Blog Entry 2

In "Three Man Weave", the author recalls a memory in which he witnessed a team of Native Americans, significantly favored to lose the game against their juco opponent, win a basketball game with only three players on the court. They had no size, no true offense, and started the game with only five players on the roster. The final seconds were played with three. Yet, somehow they won, and that shocked the author, but such little publicity hid this remarkable event from the world. Nobody knew of it, and few cared about this seemingly unimportant basketball game.

The poem seems to be about a memory in which the author remembers the coming of football each October in his hometown, recalling how it affects the attitude of the people and how kids clash against each other during the football games. He realizes that football is what they all have in common, and that no matter what their own lives have in store for them, they relish the game.

It seems that sports bring these people together, from all of their different backgrounds they come to watch the same competition, or to compete. They share the same goals of winning and having a good time playing the sport they love, and it is clear that the racial differences and different house-life of the people in a given place mean nothing when it comes to a game. Some say they use sports to "escape" their lives, and this seems to be an accurate way to describe it. They all play with one goal, one universal idea of winning. Both pieces rely on the recall of a memory, and they are seemingly both nostalgic. This is important to all of us and to these writers, as we love sport for the way it makes us feel, the way it allows us to dedicate ourselves to one common goal. The memories of sports, either good or bad, stick with us and drive us to strengthen our love for the game. Both pieces also show us how sports affect small communities, or a repressed culture. it shows us that cultures or communities will utilize sports to feel that they are on equal grounds, to feel like they have opportunities. Communities have hopes and dreams, and these pieces convey how sports are used to achieve such hopes and dreams, or to escape reality.

Such stories have always brought one specific question to mind: are repressed cultures or small communities more sport-oriented for a reason? In all professional sports, there are stories of athletes coming from underprivileged homes and who had rough childhoods, and yet they are now some of the best athletes in the world in their sport. Why is this seemingly so common? I believe these areas or these cultures feel that sports allow them to compete with the world on a level playing field, and that their drive to succeed and to be the best is higher than the motivation of privileged athletes. They may not know from a young age that they can use sports to escape financial hardships, but they do use athletics to escape their hard lives mentally.

I feel that my personal experiences are vastly different, as sports began as recreation for me and developed into a passion, and this may be a point that I make in my paper. I may describe how it is weird to consider that other children played sports because it was the only option to them, the only thing they wanted to do because they felt that their lives were otherwise meaningless. Sure, I love sports, but I can't honestly say that i ever believed my life held no meaning without it. I do feel that many communities or cultures feel this way, and it may be worth stating in my paper how this impacts our differences. Using memories of events to make universal statements, suggestions, or to raise questions may be something I do in my paper to emphasize how sports can be more than just recreation.