Gabrielle Douglas Gabrielle Douglas was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, December, 31, 1995. Her mothers name was Natalie Hawkins and her fathers name was Timothy Douglas. Natalie is a single mother of four kids and Gabrielle is the youngest of four. They are Arielle Douglas, Johnathan Douglas, and Joyelle Douglas are the names of Gabrielle siblings. Arielle was the one who taught gymnastics to Gabrielle. Gabby caught on to gymnastics pretty quick and was enthusiastic about it. Ever since Gabrielle was young she wanted to compete in the Olympics and so she worked hard to be the best. And so her journey began to being the next best gymnast. She left to Iowa to be trained by Laing Chow, and followed her dream of being an Olympic gold medalist. The reason I chose Gabrielle Douglas was because of her hard work and dedication to gymnastics. It all started when her sister Arielle taught her how to do a cartwheel. Gabrielle then did a perfectly one handed cartwheel at four years old. Her sister Arielle was really impressed with what Gabby could do especially at at young age. Arielle then talked her mother into putting Gabrielle in a gymnastics class and had successfully convinced her. Natalie, Gabrielle’s mother saw the flexibility and coordination in her daughter, and so she enrolled her in a former gymnastics class when she was six years old (bio.com). By the time Gabrielle was eight she had won state championship and made her mother proud (bio.com). Gabrielle Douglas was not content with winning just state championship, she hoped and wanted to participate in the olympics. Her passion for being an Olympic gold medalist was beginning to grow on her. Few years had passed when Liang Chow a coach that is well known came into tow... ... middle of paper ... ...ecause she worked hard to accomplish what she wanted in life. Work Cited “Gabby Douglas Biography.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. “Gabby Douglas: I Nearly Quit Gymnastics to Work at Chick-fil-A!” People.com.N.p, 30 Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. Neporent, Liz. "Olympian Gabby Douglas Homeless, Bullied Before Winning Gold." ABC. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. News. ABC News Network, 13 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.evision, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. "The Gabby Douglas Story Is a Whitewashed Look at the Olympian · TV Review · The A.V. Club." The Gabby Douglas Story Is a Whitewashed Look at the Olympian · TV Review · The A.V. Club. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. Quote “Gymnastics is not my passion anymore” “Gabby Douglas: I Nearly Quit Gymnastics to Work at Chick-fil-A!” People.com.N.p, 30 Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
There can be no question that sport and athletes seem to be considered less than worthy subjects for writers of serious fiction, an odd fact considering how deeply ingrained in North American culture sport is, and how obviously and passionately North Americans care about it as participants and spectators. In this society of diverse peoples of greatly varying interests, tastes, and beliefs, no experience is as universal as playing or watching sports, and so it is simply perplexing how little adult fiction is written on the subject, not to mention how lightly regarded that little which is written seems to be. It should all be quite to the contrary; that our fascination and familiarity with sport makes it a most advantageous subject for the skilled writer of fiction is amply demonstrated by Mark Harris.
Gevinson, Matilda. Ethical Rules on Sport’s Justice. Dallas: East Dallas Times, page 21. 2008. Print
To start off my interpretation analysis of the first two chapters in their book, I will begin by stating a classification I have personally received. In the beginning pages of chapter number one, the authors go on in explaining the misclassification of how the skin color, physical attributes, or origin of a person decide how good they are in physical activity; being Latino, most specifically coming from a Dominican background, people always assumed I was or had to be good in Baseball. This classification always bothered me; one, simply because I hate baseball, to me personally is one of the most boring sports in the planet, and second because my strong physical ability still to this point in life is running. Throughout my High School years, people always seemed shocked when they found out I belonged to the track team instead of the baseball team. There was one occasion, where someone said I was a disgrace to the Dominican Republic, simply because I was not good at striking a ball with a baseball bat. As I reflect on this idea and personal experience, I have found this to be one of the strongest points in chapter one of “Racial Domination, Racial Progress: The Sociology of Race in America”. This is due to in part, because perhaps I can relate to it personally, and because in the world of sports is one of the most frequent things commentators will rely on to explain a team’s or individual success. Apart from the point of sports and physical attributes, the authors also go on in elaborating how this belief of how a person looks, has resulted in dangerous practices in the medical field. This is particularly shocking to
African Americans entered the world of sports in the early 1900s when the first African American Olympian became a gold medal, Constantin Henriquez de Zubiera. He won a gold medal in rugby (Bosanac). Not only did the early 1900s open the door for African Americans, but women would also begin to infiltrate into sports as well. Women would be allowed to play in the Olympics; however, they were only allowed to play golf, tennis, and croquet. Only 19 women qualifiers made it through to the first Olympics with women participants (Bosanac). Before Althea Gibson, Margaret Ives Abbott was the first to win the singles tournament for tennis, foreshadowing Althea Gibson’s legacy to come (Schwartz). “She also won gold the 1900 Olympic games in golf just like Althea soo...
