What is a Champion?

570 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Positive role models and sports

What is a Champion?

There are many definitions of the word 'champion,' and many reasons why people want that title. For some it's ego, for some it's pride, for some it's fame, and for others it's fortune. Perhaps the truest definition of a champion, though, is someone who doesn't think of themselves as one, but others do.

After photographing the World Superfight Championship, I was standing by the ring as the arena emptied, when a middle-aged local man emerged from the crowd. Threading his way through the foot traffic, he walked up to one of the fighters signing autographs and apparently asked a question. The fighter glanced up, shook his head no, and then turned away. The man shrugged and moved on. He went to another fighter, and yet another, obviously asking the same question and obviously getting the same negative response. He glanced over, saw several fighters in my vicinity, and came over. Curious, I edged closer. 'Hello,' he said to them. 'I'm Mario from the Mas Oyama Karate school. We're having a kids tournament tomorrow and I was wondering if you could come?'

The Fighters, understandably tired after their bouts, all shook their heads. 'Some other time, man,' one said. Then they all walked off. The man sighed and started to walk away. yo!., a voice boomed from behind the corner of the raised ring. 'You say there be some kids there?' The man stopped and turned as 280-pound Joe Charles, who had just lost that night's very physical 'Superfight,' painfully stood up and limped over. 'it would mean a lot to them,' Mario said eagerly. Charles nodded rnatter-of-factly. "Pick me up in the morning.' He then shuffled off to the showers. The next morning, as I stood in front of the hotel with my camera and luggage, waiting for a ride to the airport, a small, two-door import drove up. Out jumped Mario, who waved behind me at a bag-laden Joe Charles, just walking out. 'Thanks for coming, Joe,' he said. 'And you brought a photographer to shoot the kids.' I looked at Mario, smiled and shrugged. 'Actually, Joe didn't...' 'Yes, I did,' Charles said, raising his voice and his eyebrows. "Right?" I hurriedly nodded. "Uh, right ... sure.' So we piled into the small car, Charles so sore that he could barely bend his legs, and drove to a sweltering gym in the middle of the island.

Show More
Related

  • Who Is The Son In Chris Crutcher's The Pin

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    When the father slaps his son, he is doing it out of fear that his son will be better than him. He is scared that there will always be someone better than him. He used violence so that it would not seem like his son was better than him. Inside he was starting to realize that his son is better than him. He did not want those three hundred people to think that he was not the best. Crutcher writes, “Three-year three-sport letterman at Coho High School in the mid-1950s and number two wrestler at 177 at the university of oklahoma after that. Number two is mysteriously absent from his version.” In the father’s wrestling career he was always number two, and not the best. He is scared of that, especially if it is his son who is better than him. This proves that the father is a fearful character because he is scared of being weak, and not being the

    Read More

  • The Boys from Joes

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    Joes High School’s total enrollment consisted of sixteen girls, and twenty boys. Ten of the boys that had enrolled there played basketball. All of the boys were over six feet tall. Lane Sullivan, the new coach of the basketball team, had never even touched a basketball before he started coaching. Sullivan had never coached anything at all before he started coaching the Joes basketball team. In order to gain knowledge about the sport, he got a book about it. He started coaching in 1927, but before the 1928 basketball season, Joes High School didn’t even have a gym. Instead, they’d practice outside on a dirt court, and two times a week they’d take a bus to the nearest gym, which was ten miles away. In order to play home games, the boys had to play in the local dance hall. The “court” was nowhere near regulation size, and the ceiling was so short that the boys couldn’t shoot an arched shot. The people who attended these basketball games had no place to sit and watch the game, the all stood around the edges of the court and on the small stage. Joes High School finally got their own gym around Christmas time because the people of Joes donated their time and material in order to make it happen.

    Read More

  • White Supremacism In Battle Royal, By Ralph Ellison

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    They say things in the young men’s ears like, “I want you to run across at the bell and give it to him right in the belly. If you don’t get him, I’m going to get you. I don’t like his looks” (229). The men are repeatedly called “nigger” instead of by their actual names. They are turned against their own kind. The nameless character makes it to the last of the battle royal. He keeps trying to bargain with his opponent to let him win and he’d pay him. But the man had it in his mind that he wasn’t fighting for the guest of the evening but for himself. This is so untrue. He wouldn’t have even been there had he not been forced to attend and perform. Nothing could represent black ignorance more than the train of thought of these two men. The nameless black citizen just wants to look good in front of the men that put him in the ring and his opponent really believes he’s in control of what’s going on.

    Read More

  • Mystery Behind Death of Tupac Shakur

    1846 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout all of this Tupac had made rivals with many people. He was beginning to be hated by just about everyone. He had his talent by his side though and he began filming movies.

    Read More

  • Study of Yanomami Culture: Day In The Field

    1258 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is nine in the morning, Professor Chagnon informs me of the information and data we hope to collect today, the three main forms of violence that accrue in and out side of each village, “chest pounding, side slapping and club fights” (Chagnon, 118) Professor Chagnon instructs me to follow him with the camera and film equipment. The Professor stops as he watch’s two men pounding each others chests, I begin preparing my camera to talk a photo when a friend of Professor Chagnon come’s over to say hello Professor Chagnon greets his friend an introduces me, Professor Chagnon as his friends what ...

