to, yes, Twitter to protest, with the hastags “WeDemandChange2012” and “Rule40.”

Twitter continues to be the place where C and R get their results. Why? Because Twitter talks back to us. We can ask, “What time is the Women’s Soccer game being broadcast on TV?” And Twitter buddies will be quick with the answer. Or we can ask, “What is wrong with the whole first string of the US Women’s Basketball team that Geno substitutes all 5 out at once and the ‘scrubs’ have to save the day?” Then a lively discussion ensues. Using a static website like NBC Live just tells you when something is about to happen or implores you to “look at our latest pictures.” Twitter gets results and lets you have conversations. And we can find things out in real time.

Go Team Twitter

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