Dear Parents of Young Football Players,
We need to be vigilant in all aspects of our children’s lives, including sports. I had no problem when my eight year old wanted to play football, assuming that our local Junior Peewees would provide him with a gradual introduction to the sport. Was I wrong! The first practice consisted of a warm-up jog around the field followed by full contact drills, during which coaches yelled “Shake it off” at kids who didn’t get up immediately. I witnessed one player bring his fist up under a team-mate’s face guard, which caused the victim’s neck to snap back and sent him to the ground flat on his back. The coaches didn’t seem phased. I was horrified. Because the coaching was unsystematic and disregarded safety I had my son choose an alternative sport. I’m...
Sport
Dear Mr. Manning,
My name is Jessica Epperson. I'm a long-time fan and recently new mother. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you for not only being an outstanding football player, but for being an outstanding person. Thank you for being the kind of person I could look up to, respect and root for everyday for the paat decade of my life.
You have no idea how much you impacted my life. I have been a fan since I was about 12 years old and have rooted for you ever since. I rooted for you as a Colt six years ago when I was 15 and in the hospital having my third open heart surgery. I remember you playing and winning on Halloween that year while I was watching from my hospital bed. I rooted for you every week and wore my Manning jersey to school every week also. I rooted for...
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Let's get one thing straight. you've pulled yourself into a deep pile of controversy. About the National Anthem. And I support your stance. As a Peruvian, I feel like every white person feels like they are the dominance of this country. I've gone through racist quips about visas, papers, and the American border, and the only people who have made said regards are white. One person ,in particular, is the most patriotic person I know, and he makes more Hispanic jokes than anyone I've ever known. I will fight for the country's acceptance of all colors. And for your honor.
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South African football is one sport that is admired, loved, and worshipped by many, one might say predominantly loved by people of colour.
And as a result, millions and millions of rands have been pumped into this sport that we all dearly love. But, it begs a question, are we really doing justice by pumping millions of rands into a sport that has not achieved continental success? Let alone international success?
Sure, the Men's Senior National team, affectionately known as Bafana Bafana have won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1996 on home soil, and it remains the only trophy we have to show for it. Mind you that is two decades ago.
In that time, South Africa have won the Rugby World Cup twice, Caster Semenya has won at the Olympics, Wayne van Niekerk has broken a long-standing...
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Mr. Thomas Bach
President of the International Olympic Committee
Dear Mr. Bach
My name is Stephanie Olivia Duval and I am from Seychelles, an archipelago of a little of over a 100 small islands with a population of less than 100,000. Seychelles has been participating in the Summer Olympic Games since 1980. Our athletes have never won any medals but we are a nation that loves sports and our nations dream is to see one of our athlete one day stand on the podium at the Olympic Games.
I have been watching the Olympic Games on TV for as long as I can possibly remember and I am passionate about sports and the Olympics.
I write to you to express my sentiments about how the Olympic Games are aired by the media.
Being someone that has worked with our local athletes, where I have...
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Who am I, and who have I been?
I have been the little girl playing tee ball that dreams about playing on the “big girls team”. I have been the “big girl” playing fast pitch, and at times watched as crazy parents yelled at umpires and coaches. I have been the little league coach and umpire being yelled at by the crazy parents. I have been a lost college student, only to find a new love of slow pitch softball to keep me sane.
I have been a fan, player, coach, a field supervisor and someone who used to love softball…
I am…
I am a wife. I am an aunt. I am a college student. I am a business owner. I am a future Mother. I was, what I USED to dream of, a softball player…
I am a bystander seeing a little girl watch her Dad, Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Sister, Brother, Aunt, Uncle or all...
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My earliest childhood memories involve a basketball in some way. Whether it was trying to reach the basket from the foul line well before I should’ve been able to, or being strapped into a stroller on the sidelines at my brother’s games...it has always been front and center in my life. It didn’t take much at all for me to learn to love the game. I didn’t have pushy parents who threw me into it, I never thought I had to do it for any particular reason. I picked up the ball, I made that choice, the only choice that has ever felt that natural to me, until now.
Basketball turned into an everyday thing for me before most kids could read a chapter book. My growth spurts arrived earlier than most so I had the luxury of being able to shoot far before others my age, a luxury I will forever...
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Today, Tom Brady gave up on his trial and will take no further legal action towards the DeflateGate case. He will serve a four-game suspension. I can take four games with Jimmy Garropolo starting, but there's something that enrages me about this. America has a system in terms of trials. Inncocent until proven guilty. Was Brady proven guilty? NO! What evidence was there? A smashed phone? I would mash my phone if I was this stressed? I would. Brady is worth 120 million dollars and could buy iPhones for all the fans crowding Gillette Stadium.
The cost of a 6S is pocket change to him. Deflated balls? That's the reason the case was started. But here's the thing. Why Tom Brady? It could have been anyone on either team's active 53 man roster or even the coaching staff in Foxboro that night. It...
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This is an open letter from an emotional Thunder fan. I do not usually do this but I feel like I have so many feelings and need to get them out somehow; so this is me processing. As a kid I grew up loving sports but never really got into the NBA. During playoff runs I would watch the Pistons but, I was always more of a college guy. I grew up loving Michigan State and watched every basketball game. Early on in the 2006-2007 year Michigan State played Texas and as I was watching the game I fell in love with Kevin Durant. I loved the way he played, obviously, and the way he carried himself on the court as well. I began to follow his career, and he quickly became my favorite player to watch.
He was drafted in 2007 by the Seattle Supersonics and I fell in love. Sure they weren’t great...
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Dear FA
Last night the nation witnessed what can be achieved when a nation unites behind its team and a team unites for its nation. The suggestion this morning that the entire England squad should be forced to pull the open top bus carrying the glorious Welsh team through the streets of the principality on their return home is the minimum humiliation we could expect from such a lacklustre and hopeless showing at another major football tournament. But instead Hodgson, his backroom team (what on earth did they spend their time doing?) and the "players" (if we can call them that in anything other than a broadly descriptive sense) pocket their wages and slide off to tan their sorry arses on the beaches of the world before returning to pre-season training when everything will probably be...
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