You Probably Know...

Do you think you know

what lacks the ability

to picture color?

Do you think know

what cannot determine the

wealth of a person?

Do you think you

who does not care if you are

popular or not?

As it soars through the

Air, Water, Net, Basket, Goal

It does not give a -

Heart

Heart

Heart

My manager is upset because I have been skipping work for training. -This week is when I prove myself to me to my parents to my friends to the world. Our rivals who strut around in expensive sweat suits who pay for their private trainers who buy a new pair of $120 sneakers every week. The day has arrived. The entire school has showed up to watch our victory. I sink into the moment. Nothing else matters. This is our time. This is our game. The ball leaps into the air and I rocket up behind it.

-Training is the only priority right now. I can’t believe my teachers are giving me work when they know that the big game is this week. And I can think of no better finale than to play our rivals. Every week I drive by the city courts and watch them play on gravely asphalt. Their balls are worn their shoes are old their hoops have no nets. I ease into my seat of my Audi and relish in its comfort. The day has arrived. The entire school has showed up to watch our victory. I sink into the moment. Nothing else matters. This is our time. This is our game. The ball leaps into the air and I rocket up behind it.

Thank You for the Chlorine Rashes

Even when the instructor let go,

even when the bubble came off,

even when the wall could no longer provide its unyielding support,

you made me do it myself.

But you never let go.

Even when my teachers loaded me with tests and projects,

even when the fruits of life weren’t so sweet,

even when anger coursed through my veins,

you comforted.

I could grip the yellow ball

and release all of the tension

with one kick

one strokes

one throw

and channel the angst into a laser

cutting through the back of the goal.

Grade point average?

Didn’t matter.

The cost of your clothes?

Didn’t matter.

When I stepped into the pool,

one forceful stride

and a streamline that took me to the bottom

so that I could launch to the top.

I was powerful.

The yellow ball would drop

and we launched like torpedos through the the sea

and all that mattered was the game.

Thank you for teaching me sportsmanship.

Thank you for keeping me in great shape.

Thank you for the friends.

Thank you for teaching me life.

And thanks for the chlorine rashes on the back of my neck

that reminded me it was worth it.

In Summary

Dear Reader

Dear Reader,

I’d like to sincerely thank you for giving my multi genre piece your time and patience. Certainly, it is a generic showing of gratitude, but nonetheless I mean it. I do not think that this project is the “peak” of all I have done this year. In fact, I do not think that the point of this assignment was to somehow lump everything from this year, the hundreds of thousands of words written and the thousands of pages read. No, I think that the point of this assignment was to reflect on what we have done, not summarize. So, in my opinion, I have done just that. I’ve read the poems, and I’ve analyzed the texts, so now it is my turn to take the role of the author and see what sort of chops I’ve developed.

The first piece is, of course, the expository essay, which argues that it is beneficial to bring athletics to impoverished you. The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown, was a heartwarming and inspiring story that got me thinking about how sports have affected my life, and how it could improve the lives of others. That was what inspired me to research and argue for athletic’s benefits, because I have learned almost as much in the pool as I have in the classroom. That was formed the basis of my paper, and the rest came easily as it was something that I could write for days about, solely from personal experience if I weren’t to include research. My thesis is what also acted as the golden thread, the theme that sports are an effective equalizer and overcome socioeconomic and cultural divides to “even the playing field” (I know, I know, punny).

The first genre piece is a series of four Haikus, called “You Probably Know…”. I know what you’re thinking: Really, Sean, haikus? You would be partially right, but I thought that the message that I was trying to portray was actually well suited to be a series of haikus because of its simplicity. I wanted the message to be simple and streamlined, the message being that balls, which act as a metonymy for sports, cannot see color, money, or anything else except for wherever the ball is intended to go. The end of the fourth haiku ends in a dash because a profane word should follow, but it isn’t appropriate nor does it fit the syllable requirement.

The second genre piece is a poem for two voices, “Heart,” and it is fairly obvious that the golden thread is the main message in this one. I consciously made the two voices have the same name to really drive home the idea that the two voices, although different in their economic status, have the same goal and the same means to get there. Like most poems for two voices, I matched up certain lines to make the performance interesting and engaging. What differed, however, was the way in which I made the end stanzas the exact same thing. Once again I wanted to drive home that equality exists in sports, and the like mindedness that two athletes from different backgrounds possess.

The third genre piece is a thank you note, “Thank You for the Chlorine Rashes,” but in the form of a free-verse poem. I wanted to do it in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, which didn’t really make sense when it was prose and not poetry. So, I changed it, and made it a free-verse poem with very little structure. This was meant as an ode to water polo, my favorite sport and the team I was captain of this past spring. Water polo helped me relieve stress, befriend those outside of the classes I took, and really find myself by developing leadership skills and determination. This is gratitude that has built up over the past four year, and in one sitting I let out all of the thoughts and emotions that were attached to this sports flow out onto paper, which really wouldn’t be accurately represented by a neatly organize thank you. I thought it was important to include this piece because, as I mentioned earlier, my experiences with sports inspired me to go the direction I did with this project.

The final piece is a collage, “In Summary,” is meant to be just that, a summary of the entire  project in one image. It contains the cover of The Boys in the Boat, a picture of the pool to represent my own experiences, a picture of the actual team the The Boys in the Boat is about, and images of different sports being played by different cultures, which is essentially what my golden thread was.

