the issue i will research is racial stereotyping in sports. the controversy is that people think we live in a color blind society. i know that this is happening in sports today as it was back in the day. for the research i will be looking online and maybe in some books. i might tie this to a photo essay by showing the difference from back in the day to modern day.

The place I went to observe for this ethnography was an indoor soccer field. The name of the establishment is Champions Fitness. It is located at 1707 Purchase Street New Bedford Mass. This area where the building is located isn’t the best area of New Bedford. When pulling up to Champions you notice that there is a parking lot but there are no painted lines making out parking spots so people park however they want. The parking lot isn’t that big but if people knew how to park you could fit up to a dozen cars. It is a challenge to get a spot in their parking lot so if it is full everyone usually parks across the street in a parking lot that has lines. This parking lot is shared by Dunkin Donuts and two other small businesses and they don’t mind if we park in there parking lot. When looking at the building from the outside you see that the building has white siding with a silver door that has a white sheet of paper taped to it that says ENTRANCE.

As soon as you walk in if you look to the right there is a bathroom for men and woman to share. To the left there is the main floor there the fans can stand to watch the games. Also when you look to the left all the way at the far wall is where the other restrooms are, those are segregated a bathroom for the men and woman. The main floor wraps around three quarters of the field. The floor is a plain grey cement floor. When walking along the main floor you notice fifty feet from the main door is what they call the game room. The game room is a set on two wooden doors with the words Game Room painted in black above the doors in the space between the top of the doors and the ceiling. Inside the game room there is a pinball machine, treadmill, plastic fold table, popcorn, and a counter. Behind the counter is an employee that sells candy like M&M’s, skittles, sweetish fish, and also bags of popcorn. The gamer room is a very plain room.

If you walk past the game room there is another door about twenty feet after the game room. This door is the door that leads to the office the office is where you go if you have any questions or if you still have to pay for your team to play. This room just has a desk with a computer on it with a rolly computer chair and a file cabinet. That is all the rooms inside the building.

Now that I have described the rooms and the floor ill describe the walls. The walls are bare like everything else. The color of the walls are white and there is nothing on the walls. There is one thing on one of the walls. That one thing is a bulletin board. If you are facing the door to enter the office just to the left of the door is there this bulletin board is located. Tacked to this board has all the different leagues with all the teams rankings and schedules. Where the fans stand there is a wall of plexy glass so they can watch the game and not get hit with the ball and that wall also is so the ball doesn’t go off the field.

As in standing people watching I see the two teams that are about to play start to get together and they are talking to each other like everyone is friends getting ready to play their game. Then the referee walks onto the field and says to the two teams that they have three minutes until the game starts. While we wait for the game to start let me tell describe the actual field for you. The field is artificial which is fake grass that has the little rubber pieces. The field is set up like an outdoor field but on a smaller scale. The lines that lay out the field are white. The goals are smaller than outdoor goals. There are two benches a home bench and an away bench. These benches are made of wood and there is a small door that you have to open to get on to the field. It’s like the benches in hokey. In between the two benches is a small area where the score keeper sits and manages the clock and the score. The score board is a good size. It is digital and located above one of the goals on the wall. The final thing about the field is there is a blue line painted around the walls of the field which means if the ball hits the ball above that line it’s considered out of bounds.

The game is about to start and there are only 9 fans here to watch this men’s league game. One team has 7 players and the other has 6 players, there are only five players allowed on the field at all times the rest of the players are subs. One team is wearing black shirts and the other is wearing green shirts. Both teams are not sponsored so they don’t have jerseys and the shirts they wear are not all the same. They are all different shades of green. The game stars out good and then the game stars to get physical like each team is at war and they act like they don’t know each other but in reality they are all friend with each other. Once you start that game all friendships end until the game is over. The ref is calling a fair game but he is he is kind of being one sided towards the green team. The other team can see this and they are starting to get frustrated and swearing at the ref and the other team. The game ended with the green team winning 8 to 6. Once the game was over both teams shook hands and then shook the refs hand and I could hear the black team saying sorry to the ref for the things they said to him. I was surprised at the fans because they had no emotion. Every once in a while someone would bang on the glass after a goal was scored or one of the parents would say “pass the ball.” Both teams where smiling and talking to each other while they walked off the field. They were talking to each other like they were before the game started. While the game was being played I noticed that it wasn’t cold or to hot it was just right.

