Serena Williams Blow-Up

I’m sure a lot of people saw Serena Williams blow up on the line judge at the U.S. Open. However, after being called for a foot fault on a second serve and match point, Serena said to the line judge in a harsh way, “I swear to God I will shove this ball down your throat.” Once she threatened the judge, the judge went and told the referee and Serena denied it happened. Obviously this really hurts the good image Serena had for herself. She is known for her crazy talent as a tennis player, and then goes out and does this.

Honestly, I would be afraid of Serena Williams if she was walking in my direction and started to scream this line while pointing at me. She was a good role model in the tennis industry and well respected. Nonetheless, she made herself look really bad Saturday night. What does she do from here? Will anyone forgive her for this unnecessary action?

Personally, I believe Serena owes an enormous apology to all sports fans. I say all sports fans because this clip was shown all over ESPN and millions of people heard what she said. I also believe she will have a hard time gaining respect and forgiveness from many people. I’m sure just about everyone realizes this was crossing the line and completely uncalled for and she only hurt herself and her imagine as an outstanding tennis player. With that said best of luck to Kim Clijsters and Caroline Wozniacki as they square off in the finals tonight.

Week 3 Blog

Even though the third week isn’t over yet, the discussion we had today about childhood toys was pretty interesting to me. Be discussed how blue symbolizes a baby boy and pink symbolizes a baby girl. What happens after that? What kind of toys do boys and girls traditionally play with? We had a few people share, however, when I was a kid, I always wanted the little plastic football equipment kit. Growing up loving all Cleveland sports, I HAD to have a Bernie Kosar jersey, pants, shoulder pads, and helmet. However, for some reason I liked the Jacksonville Jaguars before they were even an official team. And once the Mark Brunell kit came out, I had to have it; jersey, pants, shoulder pads, helmet. Even though everything was plastic and so fake, I loved everything about it. I couldn’t play catch with my dad without wearing my equipment. Besides these little football equipment packages, I was all about G.I. Joe and remote control cars. At some point, I even liked making model cars. However, I have a sister, and she would never touch my toys, just like I would never touch hers. She was all about Barbie and the many things you had to buy her. She had a Barbie house, car, clothes, accessories, and friends. I guess I was all about getting multiple toys while my sister wanted more crap for Barbie.
Thinking about these toys now, I wasn’t forced to like these toys just like my sister wasn’t forced to like Barbie. We got these toys because we “had to have them” and that’s the kind of stuff we wanted to do. A good question to ask yourself is, why is it that I wanted these masculine toys at such a young age while my sister just wanted to play with Barbie? At the age of five and younger, did we know boys “should” play with sports toys and cars while girls “should” play with Barbie?

Week 2 Blog

Week two was very interesting to me. The whole Caster Semenya controversy had a lot of people thinking and bringing up a few interesting points. The entire sex testing issue could bring up some grey areas and concerns. Who do you test? How often do you test? When do you test? These are a few concerns I have with gender testing. As for who you test, I believe everyone if anyone should be tested. Or in simpler terms, if you test one individual, you should test everyone just because that individual is going to raise questions on why he/she is being tested. Moving on to how often you test, I don’t have an answer for that one. You can’t test the same person every event they enter (depending on how spread out these events are) and you can’t “judge a book by its cover” or judge a person by their appearance.
Personally, I believe Caster Semenya should be tested. I’m not judging her and thinking she is a guy, but she has many masculine features and I believe people should know one way or another. I understand people from different cultures and/or countries look different, but she looks too masculine to take for granted. However, this brings up a few concerns as to what happens next. If she ends up being a male, obviously her records won’t stand, but what happens to the track and field industry? On the other hand, if she is a woman after all, what will people talk about? Will people say the test is wrong? Will people respect her more for what she has done? Usain Bolt is an unbelievable male runner why can’t Caster Semenya be an unbelievable female runner? These are just a few things I have thought of and the only explanation for these questions is I believe our society isn’t ready to accept a masculine female into the sport industry.