As the end of the semester draws near, and continuation on this blog ceases following this entry, I believe it is necessary (not to mention required) to reflect on topics of discussion and readings from the Fall '09 edition of Dr. Spencer's SM 2210 - History & Philosophy of Sport.
At the beginning of the sememster, the class was asked to write about a historical event or figure in sport that we would like witness in person. My selection was to see Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt smash the World Record in the 100m at the 2009 World Championships of Track & Field. Revisiting this subject, watching Bolt outrun his competition would still be quite the experience for me. In addition, I would also like to place attending the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver on my must-see-event wish list. The competition for the gold medal in Men's Ice Hockey may be the most hotly contested battle of the games. Also, Vancouver could be the last time players from the NHL are used in Olympic Hockey because the National Hockey League has yet to commit to the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. To my knowledge, the NHL is the only North American sport league that completely closes its doors to allow its players to take part in the Winter Olympic Games.
Speaking of the Olympics, of the topics we covered in class, I would have liked to spend more time discussing the history, impact, and importance of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games throughout the last century or more. I wrote about the Olympics in a previous post following a class lecture on the Politics of the Olympics (from an American perspective) from the 1930s through the 1980s.
While the discussion board, journal/blog entries, and ethical issues presentations gave the students a forum to speak about recent events in sport, I believe that including a lecture on the current and future direction of sport would have made for a lot of intriguing conversation. A lecture of this nature was never formulated due to time constraints, but perhaps it will be included in future installments of SM2210.
Overall, I found this class to be very interesting and it is obvious that Dr. Spencer has a passion for teaching and sport. I learned alot about legislation or measures that helped shape the governance of sport, how the games were played, and key events/figures of sport thoughout the years. I enjoyed reading about the history and philosophy of sport, and I look forward to applying some ideals from the course to whatever my future may hold in the world of sport.
Many thanks to Dr. Spencer for an enjoyable educational experience, and thanks to those who have taken the time out to visit this site.
Good day.
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Thanks for your observations about topics we covered in the class, as well as suggestions for potential topics in the future. Given that the Olympics will be held during the next semester, we will most likely cover more Olympic history than we did this past semester. On another note, I am not sure if you will see this in the next day or two, but if so, I wanted to let you know that I could not find your entry on the "Art of Storytelling." It sounded interesting, so if there was a reason I could not find it, perhaps you could resend or re-post it. Once again, you did a great job on your blog entries. I hope you find this information useful going forward.
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