Blog #4 Sutton Impact: Michael Sam

So for this blog we are to write in a similar style to Bill Sutton.  Bill Sutton does articles for Sport Business Journal called Sutton Impact.  In these articles he gives his opinion on a variety of topics.  For this blog post I am going to be giving my opinion on Michael Sam receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award last night at the ESPYs. 

For those of you who don’t know, the ESPYs stands for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards.  This is an awards show solely for athletes.  They give out a variety of awards for a variety of accomplishments.

Last night (07/16/14) Michael Sam received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for being the first openly gay football player to be drafted by an NFL team.  After this happened Twitter exploded with comments both positive and negative.  Many people are still not willing to except a gay football player, or gay people in general. 

For me personally I have mixed feelings about him receiving this award.  First off I do think he was courageous for coming out.  It has to be difficult for him being the only openly gay athlete in the NFL.  There are a lot of people in the NFL who are not excepting of gay people (just look at the article that Chris Kluwe, formerpunter for the Vikings, wrote for Deadspin).  He came out at a time where it could really affect his future earning potential.  He was rated as a 3^rd or 4^th round prospect but fell to the 7^th round.  I’m not sure why he feel so far but I feel that he being an openly gay athlete had something to do with it.  I know some teams didn't want extra media attention because of him.  He is a great inspiration to gay athletes everywhere.  In his acceptance speech he mentioned a little girl that was contemplating killing herself instead of telling her family that she was gay.  Michael Sam talked with her and because of his experience he was able to ultimately save her life. 

So he is definitely courageous for coming out but does he deserve an award for it?  As I mentioned I have mixed feelings.  I want a world where telling everyone what your sexual orientation is, isn't considered courageous.  By Michael Sam winning this award for being openly gay in the NFL that shows that our country still isn’t there yet.  It will take a long time to get there but one day being a gay athlete won’t be news worthy and won’t win anyone any awards.  This is what I want to see. 

To end his speech Michael Sam said “Great things can happen, when you have the courage to be yourself”.  He won the award for just being himself.  It’s sad when you can win an award for courage for just being who you are.  But as I mentioned earlier that is the society we live in now.  People like Michael Sam and Jason Collins are trying to change society for the better but it will be a slow change.  One day people won’t have to be courageous to just be their selves, but until then we need courageous people like Michael Sam.

So in the end I have mixed feelings about him receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award but I think he deserves it.  

Blog Post #3 Eye-Scout

For the third blog post we get to choose anything we want.  The only requirement is it has to do with sports and technology.  So I did a little research about new technologies in sports and came across a blog site that is about sports and technology.  It’s called sporttechie.  I looked through some of the blogs on the site and found one that was interesting to me.  The blog is about a new software system called Eye-Scout.  This new software lets teams (the post mostly talks about NFL teams) put in information from their scouts and then will help them make decisions based on that information.  According to the post this system can help make decisions on draft picks, trades, free agents, and more.  The technology behind this software started in the military.  It was used to help solders know where their fellow soldiers are and where the enemy is. 

To see the blog click here 

With every team looking for a slight advantage this could turn out to be a big thing.  People in the sports world are starting to really look to analytics as a way to evaluate players, so they can make better decisions.  The Eye-Scout system claims to be able to do this.  Ever since the Oakland A’s were able to use analytics to help their team (if you haven’t already watch the movie Moneyball to see what I’m talking about) win, other teams have used analytics in some fashion to help them get the edge. 

In my opinion something like this was just bound to happen.  One of the most important things in sports is to be able to make decisions about players.  Should you draft this player, should you pick up this player in free agency, should this player start over that player?  All these questions are considered every single day.  If a team can spend less time worrying about these questions then they can spend more time worrying about making the team even better. 

I’m not saying that this type of software should be the only thing you consult when you need to make a decision.  What I am saying is that this can help make that decision.  Coaches should still look for themselves and make sure they agree with the software.  If they disagree with the program then you shouldn't do it.  The coach should always have the final say but the software my help with the decision. 

Whenever a team decides on something like a trade or the draft the teams want as much information as possible so they can make the best decision possible.  This software may just help with getting them more information.  I can see many teams in the NFL trying this out and we will see how well it will work.  It will be interesting to see if Eye-Scout becomes successful.