Mount Hood

Ditch that winter weight and sculpt your body for summer 2015

By Conner Williams
 Opinion-Editorial Editor

As the year comes to a close and you are slowly losing the ability to process any academic information whatsoever, you might consider switching over from working your mind muscles to your muscle muscles (yeah, that’s the right term!) as the nice weather makes its way into the Pacific Northwest.

In other words, it’s about that time of year when you already have or are about to make yourself a promise that this summer is the one where you go all out and get the best body you’ve ever had.

We’ve all been there, myself included. The winter and spring seasons came to a close much too quickly, and you’ve checked the scale several hundred times trying to trick yourself into thinking that you didn’t actually put on those ten pounds. All you did was drink craft beer and eat homemade cookies all winter; what’s the big deal, right?

Hey, I’m not judging you. I’m in the same boat, and believe me, I’m ready to get down to business and hit the gym.

I have pledged allegiance to the gym of the United Plates of America, and to the lifestyle for which it stands, one weight room, under Arnold, with protein shakes and curls for all.

Ahem, excuse me, my inner gym bro took over for a second there.

So, here are a few simple general tips for shedding those unwanted pounds for your ideal summer body and overall physical health.

 

1. Stick to complex carbohydrates

Complex carbohydrates are digested slowly and provide long-term fuel for your muscles. They often contain higher amounts of fiber and derive from whole grains and legumes.

Contrary to complex carbs are simple carbs, which are made up of more “basic sugars with little real value for your body,” according to Diana Rodriguez of everydayhealth.com and reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH. They are digested quickly, raising your glycemic index and increasing insulin production.

This is not ideal because when your insulin has spiked too much and your body has reached its maximum amount of glycogen storage in the muscles for immediate use, the excess is stored as fat. If only we could store an unlimited amount of glycogen as muscle, this would be a much simpler process. Unfortunately, that isn’t how it works.

Simple carbs take the form of white bread, pasta, white rice, and just about anything with a starch base. Unlike complex carbs, which contain longer chains of sugars to slow down digestion and deliver energy for longer periods of time, simple carbs contain short chain sugars and are low in fiber, providing energy for short periods of time and thus leading to increases in fat storage.

It’s fairly effortless to make simple substitutions in your diet; switch white rice with brown, eat whole grain bread rather than white (Dave’s Killer Bread is the best, in my opinion), try sweet potatoes rather than regular ones, and eliminate simple sugars like candy and soda.

2. Increase and vary your cardio

Believe me, I hate doing cardio just as much as the next person, but it plays a huge role in burning fat. Try to find something active that you enjoy doing or can at least tolerate, such as jogging, playing tennis, racquetball, swimming, bicycling, or some other activity where your heart rate is elevated for an extended period of time.

These longer periods of cardio are called aerobic exercise, which means that they require the intake of oxygen to move and fuel your muscles. The sibling of aerobic exercise is anaerobic exercise, which is “any short-duration exercise that is powered primarily by metabolic pathways that do not use oxygen,” according to the Medical Dictionary of thefreedictionary.com.

This type of exercise consists of brief, interval-based activities, such as sprinting and weightlifting, which invoke the use of fast-twitch muscle fibers, as opposed to aerobic exercise, which recruits slow-twitch fibers for muscular exertion. Fast-twitch fibers are large and are utilized for power and strength, while slow-twitch fibers are used for endurance exercises like running and cycling.

Think of the contrast in body composition between a sprinter and a marathon runner, and you’ll understand the difference between the two muscle types. Both forms of cardio should be utilized, but many argue that anaerobic exercise may lead to increased fat loss as opposed to aerobic exercise.

According to an article on bodybuilding.com by Shannon Clark, an exercise science and sport performance degree recipient from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, anaerobic activities “will boost metabolism a good deal more than moderate paced training.”

In addition, this means that the body will burn more calories while at rest, thus increasing overall calorie and fat burning even when not working out. Burning calories while I’m watching Netflix? Sign me up. I’ll take 15 minutes of sprints over an hour jog any day.

3. Make sure to eat breakfast

As college students who often sleep in until the very last minute before our first morning class, we sometimes make the conscious choice to skip breakfast in order to save precious wake-up time.

First of all, if you sleep an average of eight hours per night, that is eight hours that you’re going without fuel. And if you skip breakfast, you’re sacrificing more time where you could have revved up your metabolism with a balanced meal.

