One of My Most Coveted Achievements
Dr. Ross’ Comments: This essay is a very good example of a personal experience shared by the writer. She clearly describes an important episode in her life and vividly reveals a part of her true “self” to her audience.
What began in my life as yet another effort in weight loss became one of my most coveted achievements. After the birth of our third child, and too many pounds that were not disappearing, we purchased a small above ground pool. While the kids splashed, I began my aquatic exercise program. Within a short time, I yearned to swim laps in a larger pool, and soon we were swimming at Southeastern Louisiana University’s near Olympic size facility.
Setting my sights on becoming a long distance swimmer, I had indeed begun to lose weight as my fitness improved. I discovered a real satisfaction from swimming. As I learned to improve my stroke and lung capacity, I savored the quiet world that I was immersed in during my workouts. It became my special time to allow my thoughts to glide as effortlessly as my body did while my distance increased to an uninterrupted mile. I truly loved the permanent smell of chlorine on my skin. I was a swimmer.
The coach of the adult swim team invited me to join, and I was delighted to be considered an athlete of any kind. Morning workouts with the team were now interspersed with my evenings at the pool with my children, as I prepared to enter the world of competition.
Shortly before one meet, our coach had recruited several twenty year old, physically fit men to join our team. Having now competed a few times, I was no longer a novice, but still not a veteran. I fully expected this to be like most of my team practices, faster than the slowest, but not able to keep up with the more skillful swimmers.
The pool was unusually empty for the day before a competition as some chose that time to rest and restore in order to be in peak condition for the event. I only recall the coach, these new swimmers and myself in the water. As the coach called out the directions for each lap, his voice bounced off the walls that shimmered with the under water lights that seemed to move as the water ripples above.
Throughout history in the NFL, head injuries and fixing those problems have always been hidden from the athletes because of the NFL striving to make a large profit instead of caring for the players. With this being an ongoing problem between NFL players and the NFL itself, many past and current players are digging deeper to find the truth and statistics continue to show how serious this problem actually is. When the lawsuits first began to come known to the public, the NFL agreed to pay over seven hundred million dollars to compensate former players suffering neurological injuries. Many believe the NFL offered this so quickly, hoping to avoid a potential public relations nightmare. The NFL, a ten billion dollar annual business, couldn’t take any type of guilt, or legal discovery, which some inside and out of the industry expected could have caused a fatal blow to the game’s future (Thiel). The settlement may have prevented the public from learning much about the past, but the issue of head injuries is a danger to football and won’t just go away because NFL wants it to (Waldron).
Playing football comes with several risks factors that players’ acknowledge prior to playing the game starting a young age. Regardless, these players still chose to play the game, which they end up loving and cherishing despite all the risks accompanied with it. Football is one of the toughest sports in the world; it takes a certain amount of strength, speed, and aggressiveness to play 48 minutes of hard-nosed football. However, the National Football League (NFL) is in the midst of a controversial issue. Is the NFL getting soft? This has been a debatable issue for several years. While some believe that implementing all these rules in the NFL is progressively turning the game soft, others say that the NFL is not getting soft; it is just trying to make the game safer for its players.
The swim is presented to the reader as an enormous challenge that only the brave and desperate would face, such as a player in a challenging computer game. Diction such as ‘dangerous’ and ‘trouble’ used throughout the swim maintains the risk the swimmer must face. The line“whirled pearl smoke,'; signifies confusion which heightens the unsureness of the situation. Vulnerability becomes evident as the swimmer suffers “cunning furtive spasms.'; The challenge heightens and the swimmer is represented as an “angry isolate.'; Like a computer game special affects are added in to increase the danger such as the lightning and the darkness.
Mihoces, Gary. “Parents Weigh Risks of Youth Football Amid Concussion Debate.” USA Today. USA Today, 23 May 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
The game of football has become safer over the past few years and is helping cut down the risk of injury. Not only are they safer during they play with the new safety technology they will be healthier after they play as well. Aikman praised the NFL for its recent decision to run baseline tests on all players in training camp so the league can later determine if their brains have been damaged from hits to the head.(“Aikman…”). With the new testing players be better equipped and prepared before and after their football careers. Many football players get brain injuries which is why they need to have better safety equipment. In any given season, about 20% of high school players suffer brain injuries (“Lanham”). The safety equipment is becoming way more advanced as well. Helmets are getting better, but it’s more effective at protecting the skull than the brain inside (“Death of Football…”). The Children’s Sports Athletic Equipment Safety Act comes in light of the fact that there are no federal guidelines for both new and used helmets that formally test against the forces believed to cause concussions (“Lanham”). The new safety equipment can’t protect everything thou...
Recent issues with the NFL not doing enough with head injuries has become a top news issue. the NFL has had several class action lawsuits against them. From several different head injuries that you can get, the post NFL injury is a very rough thing to deal with. Some say the ...
