Day Twenty-One: SAE Scandal

Last week, during one of our class discussions, one of my students asked me why there are black and white sororities.  I was taken aback, but the student is a senior and about to go to college where this will become an issue.  I had never attempted to pledge a sorority, mainly because they were not allowed on my college's campus (we had so-called social clubs, which were knock off sororities and fraternities, but I digress). I've just never really been into the sorority scene. I did community service through my campus job and clubs, I didn't like to party, and I barely could deal with one or two roommates.


Anyway, the student then asked to clarify why there were separate sororities and fraternities.  I explained that the "black" sororities and fraternities were founded because black college students were not allowed to pledge the white sororities and fraternities.  I then explained that the traditions continue, because many of the "white" sororities and fraternities STILL don't want to pledge black members to their sororities and fraternities. Some, not all. I also explained that many "black" sororities and fraternities do pledge white members.  Having attended an HBCU, I've seen white sorority girls and white fraternity boys.  Yet, I explained, it is still difficult for black students to break the ranks of the "white" sororities and fraternities. I used the University of Alabama as an example. As we continued the discussion, another student chimed in to say that during one of the college days they had attended, they had heard an official say that they believed that in the very near future that sororities and fraternities were going to go to the wayside and eventually be gone from most if not all campuses do to the continued issues of lack of diversity, alcohol consumption, racial/sexual insensitivity, and hazing issues. I don't know if that's true, but it does give you pause especially in light of the Oklahoma incident.


Everyone else has put in their two cents, so I might as well throw in mine.  Unless you have been living under a rock, you have to have heard about the fine, young men of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Chapter at the University of Oklahoma, and the bus trip they will never forget.  The young fraternity members were singing a racist chant on a bus that included no black people signing with the frat, or that they can hang them from a tree.


America is always ready to tell black people that we are too sensitive, and that we throw the race card far too often.  This ladies and gentlemen is the reason why. All too often, we see young men and women throughout the country doing overtly racist acts and then trying to pass them off as jokes. They are not jokes; they are not funny; they are offensive. I just do not understand how reasonably educated people can find this appropriate, and I have seen many comments where people are defending the young men. What they did was indefensible.  Praise the person who recorded it and posted it, because they felt it was wrong.


Now the young men of the fraternity are without a house, the people who run the house are without a job, and the two leaders of the chant are without a school.  Here is something I will never be able to understand.  You sit with each other in classrooms; you do projects with each other for class; you go to football/basketball games together; you play on the teams together; you celebrate victories together; you share dorms; but you cannot pledge to be brothers and sisters together?  This confuses me. It's like those high schools that still have separate proms, but everyone attends the homecoming dance.  It makes no sense.  Whatever happened to the golden rule-"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."


No matter what you believe
Jesus: Love thy neighbor as thyself.
Buddha: Consider others as yourself.
Mohammed:  Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you.  That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.
The Talmud:  What is hurtful to yourself do not to your fellow man.  That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. 
Egyptian Late Period Papyrus:  That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another.
Epicurus: Neither harm nor be harmed.
Confucius: Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.
If only we all could follow these simple maxims, how much greater would our country, our world be. Treat everyone the way you want to be treated.


Until next time, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”- Nelson Mandela

Day Twenty: The Mid-way Point

I’m at the halfway point of this Lenten blog challenge.  Whoo-hooo!!!  Only 20 more posts to go!!! Honestly, this is harder than that time I gave up potato chips.  Anyway, I have been feeling a little run down lately.  I’ll admit that I do not eat the way a 40-year-old should eat.  I know I should eat better, but I’d much rather eat a burger than kale.  It’s hard to change 40 years of bad habits.  After reading a few articles, I decided to give up caffeine (the headaches are miserable, fyi), and try this juice cleanse that I have heard several celebrities talking about on Twitter and Facebook.  Everyone talked about how they felt better and energized after the three day detox.  So, why not?

 

The first thing I did was look up juice cleanse products on Amazon.  I wanted them already prepared because yeah, lazy.  I’m not rich either.  The first one I found was Juice from the Raw 3-day organic cleanse (18 bottles) for $89.  The second was Jus by Julie 3-day cleanse for $129, and another was  the Suja Juice 1 day (6 bottles) for $51. I didn’t see pre-made as a possibility for me.