Unfortunately, fat is the first stored tissue that our body chooses to use for fuel when we are sleeping, and that is why it is important to fuel your body and kick start your metabolism fairly soon upon waking.

In addition, it is not uncommon for people that skip breakfast to ingest more calories during the day to make up for their hunger and lack of fuel at the beginning of the day. I personally like something simple: three scrambled eggs, one cup of steel-cut oatmeal, and a banana.

4. Limit your alcohol consumption

This is painful for me to put on this list, but make no mistake, alcohol is a huge supplier of empty calories. By that, I mean that it is full of carbs and calories and offers hardly any other nutritional value.

Granted, many studies have shown that moderate amounts of certain alcohol, particularly red wine, can reduce the risks of cardiovascular disease and heart attacks.

According to an article from WebMD on a study by Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, the study reported that “light drinkers who consumed wine cut their risk of dying prematurely by almost one third, and wine drinkers as a group had significantly lower mortality rates from cardiovascular disease and cancer.”

That sounds great, but remember that this is all in moderation. Doing keg stands at a party is going to bring in a significant amount of calories, all of which have no additional nutritional value. They don’t call it a beer gut for nothing.

So while you’re kicking back and sipping a Corona (assuming you’re of age and it’s a light) on the beach showing off your brand-new abs, you’ll be able to look back on this list and realize that all it took was some simple diet tweaking, creative and varied cardio work, and moderation to achieve that summer bod you’ve always wanted.

The Trans-Pacific-Partnership:

Artwork by Carly Fister
Artwork by Carly Fister
By Jerry Creasy president of the business and economics

You may be wondering why you should be concerned about some boring free trade agreement that few people know anything about, but I’m here to tell you that it plays a significant role in the future of the labor market that us college students will soon become a part of.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a relatively new free trade agreement being spearheaded by the U.S. and about a dozen other Pacific Rim countries, including Canada, Chile, Vietnam, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The agreement on the U.S side is currently stalling in the Senate, as the vote to “fast-track” the legislation was struck down on Tuesday, which would have essentially allowed the agreement to be pushed through on a quicker agenda.

It is supposedly designed to ease the flow of goods and services in order to grow businesses and the economy, but since the legislative hearings of trade agreements occur in secret, it is difficult to tell what the text of the proposal actually says.

In order to really understand something like the TPP, we first need to understand what free trade is.

Free trade is designed to create open markets between countries. This means imported and exported goods and services should not be taxed or tariffed by countries engaging in trade with each other.

The opposite of free trade is fair trade, aptly named even though it doesn’t really create “fairness,” so to speak. The idea behind fair trade is to protect industries and services being produced within a country from being infringed upon by another country.

For example, when Hyundai, a Korean car company, exports a car to the U.S, the U.S. may impose a tariff, which is an import/export tax, so that it is closer to the price that American car manufactures can afford to charge customers in the U.S. However, this hurts the global economy because we are not focusing on something we could be competitive at. All we are doing is causing the price of cars to be higher than necessary.

The benefit to free trade is that it creates more competition between countries and can lead to specialization in the goods and services being produced. Specialization makes economies more efficient and wealthier in the long run. This is because countries are then able to focus more on a few products and services and, therefore, produce them better than one country would if it tried to make everything it wanted or needed all on its own.

If you as an individual tried to grow your own food, brew your own beer, make your own clothes and design your own computer, you would not be very well off because you don’t have the time or resources to do all of those things well.

However, if I only made clothes and you only grew food then I could trade my clothes for your food and we would both be better off. That is why when individuals, or countries in this case, trade with each other they focus on a few things and then trade those with another country for something else.

For instance, the U.S focuses on pharmaceutical drugs while China focuses on the manufacturing of consumer products such as children’s toys. This is incentive for free trade. It makes it easier for countries to trade their specialized products with those of other countries.

This is in part why the TPP is being pushed through and why many other free trade agreements in the past, such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement were passed. However, it may not be the only reason that this deal has been drafted.

Unfortunately, little is known about the TPP by the general public. The trade agreement has been in the developmental stages since its drafting date all the way back in 2005, and the process to put this trade act together has been all but transparent. Much of it has taken place behind closed doors with both the public and even Congress to some extent held in the dark.

Initially, four countries signed the agreement and then the others came on to negotiate while others were still in the prospective stages. In the last five years or so, negotiations have been slowly rolling along with many of the decisions occurring in secret. However, WikiLeaks has been successful in obtaining some information on the deal, but it pales in
comparison to how much we don’t know.

