Why Do We Focus on Final Four, not the Actual Championship?

     Don't get me wrong, I love college basketball, March Madness, and especially all the attention that is put on this tournament.  I'm a huge fan of the game entirely.  The level of competition with its exclusion of cash-based incentive makes the sport a lot more exciting than professional basketball.  However, where did this tradition of full attention of the final four start?  Why not the final two, or the actual championship?

     After four rounds of games already played, there is a long and much needed break for the players before the start of the national semifinals.  This round is obviously extremely important and much anticipated by almost all of America.  Then again, two of the teams in this round aren't even going to be competing in the national championship.  There is tons of media coverage, interviews, and analysis solely based on these final four teams for about a week's span.  By the start of the national semifinals, you almost get sick of hearing anyone debate about who is going to win.  Even before the tournament, when everyone is filling out all their brackets crazily, the most common question I hear among any group has to be, "Who's your final four?"  Again, when it comes down to it, two of these teams will not even be competing in the national championship, so why don't we let all the excessive predictions and analysis come once we actually know who is playing in the finals?
     I fully expect many people to disagree with my point, but it is kind of an interesting topic to debate when you take a closer look.  One of the most renown sports tournaments in the country has put so much emphasis and is even titled The Final Four aka The Semi-Finals.  I just don't get why we all, including myself, anticipate the national semi-finals of such a great tournament, rather than the actual finals.  I also am not implying that the national championship does not receive enough coverage, which I am positive that it does get its fair share.  I'm merely suggesting to maybe get rid of the famous title The Final Four and start recognizing it simply as The NCAA Championship, as it should be.

United Way & the NFL: Pledge to Make A Difference

I am about to embark on a new journey; I was one of 32 college students, selected nationwide for the United Way Team NFL Player Partnership. The United Way Worldwide has partnered with the NFL for over 35 years. United Way believes there are "three key building blocks of a good life: Education + Income + Health." However, the only way to achieve success is through education. 

As a member of the NFL & Strategic Partnerships, Brand Leadership team, I get paired with an NFL player (a United Way Team Ambassador) from one of the 32 NFL teams. My partner is Chris Canty, Superbowl XLVI winner, and New York Giants' Defensive Tackle (#99); it gives me great pride — both as a college student, and as a New York Giants fan — to spread the word about what Canty and the other players in the NFL are accomplishing to make a difference in their communities. 

Chris Canty attends benefit for United Way of New York

Together, Chris Canty and I are working to recruit 1,000 volunteer readers, tutors and mentors, in an attempt to help United Way Worldwide achieve their goal of reducing the number of high school dropouts in half by 2018. In addition, Chris Canty has his own foundation. His organization uses sports to make a positive impact on children through mentoring, educational programming and engaging physical activities, while promoting health and well-being. 

Help Chris Canty HERE

I invite you, to join me, my partner Chris Canty, United Way and the NFL, to cut the dropout rate in half by becoming a volunteer reader, tutor or mentor:


PLEDGE HERE: http://www.unitedway.org/team-nfl/players/chris-canty/


*Did you know that 60% of all 4th graders in the U.S. cannot read proficiently? Did you also know that 25% of students fail to graduate on time?

Something must be done. How will WE do this? — with YOUR help. Please sign this pledge to help cut the high school drop out rate in half. Something needs to be done, and YOU can do it. Chris Canty and I CAN'T do this without you. The difference between a graduate and a dropout could be you.

Perspectives on Drug Testing in Athletics

www.icassp2006.org

On February 17^th, I attended an international sports law symposium hosted by the Michigan Sports Law Society.  For one of the topics, Howard Jacobs, one of the leading athlete’s lawyers in the United States, and William Bock III, who has served as General Council to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) since 2007, discussed their perspectives on drug testing in athletics.  Both agreed that doping in order to increase athletic performance should be considered cheating, but they disagreed over the ways in which USADA handles drug testing and prosecution of those athletes who test positive.

