The Application of Social Conflict Theory to Football Essay example

Sabo tells his readers “I learned to be an animal. Coaches took notice of animals. Animals made first team. Being an animal meant being fanatically aggressive and ruthlessly competitive” (7). This shows that the interference of acknowledgment of ones emotions caused by the normalized pain of injuries and the tough love generated throughout the sport is unacceptable if you want to be seen. The dogmatic belief of “pain is more important than pleasure” (10) is continuously being passed down through generations of teams. Society is teaching boys to look at taking pain as a badge of honor and courage. “I learned that pain and injury are ‘part of the game” (6). Most people want to get into sports or activities to have fun, but there are others, like Sabo, who play a sport to win a reward. “Like a young child who learns to dance or sing for a piece of candy, I played for rewards and payoffs” (3). In high school, I remember the teenage boys who succeeded in football were well-known across the school, dated the girls they wanted, and were accepted for the tough guys they seemed to be. “Winning at sports meant winning friends and carving a place for myself within the male pecking order” (3).

According to Calfee, Fadale "Research indicates that younger athletes are increasingly experimenting with these drugs to improve both appearance and athletic abilities…the consensus today is that these drugs do increase athletic measures with objective gains in strength and fat-free mass." So, these player uses the drug so that their performance and appearance are the best so that they can have scholarships and so that they can win their games and get drafted by the National Football League. The athletes use many kinds of drugs but two of the most popular is Anabolic-androgenic Steroid and Ephedra. Athletes uses “Anabolic-androgenic steroids because it is good for gaining muscle mass, strength, increasing muscle mass, but the side effects that this drug have is connected to multiple organ systems: infertility, gynecomastia, female virilization, hypertension, atherosclerosis, physeal closure, aggression, depression.” The other drug they used is “Ephedra alkaloids is used as a possible nutritional supplement it increases weight loss, delay fatigue, increases metabolism, but it has no clear performance benefit, the side effects of this drug are cerebral vascular accident, arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, seizure, psychosis, hypertension, death.” (Calfee, Fadale) Yes, some of the drugs

Football is an American sport that consists of two teams composed of 11 men. On the 100-yard field, they go head to head, trying to keep the other team from advancing the ball down the field toward the end zone, resulting in a touchdown or field goal. Football pits the two teams against each other. The offense, which possesses the ball, is placed against the defense, which tries to prevent the offense from advancing the ball. Several different resources can contribute to a team’s success. Some of those resources are funds, talent level of players, and favorable position on the field, which makes it easier to score points. The four sociological perspectives, structural functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, and social exchange theory, all credit different reasons for one team being able to achieve this goal more often than another team. Nevertheless, any of the sociological perspectives you view the sport from, football is a very complex entity. Football is more than just a group of men pounding one another. There is a complex equation that eventually equals success; the differences between these perspectives are the components of the equation that are most heavily weighed on for success. Although it may be a combination of all three perspectives that leads to success in football, it is fair to look at the game from each perspective individually because each holds important insight into what truly leads to a successful football team.

For a lot of kids, it’s not until it’s all said and done, and they look back on it several years later, that they realize the difference the sport made in their lives. They are proud of playing the game. Have you ever met anybody who accomplished playing four years of high school football, and at the end of that run said, ‘Man, I wish I wouldn’t have played’? It doesn’t get said. Football players aren’t perfect. Nobody is. But millions of former players, one by one, can recount the life-altering principles they learned from football. They know the value of football is the values in football.That’s why high school football – and particularly high school coaches – play such a vital role in our society. Our football coaches are on the front lines of the battle for the hearts and minds of the boys in our society.

While working hard is an important factor in being successful in every sport, it is especially prudent in football. The hype behind the sport causes athletes and communities to love the sport. No other sport has a week like homecoming, football players are put on a pedestal and academics are essentially put on hold due to the lack of focus. The entire week focuses on Friday night’s game. This hype draws the biggest and best athletes to want to be a part of the fun—to be on that pedestal. This in turn makes the competition within the sport better. Being on the team isn’t enough though, as my head coach used to say, “Homecoming is fun, but it’s worth nothing if you lose Friday night.” Knowing the entire week is dedicated to one game causes the team to work harder than the athletes in other sports. The standard expected by the coaches carries over to the classroom and into the athlete’s lives outside of high school. Kevin Kniffin, a behavioral scientist as Cornell University, studies and teaches about the leadership skills and character traits of athletes from

Since the use of steroids has become a trend among athletes, the number of deaths among them has risen. A lot of these deaths are due to suicides and violent behavior as a result of the effect of these anabolic androgenic steroids on mood. A number of recent, well-publicized deaths of American football players have drawn attention to the potential dangers of sports supplements and the raised important public health concerns about the unrestricted availability of these products that are exempt from U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation (Haller, 2002). Performance enhancing drugs are not only dangerous and damaging; they are potentially deadly. Between 1985 and 1995, at least 121 US athletes collapsed and died during or directly after a training session or game; most often because they had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or heart malformations (Maron, 1996). Most of the athletes that have collapsed and died during or directly after training session or game tested positive for some type of performance enhancing drug. From case reports, the incidence of life-threatening effects appears to be low, but serious adverse effects may be under-recognized or under-reported. Data from animal studies seem to support this possibility. One study found that exposing male