 

I decided to find alternative to these out of my budget cleanses.  I found the “I’ll try anything once: Cheap D.I.Y. at Home Juice Cleanse Edition” by a blogger named Hannah.  She seemed to enjoy the cleanse she tried, and her juice recipes actually didn’t cost a small fortune.  She spent about $45 on her supplies, and after my trip to Wal-Mart, I spent about the same, plus I will have fresh fruit and veggies when the cleanse is over.

 

Hannah’s Juice cleanse requires the drinking of six drinks a day for three days.  The cleanse follows this schedule:

1. A green juice for breakfast
2. A fruity juice for a mid-morning snack
3. A green juice for lunch
4. A cayenne pepper lemonade for the mid-afternoon snack
5. A green juice for dinner
6. A banana/cashew drink for dessert

First up is the green juice drink for breakfast.  I used kale, a spinach combo (spinach, bok choy, red and green chard), a granny smith apple, a kiwi, and a banana.  I was expecting something along the lines of absolutely gross, but it really was not bad.  I did not taste the kale and spinach much at all, but the apple and banana was noticeable, which is fine because I prefer fruity to greeny.

 
Drink #2-is a fruity juice.  I used a half a pineapple, one red apple, and a cucumber.  This drink is palatable as well.  I will say this. I do not like the foamy texture of the drinks; I might try to cut them with some bottle water.  It took two hours just to drink it all.  It’s the foam.  Texture is a big thing with me. 
 
Drink #3-a green again. Okay, I’m not feeling so well after this.  By the time I finished, I was feeling nauseated.  I don’t know if it’s the banana or just the foamy texture, but I didn’t do as well as I supposed.


So, I ended the day with solid food because the nausea would not pass.  I've decided that I may enjoy doing two or three, but six may be pushing it.  I'm going to try the alternate fruit juice and the lemonade tomorrow.

So, I tried something new. I'm still burping banana, which FYI is totally gross. Like I said earlier, the drinks are not bad.  They taste fine, but something would not agree with me.  Maybe tomorrow...

Until next time, "We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."-Walt Disney

 
 

Day Nineteen: No live blog...

There may be may be spoilers anyway...


So, one of the easier posts I've been able to do was my weekly live post about The Walking Dead. However, my cable company decided that "hey, it's a good idea to do updates during prime time when most people are actually using their devices." [Hi! I'm poor decision making Rob Lowe, and I have cable.]


I mean, I could have typed the blog in word and then just cut and paste, but in my neurotic mind that's kind of cheating. So, I'm just going to talk about the show.


I honestly don't know who is crazier Carol or Rick. She threatened a little kid with walker death or cookies. Carol reminds me of that crazy video they trot out to teachers showing us how people can hide guns (I imagine she has about 4 or 5 weapons on her at any given time).  Meanwhile, Rick is being rather a horn dog with Jessie.  She is annoying to me, but Rick has it bad, and of course that little moment with the gun at the end, what was that about?  P.S. Jessie's husband was an obnoxious jerk last week, and this week he's all "Hey, how's it going?"


Sasha is going to kill somebody.  I know she freaked out at the party, but that whole apocalypse cocktail party was uber-creepy and awkward.  But, as a bonus, we learned that Sasha and Michonne are not the only black women in Alexandria.


COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE CUT CARL'S HAIR!!!!!??????????????/


Daryl and Aaron (and I guess, Eric) have developed a weird relationship bonding while killing walkers, putting down Buttons the horse, eating spaghetti, and talking motorcycles. 


I wonder who Sasha heard at the beginning of the episodes. Why did that walker have a "w" on its head? Who knows...


Until next week, "Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots and ruined your black tie affair."-Garth Brooks

Day Eighteen: Leonard

I just wanted to write a little something about my cousin Leonard.  Three years ago today, he was released from the pain of his battle with cancer.  I'm not going to dwell on how he died, but how he lived.  He was the youngest of my first cousins.  I was there the morning he was born, doing my English homework in the waiting room while waiting for my grandmother to take me to school.