This project was took time and took away sleep, but in the end I’m more than happy with the final result. I hope that, as I think this project was meant to achieve, you can understand the incredible amount of knowledge and skills that I absorbed this year, and I hope you enjoyed my writing!
Sincerely,

Sean “Chupi” Finn-Samuels

SPORTS

Unfortunately, I am  not quite ready to write a draft of the expository essay yet, so this blog post will be a summary of further research I’ve done. I think the most relevant and interesting topic that I can research is the use of athletics in impoverished communities. In The Boys in the Boat, the protagonist, Joe Rantz, feels like a misfit at the University of Washington. He watches his peers walk by in crisp sweaters, polished shoes and ironed pants, feeling insecure as a result of his hand-me-down sweaters, scuffed shoes and crumpled pants. As somewhat of a coping mechanism, knowing that his future looked grim because of his financial status, he took up rowing. He was strong and fit because of the hard labor he had to do growing up to survive, so he made the team and went on to defeat the East coast rowing powerhouses and even the teams across the Atlantic at Oxford and Cambridge. The story of the underdog, whether it be with regards to social, physical, or economic status, is a common one. The idea of sports as a coping mechanism and sports for the benefit of children and teens in poverty is one that pertains to today’s society, and is something that I am interested in.

Based on what I’ve read in The Boys in the Boat, sports are an excellent past time for impoverished youth. Many organization exist with the goal of bringing solid athletic programs and facilities to areas of poverty. Back in 2002, the United Nations started a project called the Millennium Project, an effort to reduce poverty around the world. Bringing sports to poor areas was one of the goals of this project, and they wrote a blurb on how exactly they defined sports, and why it is beneficial to bring them to these areas. First, they define sports as being different than recreational play, stating that there are more rigid rules, more organization, and more competition. One of the biggest claims regarding the positive impact of sports is, “Many of the core values inherent in sport are compatible with the principles necessary for development and peace, such as fair play, co-operation, sharing and respect.” Athletics help children with bonding, self-esteem and resilience, all character traits that are important for our youth to develop. The reason that sports need to be brought to these communities is that “Data from our surveys indicate that children, young people and adults living in more deprived areas are less likely to participate in sport, with adults also less likely,” according to Sports Wales, an organization dedicated to “developing and promoting sport and physical activity in Wales.” While this claim comes from data taken in Wales, there’s no doubt that this is an issue that poor communities in the United States and other parts of the world encounter as well.

As an athlete for as long as I can remember, I can attest to the positive impact that sports have had on me as a person. While I am not poor, sports are an easy way to help with youth development across all socioeconomic statuses. Sports taught me to stand up for myself, trust in myself, and be a leader, all skills that helped me rise to captain of the ETHS water polo team by senior year. I am legitimately excited to keep researching this topic because not only is it relevant, but it is also close to my heart.

http://www.toolkitsportdevelopment.org/html/topic_3DB9E7CB-2395-4B9A-B6AA-AC3D62E2A545_64F10266-2C18-4D89-8656-B30AF205D6BC_2.htm

http://sportwales.org.uk/community-sport/sporting-communities/tackling-child-poverty-and-promotion-equality.aspx

Nice

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown tells a true and uplifting tale about nine kids from working class families during the depression who row for the University of Washington as members of an eight-oar crews. These sons of farmers, loggers, and other low-class jobs go on to defeat the preppy, confident rowing teams of the East coast schools with long, illustrious histories of success in the sport. And, to even further their cause, they defeated the teams of Britain, and went on to compete at the 1936 Berlin Olympics on behalf of the United States. This is a fairly well-known tale, not just as this novel, so I’ll ruin the ending and say that these nine underdogs from the depths of the United States Depression defeat both Italy and even Hitler-led Germany to earn gold.

I chose this book because I found that it struck a nice balance between a good read, and entertaining read, and a basis for research, as it brings up questions regarding the sport of rowing, the Depression, Germany’s use of hosting the Olympics to cover up their genocide, World War II in general, the list goes on and does an effective job of driving my research.

The novel begins with a description of depression-stricken Seattle, where the protagonist, Joe Rantz, and his band of merry rowers attend the University of Washington. Right off the bat, it is clear that Joe Rantz stands out amongst his wealthy peers. As he describes, “his clothes were not like those of the others students--his trousers not neatly creased, his oxfords neither new nor freshly polished, his sweater neither crisp nor clean but rather an old and rumpled hand-me-down” (13). This is despite the fact that he is both athletic and handsome, two attributes that in his mind are less important than his financial situation. What’s particularly interesting about this protagonist, though, is that the author Daniel James Brown was neighbors with the real Joe Rantz, and much of the inspiration that Brown drew to write the novel came from conversations between the two. This makes for an intimate tone that makes it clear how knowledgeable and comfortable the author is with this material.

My first bit of research delves into the sport of rowing, what’s also known as crew. What most people do not know is that crew was the first sport in the history of the United States to have an inter-collegiate athletic event, between Harvard and Yale in 1852. The sport started on the East coast and in Britain, at the schools Oxford and Cambridge, in the early 1800s. It is a physically demanding sport as a mentally demanding sport, requiring teammates to work in flawless harmony and efficiency.

The next item that peaked my interest was the idea of sports during the Depression. It seemed counterintuitive that sports would be popular during this time of poverty and hunger, and interesting that the protagonist Joe Rantz was putting so much pressure on himself to succeed at rowing. However, sporting events were a successful way to keep people’s minds off of the hard times. In fact, football became huge during the depression. Nebraska is an example of a school that had an immensely popular program, nearly as popular as college football today. And, much like the characters of The Boys in the Boat, the Nebraska football players mostly came from poor families.

So far, I am enjoying the book, and questions continue to pop up as I get further and further.

http://egrcrew.org/about-crew/

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_14.html