Mr. Bock opened by discussing the difficulty of actually catching dopers.  He used as an example a blog that tells dopers how to avoid testing positive.  He also showed how athletes could use extremely complex and exact routines that involve ingesting huge amounts of chemicals to avoid detection.  However, these detection avoidance routines involve a lot of money too.  As a consequence, the athletes that actually get caught doping are usually just the ones who can’t afford the extensive lab work and expensive physicians that these complex routines require.  Another consequence is that just because an athlete never tested positive for steroids doesn’t mean he or she never used them.

Mr. Jacobs argued that current testing results in too many false positives.  He believes that substances other than steroids or accidental consumption cause the majority of positives in drug tests, citing problems such as the notoriously bad quality control in the supplement industry and the general athlete attitude, ‘I’m not taking illicit substances, so I don’t have to worry.’  USADA spends too much money prosecuting these false positives when it should be spending its money developing more accurate drug tests.

If an athlete tests positive, the burden then lies with the athlete to prove their innocence.  Then, even if the athlete shows that the positive was caused by, for example, accidental consumption of a substance through a contaminated supplement, he or she is still penalized, though less so than an intentional doper.  Does this seem right?  Mr. Bock argued that some of these excuses are ‘dog ate the homework’ excuses.  Also, even if an athlete accidentally consumed a substance they still might be receiving its illicit benefits.  Is USADA going about its drug testing and prosecution the right way? 

What Really Influences the Outcome of Sports?

     During this past week, as a student of the University of Michigan, I was able to attend to the basketball game our school had against Indiana University on Wednesday night.  I normally do not attend our basketball games, but as a fan of basketball in general I found the game to be very entertaining and quite an experience.  However, the impact that this class has had on me made my experience a little different than a normal sports event, but very interesting.  As a spectator, I was able to observe parts of the game in very different perspectives that gave me a very different insight into sporting competitions in general.

Point Guard Trey Burke drives past Indiana's Victor
Oladipo during the game.

     One major concept we learned about and discussed in class is the psychology behind sports/games and the motives associated with it.  Specifically, Mr. Garcia had explained to us what drives us towards close competition with others, including both situational factors such as number of competitors, and individual factors such as relevance and relationship closeness.  As I kept these in mind at the game, the entire environment all of a sudden seemed to make so much more sense to me.  Right from the start, you could observe the high levels of excitement and energy throughout the Crisler Arena.  As one of our conference members and among our top rivals, Mr. Garcia’s theories explaining relevance and closeness to the competitor became very appropriate to the situation.  Because the other team was so close to us in ranking (22 vs. 20) and very relevant to us because of our conference, the game’s importance and competitiveness was sky rocketed.  You could easily tell how hard the players were battling each other as well as the intensity of the crowd.  Also, pertaining the the concept of the “N-effect,” in a game like basketball there is only one other competitor, which also led to an increase in competition.  Knowing these theories behind competition not only bettered my game experience, but also enhanced my understanding of the game’s environment.

     Another important perspective we learned about in the course so far was the incorporation of game theory.  Game theory involves strategic decision making based on both the consequences you will receive and the decisions that your opponent also makes.  What makes the game theory complex is the fact that you do not know how our opponent will act, so you must weigh your options accordingly.  It is all basically a mind game deciding between what you should and/or how you could deceive your opponent into doing something that either helps you or hurts them.  I found this theory to be very relative to how the basketball game played out.  During the beginning stages of the game, Michigan held a big lead, but soon enough Indiana had cut down the lead to about 3 points.  After another half of close battling, Michigan finally came out with a safe victory.  When I think about the course of how the game played out though, game theory was the first thing that came to my mind.  It became apparent to me that in the beginning of the game, Michigan must not have only been scoring easily on Indiana, but clearly they knew their opponents’ tendencies well and used this to also play great defense.  Like game theory, Michigan was making the best decisions for their team to succeed while keeping in mind the actions of their opponents.  Additionally, when Indiana started to make a comeback, it became evident to me that at that point during the game, they were performing exactly as Michigan was previously.  Essentially, game theory was the prime factor behind the outcome of this game.

     Sports and games have always been a pretty big part of my life, but the perspectives we’ve learned so far int he course have significantly changed my outlook on them.  Watching games is not simply rooting for my favorite team anymore, but rather examining very influential aspects of the game that normally are not even discussed.  Both the psychology behind competition and game theory are two concepts that are much more relevant to my life than I had originally thought.