In more ways than one, the TPP may be particularly damaging to some industries and demographic groups in the U.S.

Back in the early 1990s, the passing of NAFTA reportedly resulted in the “relocation of some 700,000 jobs, 61% in manufacturing,” according to an article by Jana Kasperkevic of The Guardian.

However, if you buy the free trade argument on the whole, the economies of those engaged in free trade will improve even though it will result in the shifting and changing of some industries. This kind of outsourcing of manufacturing jobs is notorious for being one of the main causes of the decline of the American dream, on which a person is able to rely on the abundance of a high-paying job in the U.S. It is also seen as one of the reasons that wages have stayed stagnant in this country for so long. A loss of decent full time jobs is painfully felt by American workers, resulting in resentment of free trade agreements and the government officials who support them.

The passing of this act could be very beneficial to U.S corporations with stake holdings in any of the countries involved. According to WikiLeaks, many parts of the TPP will result in a significant amount of increased freedom for transcontinental businesses, such as Nike. In fact, Nike is one of the main supporters and happened to be where President Obama decided to speak to the public on how great TPP would be for everyone involved.

The President claimed it will help improve working conditions overseas while simultaneously creating a stronger workforce here at home. It is curious, however, that President Obama chose Nike headquarters as his platform for his speech, as has been one of the companies most notoriously known for sub-par working conditions in its manufacturing plants overseas where it outsourced a number of jobs.

It is difficult to say whether or not this agreement would actually be worth it for the global economy or, more importantly for American college students, whether or not it would stand to benefit the U.S. job market.

Another key component of this deal is that one of the largest Pacific Rim countries is being intentionally left out of the deal.
You guessed it: China.

The deal is somewhat aimed at countering China’s influence amongst the Pacific Rim, since the country is infamous for manipulating its currency so that it is worth less than others and thereby incentivizes businesses to buy products made there rather than from North America or Western Europe.

Another issue is that many of the corporations resemble oligopolies to an extent with major shares of the markets that they compete in. This means they have very few competitors and thus have a huge effect on the market. This could give them significant power and influence over the details of this agreement so that it benefits them.

With an increasingly competitive labor supply, it may become harder for graduating college students to find work. Some jobs will be shipped overseas not only in the manufacturing sector, but other areas as well. Others will have wages forced down as competition from foreign countries becomes fiercer. Additionally, when large companies have such a large impact on the economy, wages could decrease, along with employment.

We will just have to wait and see how this pact plays out, but for now it’s up in the air.

Sleeplessly coming of age

By Haunani Tomas, Editor-in-Chief
In attempting to complete a 10-page group paper the night before it was due, I ask myself the question any student asks themselves at three o’clock in the morning: how did I even get here?

Umpteen cups of Folgers medium roast later, I look out of my kitchen window: the beams signifying a new day, as well as the hourly approach of my deadline, shone down on the red doors of the Whitesell Townhouses as my eyes adjust to something other than my computer screen.

So after staying up for upwards of 36 consecutive hours to complete this report worth 60 percent of our final grade, our professor emails us to inform us of two things: first, to cancel class and second, to move the due date of our 10-pager to next week.

After making another cup of coffee, I slouch back down in front of my laptop screen, defeated and exhausted. My phone begins ringing. Mom.

“Hey, baby girl! Did I wake you up?” she asks. She greets me between sips of her first coffee of the morning. Maxwell House.

“Yeah, something like that,” I say as I close my laptop screen and rub my eyes. and curl up on the couch.

As the capstone course to complete an undergraduate business degree, students are required to enroll in strategic management. Among completing various case studies and reading Harvard Business Review articles, we are assigned a group project consisting of four separate 8-10 page papers that analyze a publicly-owned business of our choosing.

Aside from being a royal pain in my you-know-what, group papers and projects test one’s ability to collaborate with peers to work toward one goal: submitting something that doesn’t look or sound like it was done during the wee hours of the morning, around the same time as your roommates and their boyfriends are stumbling on home from the bar.

This strategic management group project is one of three groups I am involved in this term, courtesy of the remaining upper-division level classes required to graduate. So, in attempting to, for lack of a better phrase, get it over with, I parked my rear-end on our kitchen counter around nine in the evening and proceeded to analyze in great detail the generic strategy of Cabela’s and yield in-depth coverage on potential strategic options Cabela’s could pursue in their endeavor to substantiate themselves as the World’s Foremost Outfitter. Fun stuff really.