    Read More

  • Napster

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    Perhaps the optimal solution for Napster’s dilemma is the possibility of a cable TV type payment. Users pay a certain monthly fee for all the downloaded music they wanted. They could chat with their favorite artists, get first claim on concert tickets, and browse possible downloads by genre. The new system would pay the artists their royalties and sell millions of older titles that at present are sitting in vaults because no stores will give them shelf space. This option has the advantages of cooperation between the music industry and Napster. Napster users will have the same type of service as they do now, with extras so they won’t have to turn to no-fee options (Gnutella and Freenet). Music companies will be able to use the Internet for sales of all their merchandise. If music companies can package a better experience people will pay for it. In a recent survey of college students more than two thirds of the respondents would be willing to pay for a $20 dollar monthly fee of a similar service. The only foreseeable disadvantage of this solution is the plausibility of the record companies cooperating in such an effort.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Banning Boxing

    643 Words  | 2 Pages

    Thus, whether or not the case for legal prohibition is determinative, many reasons have been given for moral concern about boxing. It is perfectly appropriate for those who share such moral concerns to refuse to support boxing, to urge others to refrain from supporting it, and to advocate strong reforms in the practice of boxing. (Simon, 2001, p.355)

    Read More

  • Napster

    1099 Words  | 3 Pages

    Napster creates a threat to the music industry, which includes Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and well-known musical groups, because it diminishes their distribution control, record sales and lowers their profit. The music industry must continue to take legal action against Napster to eliminate its negative impact.

    Read More

  • A Brief Biography of Richard Wagner

    1082 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wanger lived in a reactionary and unsettled time, this restlessness is given a creative voice in his music and the condition of the romantic era man, removed from nature and isolated from communion with humanity is expressed in all of his music but especially in his operas. The morality of Wagner’s work has always been controversial, at best thought a work of a clearly flawed and tortured genius and at worst it is suspected to be steeped in subtle but deep racial hatred. For the purposes of this article I will present Wagner’s taking them at face value, without examining the theory stating that Anti-semitism was inherent to Wagner’s operas. I will use Wagner’s music drama Parsifal as the lens through which we can frame Wagner’s early operas and follow the themes of development to his mature style in this his final opera. Examining Wanger’s developments to music especially as regards the genesis of the music drama and how this contribution changed opera forever. His artistic reform, though not executed to the last detail, accelerated the trend towards organically conceived, through-composed structures, as well as influencing the development of the orchestra, of a new type of singer, and of various aspects of theatrical practice.

    Read More

  • History Of Western Music

    1656 Words  | 4 Pages

    In this essay I am going to be looking at Richard Wagner’s most Influential Opera’s “ Der Ring Des Nibelungen” also known as ‘The ring Cycle.' This cycle is made up of four operas.It begins with the beginning of the world and ends with the fall of the world. This piece begins as a mythic story and ends with modern humanity. This work in total is sixteen hours in length.I will be looking at the story behind the first opera or introduction entitled ‘Das Rheingold,' as well as his use of motifs and his use of development throughout the opera. The aim of this essay is to give a brief understanding of the complexity of western music in the 1800s.

    Read More

  • Richard Wagner Biography

    827 Words  | 2 Pages

    Richard Wagner was an operatic composer who faced much adversity during his career. However it is his adversity that shaped much of his musical beliefs and ideals, which have influenced not only the world of music and opera but that how society should hold music to the same worth and value as the ancient Greeks did.

    Read More

  • Italian Song

    2107 Words  | 5 Pages

    Bowers, Jane M., and Judith Tick. Women making music: the Western art tradition, 1150-1950. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.

    Read More

  • Sports Narrative - Wrestling

    1389 Words  | 3 Pages

    CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, echoes through my head as I walk to the middle of the mat. "At 160lbs Aidan Conner of La Junta vs. Rodney Jones of Hotchkiss." All I can think of is every bead of sweat, every drip of blood, every mile, every push up, every tear. Why? All of this: just to be victorious. All in preparation for one match, six minutes. For some these six minutes may only be a glimpse, and then again for some it may be the biggest six minutes of their life. Many get the chance to experience it more than once. Some may work harder and want it more than others, but they may never get the chance. All they get is a moral victory. Every kid, every man comes into the tournament with a goal. For some is to win, for some is to place, others are just happy to qualify. These six minutes come on a cold frigid night in February at a place called the Pepsi Center. Once a year this gathering takes place when the small and the large, the best of the best, come to compete in front thousands of people. I am at the Colorado State Wrestling Championships.

    Read More

  • What is a Hero?

    524 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many types of heroes (such as the ones in comic books, myths, movies, or even just everyday life heroes) but all of them have perseverance when they’re going through a conflict. Heroes are role models and they’re people that we look up too. They all have unique and special qualities that make one another different from each other. For example policemen battle crime everyday and when they’re overcoming a conflict they have determination, courage and other traits that people admire them for and that make them as a hero. Typically a hero is admired for their achievement/actions and qualities.

    Read More

  • The Total Work of Art or the Total Way of Life

    2539 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...rk has become a social model or tool apart from being a music-based dream. On the other hand, one must note that, the musical aspects of this concept still lives in Opera houses, concert halls, however, with modern colleagues, cinemas. In this sense, Wagner made an invaluable contribution to a deeper understanding of the total work of art with building the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk on top of the prior conceptualizations of the total work of art.

    Read More

More about What is a Champion?

Open Document