News for the Week of January 23, 2012

Program Notes for the Week of 1/23/2012:

Some Thoughts about Soccer in America:
An interesting occurence took place this morning on the day of the AFC & NFC championship games The FOX network televised nationally the Manchester United vs Arsenal English Premier League game.  A soccer game being televised on a Sunday just hours before the American football chapionships?  Five years ago, this would have been thought impossible and they are going to do it again on Super Bowl Sunday with Man U vs. Chelsea.  This shows how far soccer has come in America that it can be televised nationally on a traditional American football day.  The U.S. appetite for international soccer continues to grow and soccer is becoming very integrated into the fabric of American life.  They only show these games because they can sell ads and they can only sell ads based on viewership.  So, it is obvious that there is a significant audience out there for international soccer.  This may be a beginning step in moving American soccer to a more international based schedule of a Sept. thru May season.  For that to happen, soccer will need to find its place on Fall &Winter weekends along with American football.  Soccer already probably has a larger viewing audience than Hockey and will soon become the "fourth sport" behind football, basketball, and baseball.   The popularity of soccer will continue to grow because it is a lifelong sport which can be played by all ages.  Also, when the stars of the game retire, they are not left as broken, crippled men whose lifespan is cut short by 20 years.  The public's perception of the brutality of football will eventually do it in and soccer will become the logical alternative.


Alumni Update:
We continue to have good news to report regarding Sammy Harris '08 who as we have reported had a reoccurrence of cancer. She has returned to Ohio State to continue work on her Civil Engineering degree and is in the process of catching up on this quarter's classes.  Please keep her in your prayers as she fights another round with this dread disease.  We will keep everyone updated on any future news as appropriate. But for now, things look to be very positive for Sammy.


Soccer Site of the Week:
This week's featured site is called the Student Athlete Scholarships Foundation site which can be found at:

http://www.student-athlete.net/

This is another site where you will find info. on college recruiting and scholarships. It consists of a number of publications some of which are free including a monthly newsletter and the rest seem reasonably priced. Check it out!


Shorty Sez:
We continue to feature the teamwork philosophies from Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski who is a pre-eminent expert on leadership and teambuilding. This week we will introduce the concept of the fist to reflect upon is as follows:

Coach K sees his team as the five fingers on a hand. When the fingers fit together, they create a powerful fist. When fingers are outstretched, they are on their own and can be easily broken by a fist.  So it is with a team - if they play together and unite with a common goal they become like a fist which can always defeat individual fingers which are operating on their own.  A great team possesses five qualities - communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring, and pride.   These can also be thought of as individual fingers and when all five come together, they can form a fist which cannot be beaten.  In the coming weeks, we will look at each of these 5 qualities in a little more depth.