At this point in the school year, a squirrel has what seems like an endless attention span compared to mental capacity I have going on upstairs. There exists no limit to the things that hinder my ability to focus on anything academic.

The limit does not exist!

Anyway, 10 pages of single-spaced Cabela’s strategic implications later and, oh! Good morning sunshine! Literally!

Staying coherent enough to see the light of a new day is something I giddily partook in during the ages of 10 through 14. The last time I remember staying up for the entirety of the Earth’s 360-degree rotation was way back in what seems like Nam.

In my Gatsby-esque “younger and more vulnerable years,” if you will, I rejoiced in disobeying my mother’s orders to go to sleep at the reasonable hour of ten o’clock. Particularly during slumber parties, my friends and I prided ourselves in withstanding the allure of a good night’s rest. If you were anything like a normal adolescent en route to puberty, you understand.

It was implicitly understood that whoever fell asleep first would most likely end up with Sharpie tattoos, which would be drawn on bodily parts unforeseen by one’s own eye and would read something similar to “owned” or “[insert name] was here.”

Regardless of how I remember all-nighters as a child, they do not presently merit the same amusing recollections. There is no sound rationale I can think up that would gladly incline me forego an eight-hour REM cycle.

Similar to running around on the playground, summoning the energy to stay awake all night does not come as easily as it once did, nor does it occur because of the reasons it once did.
So, I concluded that my all-nighters can be attributed to a lack of proper time management.

It’s difficult to believe my mother when she tried to convince me that these days are the best of my life when I wish she would pester me to get a great night’s rest far before midnight.

LETTER TO EDITOR

I understand your perspective in your May 8 column [“Fighting hate with hate is NOT the answer”]. The Sweet Cakes by Melissa owners intentionally broke the law and discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. It was their decision to do so and they stand by their decision. They didn’t say, “Whoops. Didn’t know that was against the law. Our bad.”

You mention that there are two sides to every story — that suggests that the lesbian couple who had been patrons of the cake shop were in the wrong to ask their local baker to make their cake, as they had done for other occasions. But the law is clear. The bakers did discriminate based on sexual orientation—a violation under Oregon statute. Would we say it’s “two sides to every story” if the bakers wouldn’t make a cake for African-American people?

There are consequences to homophobia. We do need to send a message that bigotry is not a practice endorsed in Oregon commerce. How else would you sanction a business for an egregious and intentional violation of the law?

Homophobia needs to remain separate from business practice if business owners intend to set up shop in Oregon. Sweet Cakes by Melissa chose to act on theirs and being outed about their homophobic beliefs and prejudice was what cost them their business. (You should also see this, if you haven’t:http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-20698-the_cake_wars.html)

Lastly, I agree with you, there is no excuse to belittle someone because they have a different belief system or lifestyle. People who are gay, lesbian, bi, or queer don’t have a lifestyle, they just have a different sexual orientation and in Oregon that is a protected class.

Best,
CM Hall
Project Coordinator, Western Region Interpreter Education Center
Adjunct Faculty, ASL/English Interpreting Program

NO BANG FOR MY $100

By Jack Armstrong
 News Editor

As last Saturday night approached, boxing fans across the world crowded around any available television in an attempt to catch the self-
proclaimed “Fight of the Century” between Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. and Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao.

The fight went the distance lasting all 12 scheduled rounds and ending in a unanimous decision declaring Mayweather the World Boxing Organization Welterweight Champion, and maintaining his undefeated record at 48-0.

The public focus on the so-called “Fight of the Century” never seemed to center on the fight itself. Instead, the media focused on the personal differences between the fighters, turning the fight into a bout of good versus evil.

Mayweather has five separate convictions for domestic abuse and assault, while Pacquiao is a senator in his native Philippines and has recently become a self-proclaimed born-again Christian.

For everyone who follows boxing (and even many who don’t), this was the clash of giants in the sport that had gone unseen since the likes of
Ali vs. Frazier in 1971. Many hailed this bout as the return of boxing to the mainstream, the return to a storied past.

It took 12 short rounds for that dream to come to a screeching halt.

When all was said and done, the crowning of a new champion left most wanting more. For all the pomp and circumstance and all the years of anticipation, many felt that the event failed to live up to the hype or at the very least, failed to live up to the price tag.

Part of this displeasure certainly stemmed from the wider audience that this fight attracted. Even people who don’t normally watch boxing became interested in this fight. It turned into more of a social event like the Super Bowl.

As a result, the more tactical (read less exciting) display that took place in the ring was lost on many.