He was one of five babies born in the span of ten months in my family.  My mom had twins, her next youngest sister had twins, and then, Linda, Leonard's mom had him, her only child.  The five of them were like a miniature gang--a handful to say the least.  Leonard was a total camera hog; he created the photobomb before it became a word, and he loved to dance and sing on camera. 

He always did well in school, but I think his favorite activity was marching band.  He started out playing saxophone (like me) and rose to the position of drum major.  He traveled and competed with the band and made up elaborate routines to perform before and during the games, pep rallies, and parades.  He would sing in our church choir, as well as, a local youth choir where he became friends with many of the students I taught.

I'll admit the two of us were equally stubborn, and we would occasionally butt heads, but it's to be expected of family.  He was like another little brother to me, which often meant dancing on your nerves, but you love him any way.  He had an infectious laugh, and he never met a person who didn't become his friend. 

He was able to make a lot of life out of his 26 years, and I miss him every day. I try not to think of his last days, but rather the days before.  I mourn for what he could have become.  He was working as an educator before he passed, and I think he would have been an excellent teacher. The day he passed, I remember hearing John Mayer's "Say" playing on my way to work.  I hope I was able to say everything I needed to say to him.  I hope he knew just how much we all loved him. 

Until next time, "No one ever really dies as long as they took the time to leave us with fond memories."~Chris Sorensen

 

Day Seventeen: Paying Student-Athletes

This week, one of my students asked me why I didn't like college sports.  I admitted to him that I didn't always dislike college sports, but I have lost faith in many of the colleges who simple want to create national championship teams at any cost.  Why?  I'm an educator.  I have taught many talented athletes in all types of sports, but I also realize (even though many of them do not) that less than 1% of graduating high school seniors will win a Division I Scholarship in any sport.  I tell my senior student-athletes this every year.  I remind them if they get a scholarship, please take advantage and get a real education. I say this because in our hometown in 20 years, there have been approximately four players to make it to the pros.  Of those four, three played for a Division I school. 


People always comment that schools make a ton of money off the football and basketball teams, and that the players should get a cut of the action. They say a scholarship is not enough. If it is not enough, why accept it? They believe they should get a stipend for playing, because the scholarship is not enough.  Uhmmm, okay.


I have no problem with players profiting from jersey sales or their image on a video game.  I have no problem with that at all.  According to Darren Rovell, they would not make nearly as much as they think they would.  They definitely would not get rich.  Based on Rovell's research, if they received a 5% royalty, they would walk away with about $2.25 per jersey based on an average price of $60 per jersey.  Rovell used a player who was reprimanded for selling his own jerseys for profit. He stated that the student would have made more selling his jerseys himself than taking a cut from the profit (I don't really have a problem with selling something that personally belongs to you. I get that the NCAA has rules, and I even kind of, sort of understand why they have it, but this is one of those stupid rules they need to do away with and redo). He stated that if they sold 300 of this student's jerseys he would have profited $625. Their meal ticket is probably more than $625.  FYI, even the top schools average about one million dollars per year profit in jersey sales.  That makes a huge (sarcasm) dent in the average thirty million dollars per year they spend on the teams. 


I'm going to use Louisiana State University as an example.  In 2013, LSU spent $24,049,282 on its football team.  LSU made $68,804,309.  That is a profit of $44,755,027.  That's a lot of money made off football, but do you know what the expenditures for LSU as a university was over all in 2013?  It was only cost about $447,396,923  to run the school.  The state paid the school $124, 590,470.  They self-generated $315,730,227.   $217,420,493 was spent on salaries for the various employees of the school. Les Miles made a base salary paid by the school of $300,000 (third-party donations make up the rest of the 4 million dollars he makes each year).  LSU President and Chancellor F. King Alexander had a salary of $600,000 in 2013.  Technically, the football coach makes more per year than his actual boss.  That makes sense.  By the way, base professor salary is $145,000.