Kerri Strug is remembered today for her performance at the 1996 Summer Olympics, but very few people know the rest of her story. Kerri was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. The Strugs were a family of five, and Kerri was the youngest. She had both an older brother and an older sister. Although Kerri had many outstanding accomplishments as a gymnast, her vault on July 23, 1996, earned her a place in gymnastics’ history. Kerri was limping because on her first attempt she fell and sprained her left ankle. After she finished somersaulting through the air, Kerri stuck the landing on one foot and then collapsed in tears. Kerri’s story is one of great courage (“Heart” 12).
Fast-forward to 1982. By this time, African-Americans had already established themselves as the premier athletes in the American sports world. Society accepted this, and therefore, newspapers respected it. America was now more colorblind. One would be pressed to find a sports page in the United States that did not have an article on an African-American athlete. Although society was by no means living in complete racial harmony in 1982, the newspapers did not show any obvious racial bias. It was, however, a much better world for the African-American, and one could decipher all this by simply picking up the sports page in the morning.
But according to Dilley-Knoles in “Making the Grade: Academic Success in Today’s Athlete,” he seems to believe the total opposite. He points out “attention has not always been solely about games and competitions” apparently the “spotlight” has recently been “redirected to academics (Dilley-Knoles). Today, athletes wanting to participate in athletics have to meet specific criteria before being on a team of some sort in high-school (Dilley-Knoles). Knoles explains how over the last few years, the National Collegiate Athletic (NCAA) has created certain standards for academic performance for those students who are in sports (Dilley-Knoles). Certain programs have been created to reward sport teams that do well academically, and penalizing those that don’t (Dilley-Knoles). Although Gabby Douglass was the first women of color “of any nationality and the first African-American gymnast in Olympic history” to become the “Individual All-Around Champion,” I believe the photo shows that athletics was more important than academics (Mike). The young girl below her suggests that she’s more focused on school because she might have not had the same opportunity as Gabby did. Athletes, similar to Gabby, find the pursuit of athletics to be “lucrative” which is something that society values through money (Kannan). In “Which is more important, sports or academics, and how can the choice are
Dedication throughout hardships. Discipline in body and mind. These are the qualities this sport has engraved into my being. There is not a time I can remember when I was not involved in gymnastics. When I reflect on the milestones of my life I don’t reminisce on the loss of my first tooth or a move to a new house, but instead I recall my first trip to nationals and mastering my back tuck.
Gabby Douglas was the first African-American female gymnast in Olympic history to become the individual All-Around champion. In the 2012 Olympic Games, she won gold in the team competition and the individual competition. She is a gymnastics phenom. From the beginning of her career to where she is today, she has been a true trooper through everything. Gabrielle Douglas is an inspiration to me and many others because she overcame being homeless,moved in with a new family, and won Olympic gold in gymnastics.
Hoberman, John M. 1997. Darwin's athletes: how sport has damaged Black America and preserved the myth of race. Boston, Mass: Houghton Mifflin Co
Today, two black women stand out as prominent figures in gymnastics, Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles. Douglas, at age 16, became the first woman of colour, of any nationality, to win a gold medal in the individual all around event at the 2012 Summer Olympics. She garnered a great deal of attention for her performance, but the media focused on her race as well. Many reported on her making history, being the first black woman to win gold medals in both individual and group all around events in the same year. She also received a lot of criticism on her hair. Many people took to social media to express disapproval to Douglas’ “unkempt” hair. Criticism included that it was not styled or that she had not put in a relax...
Web. The Web. The Web. 28 Feb. 2014. Hoggart, Simon.
Just a few pages into the book, words had already begun to jump out at me, capturing my attention. “The kids in Newark, black and brown, speaking Spanglish, hoods over their heads, wheeling their stolen cars over to the local chop shop -- they were aliens in America. Strange, forever separate and separated from the American ideal. But these Glen Ridge kids, they were pure gold, every mother’s dream, every father’s pride. They were not only Glen Ridge’s finest, but in their perfection they belonged to all of us. They were Our Guys (page 7).” This is a story about White Privilege, I thought. After reading the next two pages, I changed my mind. “...I wanted to understand how their status as young athlete celebrities in Glen Ridge influenced their treatment of girls and women, particularly those of their age.....I was especially curious about what license they were permitted as a clique of admired athletes and how that magnified the sense of superiority they felt as individuals (pages 8-9).” Oh! This is a story about jock culture, I thought.
Miller, Patrick B. Wiggins, David K. Sport and the color line: Black athletes and Race relations in Twentieth-century America. 2004. The Journal of Southern History 70 (4) (Nov 2004): 990.
This article focuses on the successes and hardships which the famous tennis player Serena Williams has experienced in her