In today’s society, NFL players and hockey player are the inspiration in the lives of today’s youth. Little boys strive to be the best they can be in football and hockey, because their dream is to one day become a professional athlete. Young boys focus on sports like football and hockey, because they are two of the most populist sports in America. Many young children want to play professional sports for the fame. Some want to be a professional athlete because of all the money they can make each year. They also want to make money to make a better life for themselves and their families. Most children

At New Milford High School, I will belong to the community of Green Wave football for the duration of my life. As a player, my footprint is not simply measured by the amount of wins our program had during my three years on varsity, but it is measured in the complete revolution of the program under Coach Badaracco’s direction. My freshman year, the football team was a bit of a joke, a meeting ground of players who lacked dedication and work ethic, who continuously were being suspended from school, doing drugs, and partaking in other nefarious activities. When Coach Badaracco was hired, he looked to me to lead. He continuously asked me to display what a proper athlete should look like, someone who excelled in the classroom and was active in the community.

Sports are a significant part of society and spectators enjoy particular events regardless of the type. However, there are many players who develop special working and social relationships with whom they are participating regardless of the type of sport. The relationship and how people interact with one another can be the determination of how successful a team can be. The particular film based on a true story that I chose is titled When the Game Stands Tall. This film consists of a high performing football team of De La Salle High School in the state of California. Jim Caviezel portrays the head coach (Bob Ladouceur) as a man with such vision and passion that goes beyond the fundamental principles of coaching the game of football. The football team had won 151 games without being defeated which is the highest winning record a team has had in the game of football. The film shows the internal struggles of the players in their lives as people, and how they perform on the field. It also shows the external tragic difficulties that they face while they attend and play for De Le Salle High School. In the movie, the head coach helps the students/players by not only coaching them but also showing them how to live a flourishing life by committing to endure difficult life situations and the way to overcome them. He helps teach the principles of brotherhood and companionship with the team that they build. In the movie, the head coach and the staff had taught the players

Abstract:  With the increase of competition has also come the need to become bigger and stronger than the opponent.  The use of steroids among athletes has caused the focus of the game to change.  No longer does an athlete want to win by doing their best, but they want to become bigger and have an advantage over the opponent.  Ultimately, all athletes feel that they need to use performance-enhancing drugs to compete at the same level. Despite all of the warnings and information on performance-enhancing drugs, athletes continue to use them and overlook the potential health risks associated with steroids.

The desire to compete — and win — is as old as history itself. From the beginnings of sport, athletes have sought out foods and potions to turn their bodies into winning machines. As early as 776 BCE, the very first Olympic games, there are records of attempts to increase testosterone levels (“Steroid Abuse in Sports”). Ancient Greek wrestlers ate vast amounts of meat to gain muscle mass, and Norse “Berserker” warriors took hallucinogenic mushrooms before battle. The first competitive athletes to be charged for doping, however, were swimmers in 1860s Amsterdam. Doping of all kinds, from caffeine to cocaine to anabolics quickly spread to other sports (“Anabolic Steroids, a Brief History”).

Former Notre Dame Football coach, Knute Rockne, once said, “Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure,” (“The Future of Steroids”). The importance of winning in sports and being the greatest has grown immensely. This unquenchable desire to be stronger, faster, and more agile than the opponent, has caused many athletes to stop at nothing to be the best; this pressure has caused athletes to take banned and illegal substances known as performance-enhancing drugs (Performance-enhancing drugs) to achieve maximum strength and speed. The use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs in sports has been obvious to many spectators and sports enthusiasts for quite some time now, and athletes who have been found guilty of taking

Drugs in professional sports has become a problem ever since the 1960s. Whether it is a performance enhancing drug, a recreational drug, alcohol or anything along those lines, drug consumption among professional athletes has become more common over time. Along with drug usage by professional athletes comes the health consequences, punishments and or treatment. The penalty professional athletes face for drug consumption should correspond to each drug consumed accordingly.

Famed writer Grantland Rice once wrote, “When the great scorer comes to mark against your name. He'll mark not won or lost but how you played the game” (World of quotes, 1). That buoyant attitude of selflessness and heart has slowly diminished throughout the course of time. Now, George Allen’s booming voice, former coach of the Washington Redskins, runs throughout head of America, “Only winners are truly alive. Winning is living. Every time you win, you’re reborn. When you lose, you die a little” (Harris, 67). It is with this frame of mind that athletes are pushed beyond the edge of reason. Although peer pressure and pressure from coaches are central reasons why one may use steroids, most users begin using in order to improve their self image or excel in sports. Ethics, integrity, and legality aside, some athletes will stop at nothing to attain “that extra edge”.

In the days when steroids were only being used by body builders and professional wrestlers, stories about performance enhancing drugs could only be found on the back pages of the newspapers. When former Oakland Raiders All-Pro Lyle Alzado admitted to steroid use in a 1991 Sports Illustrated article the whispers about what professional athletes were using steroids began to get louder. (Puma, 2005) Finally, in 2002, when Caminiti, a former MVP, came clean, two things were clear; athletes in all sports were using these drugs, and that they worked. The fact that steroid use had permeated our national pastime combined with the media explosion of the internet and 24 hour a day sports talk created a perfect storm which created the biggest sports story of the new millennium so far. However, two other facts remained clear, performance enhancing drugs were old news, and athletes in all sports from all over the world had been using them for years.