Mayweather used his significant height advantage to keep Pacquiao at bay, and the fight stagnated with neither fighter showing signs of stepping up. Viewers grumbled on Twitter calling the bout “boring,” “over-rated,” and compared it watching a couple of sparring partners in practice rather than the two biggest boxers of our time slugging it out for glory.

When the final bell rang and it all came to an end without a knock-out, or even a single knock-down in the entire fight, the grumble of displeasure turned into a roar.

HBO and Showtime both presented the fight live through Pay-Per-View, but in a controversial move the price of the event ticket shifted up from the usual $59.99 to a whopping $100 for a single viewing. Bars showing the event were charging $20-$30 cover just to get through the door.

Fans of both fighters agreed on one thing: the entertainment value of the main card fight hadn’t lived up to the price of admission. Many celebrities ranging from athletes to musicians took to Twitter requesting a rematch or a refund.

With two fighters and the Nevada Gaming Commission grossing more than $450 million, it is unlikely disgruntled viewers will see a rematch or a refund, and it is now unlikely that the public will see a price reduction for future blockbuster pay-per-view events.

Mayweather vs. Pacquiao has effectively put the nail in the coffin of an already declining sport. Boxing was on the uptick with viewers despite concerns over concussions. In fact, NBC recently debuted a weekly primetime selection of fights that fans with access to NBC can watch outside of the pay-per-view system.

It’s hard to place blame on one particular party in this situation. It is unreasonable to require fighters to put themselves in more danger by fighting more aggressively than they are comfortable with.

In turn, the pay-per-view cable and satellite companies owe it to their stakeholders to gain as much profit from the fight as they can, and the sports bookies make money regardless of the fans entertainment level.

Still, the bitter taste of a promise not fulfilled remains. Entertainment should be just that, entertaining. We are allowed to expect a certain level of satisfaction from the things we pay for.

However, the level of expectation for entertainment and the definition of satisfaction are incredibly individual. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and in America we hold the right of the individual opinion as tantamount.

The disconnect between these two sentiments is troubling but not beyond explanation.

Given that the only thing that has changed with the sport of boxing since the days of Ali and Frazier is the delivery system of the entertainment, our lack of satisfaction with the fight must come down to the cost of access.

The price tag of something that arrives in the home as simply as pressing a button can be deceptive. With the digital age in full swing, we have come to expect vast amounts of entertainment content for little to no cost.

Anything that borders on boring is deleted and forgotten about, but you cannot delete a $100 pay-per-view ticket the same way you delete a $10 album off of iTunes.

In this modern era of streaming services and on demand content in the home, our sense of monetary value versus satisfaction in entertainment is on-going, that evolution is shaping up to be the true “Fight of the Century.”

Fighting hate with hate is NOT the answer

By Conner Williams
Opinion Editor

There are two sides to every story and, as a journalist, it is my responsibility to shed light on both of them. Each issue has multiple points of view that must be examined and taken into consideration before a final judgment is decided upon.

So when the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries decided that the owners of Sweet Cakes bakery in Gresham must pay upwards of $135,000 in emotional damages to the Boman-Cryers, a lesbian couple, for refusing to bake them a wedding cake because of their sexual orientation, I found myself a bit befuddled.

In no way at all do I endorse discrimination. Bigotry against people with different lifestyles or principles is abhorrent in every way. In my opinion, there is no excuse to belittle someone because they have a different belief system or lifestyle. Using religion or any other basis as an excuse to spew forth hate is unacceptable.

Aaron Klein, the co-owner of Sweet Cakes, was alone when he refused service to the Bowman-Cryers.

He claimed that he discriminated because of religious reasons, but since the state of Oregon has a zero tolerance law for discrimination based on “sexual orientation, race, sex, disability, age or religion,” he had committed a crime. And even though his wife, Melissa, was not present at the time, she is also held liable for the incident.

The Boman-Cryers sued the Kleins, and are expected to receive at least $135,000 as a result.
I am all for disciplining the Kleins for their behavior. They should not be allowed to get away with their actions.

But do they really deserve to be sentenced to bankruptcy for it?

What is the formula for determining the proper fiscal amount to offset the “emotional damages” experienced by the discrimination? This whole process seems very arbitrary to me. I am curious how it is determined the way that subjective incidents like these are to be resolved.