The National Football League (NFL) has come under fire for the long-lasting medical consequences of players’ game-related head injuries. The question that arises is; is the NFL to blame for the deaths of former players such as Junior Seau, Jovan Belcher, Ray Easterling, and/or O.J. Murdock? The medical and scientific factors in addition to legal liabilities in regards to brain injuries will be outlined in this paper.
From bright lights, big hits, and postgame interviews, to television commercials, team comradery, and multimillion-dollar deals. What comes next? Depression. Memory loss. Suicide. It’s not a strict protocol that fits every mold, however, the future lifestyle of a former player in the National Football League consists of constant medical exams and the inability to “access your entire brain” (Weller 47). Football has consistently had issues with head injuries no matter what level it is being played at and the NFL is a league filled with violent collisions from some of the world’s most athletically gifted players. Players are progressively being diagnosed with significant brain trauma due to the size and athleticism of the players in a game that is constantly evolving in terms of the speed and velocity at which these humans are colliding. But “can we make it more of an Indy 500 and less of a demolition derby?” (King 6). “Players are too fast and too strong to think they can hit each other in the head over and over and think they’ll keep walking away unharmed” (4). The effects of the collisions are far more impactful than the instant headache the player
American football is full of exciting competition, but do we realize the danger! Helmet safety in football remains an immense problem as the sport accounts for the highest incidence of concussions. Since leather football helmets, the technology for safer helmets has improved drastically and continue to improve. The development of newly designed helmets and technology has lowered the risk of head injuries for players. Furthermore, improvements in helmet testing methods have led to better understanding head injuries and the protectiveness of the helmet. In respect, football helmet safety still remains a challenge, such as a necessity of a proper categorization system to rank helmets and regulations to improve helmet safety. Regardless, standards and regulations attempt to address helmet safety through government intervention and a proper measuring system for football helmets. Despite the cultural perception of football, measures are taken to ensure safety, such as the reforms and education with regards to playing safer football. I intend to address the technological advances and regulation of football towards the discussion of helmet safety. Therefore the aggresivity in football’s culture should embrace stronger helmet standards and regulation that are promoted through improved testing methods and innovations because of the need to prevent further dangerous head injuries, especially concussions.
iving up my week and weekend nights for swim practice was something I was used to by the time I started high school. Swimming, was my calling, and with that came many sacrifices. Practices were everyday, Monday through Friday and sometimes on Saturdays, and consisted of countless sets of sprinting, kicking and pulling. The only thing that kept us stable during practice was counting down the time on the clock, “Just thirty more minutes, and I can relax for another twenty hours.” From there I would go home in time to shower and finish homework. Finishing what I needed to do before midnight was considered luck. The cycle repeated itself as I would get up the next day and do it again. However, there are many other aspects to this sport besides
Finish, Finish, Go, and Go you just set the new world record. Every four years lots of people gather around a pool cheering for Olympians. It is a very noisy place. A lot of Olympians that are part of the summer Olympics are very athletic, they swim all year around. The swimming Olympic history and background is very interesting. They have done so many new things over that past couple of years. They come out with new rules every year to make things more fair and challenging. There are a lot of events and tons of records that have been broke. A lot of Olympians have set future goals to stride for. I was swimming the 200 meter fly I was at a really good time when I had 50 meter sprint left at the end all I could think about was I’m going to set the new world record. Olympic swimming is a very fun sport it is very athletic. Every year in the summer time every one always sits around a TV watching this it is very famous in America. Swimmers from all around the world come and here and compete. There is a lot of competition there I have found out a lot about the history of swimming. There are a lot of events and tons of records that have been broke. A lot of Olympians have set future goals to stride for.
Reading and writing has always played a vital part in my life. From toddler to adult, pre-elementary to college, I’ve managed to sharpen both skills to my liking. However, even though it significantly helped, schooling was not what influenced me to continue developing those skills into talent. Many different things shaped and influenced my learning, and now reading and writing have become the safety net of my life. I know that even if I have nothing else in the future, I’ll still have my talent and knowledge. To ensure my success, I hope to further develop those skills so that I may fulfill my wishes.
So we all headed to the pool. To go to the deep end, I had to take a swim test. I didn’t want to take a swim test in the first place, but I had to. When I swam across the pool I did well. It was treading water that I knew I couldn’t do.
Koocher, Gerald P. "Swimming, Competence, and Personality Change." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1971): 275-278.
Ever since I was little I’ve been what you would call a “high achieving” kid. I did well in school, I did well in sports and I did well in my community. I was always the first one to class, and the last one to leave the field. I was the kid that all my friends’ parents compared their children to. I was the kid with a room full of trophies and awards. In my mind, the worst possible thing I could do was disappoint the people around me. In elementary school I was involved in every club imaginable. I was in the band, I played in the orchestra, I sang solos for chorus, I was in the math club, I was president of student council, I played travel soccer, I was involved in every activity possible, and I excelled in all of them. This