I think the main issue I had was a quote by Richard Sherman,

I would love for a regular student to have a student-athlete's schedule during the season for just one quarter or one semester and show me how you’ll balance that. Show me how you would schedule your classes when you can't schedule classes from 2 to 6 o'clock on any given day. Show me how you're going to get all your work done when after you get out at 7:30 or so, you've got a test the next day, you're dead tired from practice and you still have to study just as hard as everybody else every day and get all the same work done [...]Most of these kids are done with school, done with class by 3 o’clock. You’ve got the rest of the day to do as you please, you know? You may spend a few hours studying, then you may spend a few hours at the library checking out books and just doing casual reading. Then you may go hang out with friends and have a coffee. When you’re a student-athlete you don’t have that kind of time. You wake up in the morning, you have weights at this time, then after weights you go to class and after class maybe try to grab you a quick bite to eat, then after you get your quick bite to eat you go straight to meetings and after meetings you got practice and after practice you got to try to get all the work done you had throughout the day that you got from your lectures and from your focus groups. And those aren't the things people focus on when talking about student-athletes.

See, I have a problem with this quote for this reason. I have never played football, and I am aware it is a very difficult and grueling activity, but seriously, Richard.  You had a tough schedule?


Don't laugh, I was in marching band in college.  We showed up the exact same week the football team did in the summer.  We would eat breakfast with the football team every morning.  Then, they would do field work while we did field work in the morning.  They would go in about 10, as would the band.  I don't know what happened in the field house, but over in band land, the instrument players and dancers would work indoors until about 12.  In marching band, I was in color guard.  We practice outside in the Mississippi summer all day. You can't do color guard routines in a building. If it were raining, they occasionally let us used the gym.  At 12, we would see the football players again at lunch.  At 3, we were all back to practice, until about 5.  We would meet in the cafeteria for dinner, and then, back for film or whatever they did in the field house, while the band would work field drills until we could not see.  (While I was in grad school, we could hear the marching band practicing during our classes. Those kids were often still practicing when we were on our way home as late as 9 pm.)


Once school started, we practiced every afternoon from 3-5 and then, from 6-8.  We were still expected to show up to class on time.  We went to practically every game the football team went to, performing during the game and during half-time, usually with a half quarter to wolf down food from the concession stand and take off the uni to go to the bathroom, before traveling back.  After football season ended, we didn't stop practicing, because we had the multiple Christmas parades to perform  and the Christmas concert.  In the spring, most of us were in the two additional bands concert and jazz.  Two different sets of practices, two different performances, Mardi Gras parades, concerts for the school, two major concerts of our own, touring different high schools to perform, and the occasional basketball game.  Oh, once, we had to miss class to travel to play for the governor.


The point of my little band story, don't dump on other students when you really don't know what their schedules are like, and how much extra work they put in often with less scholarship money.  By the way, I was also on the school's hospitality and recruitment team, Student Government Association, a member of the schools drug awareness acting troupe, held offices in two other clubs, and belonged to a couple more-and received no scholarship money for either.  As a matter of fact, during homecoming, I spent the morning taking alumni and visitors to tour various locations on campus before changing that uniform to my band uniform to perform at the game.


I can guarantee most of these band students and cheerleaders are not getting the same scholarships the football team is getting.  I can almost guarantee, the basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, golf, etc. are not getting it either.  If you are going to pay the football players, pay them all, but most of the pay for pay proponents are only for football and basketball.


I am for the NFL and the NBA creating minor league teams for these students who only need about 2-3 more years to be field ready.  How many cities would love to have a minor league NFL team?  I know Mississippi loves its Mississippi Braves franchise.  I am for giving these scholarships to students who want an education, but happen to be good at sports-students who are college good, but may not be headed to the NFL.  I know there are those who disagree with me, and that's fine.  This is just my opinion.  Thus, I don't buy college products (except when I am attending the school), I don't go to the games, I don't watch the games, and I don't plan on working at a Div. I school.  [Grad school costs a fortune, and there are too few scholarships.]


As for the NFL, it's a business. I get why things are done the way they are done there, too. I don't always agree with that either. These, however, are not student-athletes.


Until next time, "The student athletes are the ones the kids look up to. The younger kids really look to them for guidance. We have to have high expectations of these kids. Participating in athletics is a privilege and with that privilege comes certain requirements." — Bob Wilson