BP #7-Rhetorical Precis: Schooled--The Price of College Sports

     In Trevor Martin's documentary "Schooled-The Price of College Sports"(2013), he expresses that the NCAA brings in billions of dollars yearly because of the athletes' performances, but the specific athletes never receive a dime. The director first begins with a captivating introduction; he then lures in viewers with many sad and unfortunate stories, and to conclude he relates to viewers with pathos by showing troubled athletes due to money problems. His purpose is to expose the inappropriate nature of the NCAA rules in order to make the most money. He seems to have a public audience in mind because of the variety of examples and the vastness of the industry.

BP #5-Summary and Analysis of an Article: Bruins Lose to Flames in Shootout

     On Friday morning, the Boston Herald released an article summary of the Bruins game verses Calgary Flames that was played the night before. Author Steve Conroy, expressed his view on the hard fought loss for the B's. He quoted head coach, Claude Julien, many times. On Julien's thoughts of shootouts to determine the outcome of a game and his thought of how well his team played. Conroy also spoke of the white-knuckled shootout. Both teams missed the first six shots of the shootout. Then on the seventh, "...Patrice Bergeron put the B’s in the driver’s seat with the first goal of the shootout.." Right after that, "..the Flames got goals from Josh Jooris and waiver wire pick-up David Schlemko, sandwiched around a Milan Lucic miss, and the B’s had to settle for one point." The game was overall a hard fought win and the Boston Bruins will be playing tomorrow night at the TD Garden against the Philadelphia Flyers. They look to improve the imperfections and pull off a win for the night to set their record for the season at 32-22-10.

BP #4-Sports News Article: Bruins vs. Coyotes

 The Boston Bruins won 4-1 against the Arizona Coyotes at the TD Garden on Saturday. Chara, Bergeron, Lucic, and Marchand all scored, and Rask secured the lead by stopping all but one of the 32 shots taken on goal throughout the course of the game.   

Without playmaker David Krejci, out for 4-6 weeks with an injury, the team had to step up their offensive attack. With this being said, the team did just that. The Arizona Coyotes came into the game with an 8 game losing streak. Head Coach Claude Julien exclaimed that they were not focused on the Coyotes. The team was too busy focusing on what they needed to do to pull off their second straight home win. The team certainly did just what they came to the game to do. Brad Marchand had a remarkable game. He has been on a scoring spree and was the first of the 4 bruins players to hit the back of the net.

“I said to the guys before the game, ‘It’s not who we play but how we play right now until the end,’ ” coach Julien said. “That’s the approach we have to take. We can’t afford to be unprepared for games like this, just because of their record right now and what they’ve been going through. I think it’s important if we want to be in one of the playoff spots, that we have to be a team that’s ready to play on a nightly basis. There are a lot of reasons not to take these situations lightly and I think our guys responded well.” With a pep talk like this, who wouldn't want to go out and play their hardest? 

The team has been the first to score in the past few games but struggle to keep the lead. The team must keep up the drive and intensity right into the playoffs. The B's have 20 games left in the regular season to play before they either go into off season or the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  

Hoop Dreams

   "Hoop Dreams" is a documentary following two young talented basketball stars. The athletes were Arthur Agee and William Gates.  The documentary showed great opportunities, heart breaks, and the true struggle of growing up in Chicago. Both boys were given huge opportunities and promising futures. Unfortunately, the two were faced with major struggles in life. They struggled in school because they could only focus on what they loved, basketball. William also became a father at a very young age. The two athletes lived in hard conditions in small houses surrounded by drugs and violence. Fortunately, they were able to stay clear of them for the most part. This was because they were smart enough to know not to risk losing their goals in the future. Without basketball, one may believe that the two would not have finished high school and at least begin college. 

 One theme that was recognized from early on in the documentary is hope. Hope is shown through the major struggles of the boys' lives. Neither of them wanted to go to school and were struggling academically. Thankfully, there was always a little bit of hope that pushed them to continue perusing their education and play in a collegiate level. Also, hope is shown when one of the boys can no longer afford to go to his private high school. His mother lost her job and the family was not receiving the income that they needed. They had to send Arthur to the public school. They knew he was not getting as good of an education there, but hope showed the family that their son still had a the chance of playing basketball for a career if he applied himself enough. Without hope, the boys would not have done as much in life as they did.