Because isn’t this just fighting hate with more hate? After the incident went public, the Klein’s business vehicle was vandalized multiple times. I don’t see how displaying and condoning additional acts of contempt is supposed to fix the original wrongdoing. Aaron Klein made a boneheaded and intolerable mistake, but that doesn’t mean that his bigotry should be responded to with more bigotry. That makes the other side just as bad.

In response to their financial predicament, the Kleins started a GoFundMe campaign to enable people to donate money to them to help pay off the anticipated amount. GoFundMe has recently shut down the Klein’s donation fund and revised its policies, stating that it will not allow benefits go towards people that are facing formal criminal charges.

Soon after, Wisconsin faith-based nonprofit group Continue to Give has started its own fundraiser for the Kleins, which has raised about $1,000 so far, according to The Oregonian.

The controversy is widely split, with many in support of both sides. Many people say that since the Kleins own a private business, they have every right to refuse service to whomever they please, for whatever reason.

Oregon state law disagrees.

We must not tolerate this type of behavior for it only further polarizes the gay community and hinders the progress we have made thus far. According to ProCon.org, 37 states have legalized gay marriage. We have made huge leaps for the rights of gay people, and we cannot stop now.

While we should not tolerate detestable discriminatory behavior, we should also not stoop to that level by attempting to fiscally obliterate those with much more narrow-minded viewpoints. Trying to put out a fire with gasoline will not solve the problem. We should be focusing on changing the culture and learning to accept others with lifestyles and opinions different than ours, not punish to the point of bankruptcy and financial turmoil because of a stupid decision.

The Kleins are a family with a mortgage and kids to feed. While they may be narrow-minded bigots, I do not feel that they deserve to be punished this severely. Total financial chaos is not the answer to solving the problem of discrimination.

If you have any input you would like to share, please feel free to submit letters to the editor to journaleditor@wou.edu.

Placing players above the law: understanding the NFL Draft boycott

By Conner Williams
 Opinion-Editorial Editor

On last Friday’s episode of ESPN’s “Olbermann,” host Keith Olbermann called for a boycott of the upcoming National Football League Draft and the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao boxing match. The decision stemmed from the fact that Floyd Mayweather has had multiple convictions of domestic violence, yet he is still allowed to fight and make hundreds of millions of dollars in his sport. In addition, Jameis Winston, the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner out of Florida State University expected to be drafted in the early first round this year, was brought up on charges last year of rape and sexual assault. Regardless, the prosecution decided not to press charges, for whatever reason. Olbermann is sick of seeing this type of behavior in professional sports go unchecked and unregulated. Athletes seldom see penalties for similar actions resulting in more than a suspension from a few games and a fine amounting to a little less than pocket change. So, Olbermann has publicly announced that he will be boycotting the two upcoming events and that he will not be covering anything to do with them on his show.

I, for one, am right there with him.

I played football for ten years before I realized that I no longer had a passion for the game. It took me far too long to admit to and validate the inherent physical and mental dangers that loomed over me throughout my athletic career. It took me far too long to grow tired of the brutal mentality that was required to be successful in the sport. I was fed up with being regarded as a higher standard of human because I had the physical ability to violently triumph over others. I was no longer willing to risk my long term physical and mental health for temporary glory. After extensive personal research on the horrifying effects of concussions, and the subsequent complete lack of responsibility by NFL officials on the matter, I decided to walk away from the game. Being a football player was how I chose to identify myself for a long time, and I wish I would have realized my fallacies long before I finally did.

Football has long since been regarded as a strong representation of what a young man is to expect to come in his life. Football supposedly prepares one for the challenges of life through the physical and mental trials of the game. It apparently teaches such values as discipline, teamwork, mental toughness, and selflessness.

I don’t see much of those values being represented by today’s professional players.

I do, however, see plenty of cases in which mindless gladiators are unable to “turn off” the violent switch with which they play the game. Too many times does their violent and aggressive behavior carry over to their off-the-field lives. I have grown tired of the seemingly endless cases of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, and, in the rare but not unheard of circumstance, murder.

This complete lack of morality has made me fully lose interest in the sport. I no longer support or encourage the viewership and support of the NFL and its affiliates.

This is not to say, however, that there aren’t some good eggs in the bunch.

J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans and Marcus Mariota of the Univeristy of Oregon Ducks are the first names that come to mind of exemplary role models. They are active givers in the community and they set great example for young children of how to be respectful, humble, and compassionate people.

These types of players, however, are few and far between. The league is overshadowed by a absolute lack of scruples, and I no longer have any desire to support the sport with my money and viewership.

Western Oregon University

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