The smell in the atmosphere is one of sweat. The building has no windows so they have a lot of lights to light up the whole space. You must be thinking people must kick the ball and hit the lights but the answer to what your thinking is they have a net that doesn’t allow the ball to reach the lights and if the ball touches that net it is considered out of bounds.

All in all it is an ok place to go if you like to play or just watch indoor soccer. There are things they could do to fix the place up to make it look better and more appealing but I guess they just don’t want to do that. I enjoyed going to champs and observing. Even though things might get hectic on the field once off the field everyone if friendly. I recommend people going to champs to watch a game or two.

It was a really rainy day. One of those days where if I said it was a perfect day for a game of lacrosse I would be lying. We were the away team playing Assabet valley high school in Marlborough Mass. The field was all muddy. The score was 8 to 5 with only 2 minutes left and are team was winning. The other team had no chance to win at this point and they knew it so they started to play dirty. I was going 100 percent at a ground ball and once I got to the ball one of the opposing players checked me which is legal but what made this hit a dirty one was that he led with his head. His helmet made solid contact with my collar bone. I could feel that there was something wrong so I went to the sidelines and I showed my coach. By the look on his face I knew it was bad. I had a broken collar bone on my right side.

It was a struggle to do everyday tasks such as tie my own shoes and write in school because I was right handed and that’s the side that was broken. The injury occurred exactly half way through my senior season. I was the second leading scorer and a threat on the offensive side of the field. It sucked knowing that my high school carrier was over. This injury forced me to dig beep within myself and overcome not being able to do things for myself and not get emotional about every game I couldn’t play because of what happened. Even though I couldn’t play for the rest of the season I was still part of the team and I was on the sidelines at every game and I still went to every practice. From the side lines you can see things that you normally can’t see when you’re in a game. Now I’m seeing the game from a whole new perspective along with a coach’s point of view. From where I am I can see plays developing along with seeing what plays work and don’t work in certain situations. I was an offensive player so seeing those plays from this view is what really amazed me. A couple of the many types of plays I’m talking about are iso, and man up plays.

The iso play is short for isolation and the way this play is suppose to work  is there are three attack men and three midfielders with three defensive players but they can’t come onto the offensive part of the field. The play is most is most effective when everyone works in sync and when the defense is playing a man to man defense. It starts off with the ball being passed the player that is going to attempt to score. Then the attack men stay equal distance apart behind the net just in case the play doesn’t work there is someone open as a backup. Then the other two midfielders sag down towards the net which is going to lure the defensive men that are playing them down also. At this point if exsiccated right the midfielder with the ball is at the top of the offensive zone with the one defensive player that is guarding him. The object of that play is to get one defensive player isolated out and guarding the offensive player so the offensive player can attempt to make it past the defensive player and score.

The man up play is when the defense on the other team got a penalty and now they are short one less player until the penalty time is up or until someone scores a goal. I wouldn’t really call this a play it’s more like a situation. The object for this situation is to score while the other team is a man down. To accomplish this the midfielders and the attack men have to play a little closer to the goal. Then they have to pass the ball around fairly quick because there are 6 offensive players and only 5 defensive so there is always going to be one offensive player open so as they pass the ball around they are staying aware on who is open and as soon as that person has time he cuts in the direction of the goal and the player with the ball passes it to the player cutting and since the player is open as long as the goalie doesn’t save it then you will score.

My coach was proud that I was seeing the game better and liked how I was pulling team members aside and telling them what they are doing wrong and what they can do to improve their game. At this point I’m starting to heal. Then one day something unexpected happened. It was pouring outside but we still had practice and I was out there with my team. Before we actually start practice we do some laps around the field and I was feeling good enough to do the laps with the team so I gathered them up and we did are laps. They went through the normal practice routine like they always did while watched since I couldn’t do anything. In the middle of practice my coach pulled me aside. He looked me right in the eye and said “Mason you remind me of myself and I know how you feel and I know what you’re going though. You show you love the game and I can tell that it hurts you not being able to play”. With the coming down on us I say “it does hurt”. He responds “you’re doing a great job analyzing the game and making are plays better so I trust you and want you do be the coach of the offence and I will focus on everything else”. All I could say was “thank you”. Then we went back to practice.

The very next day we had a game against stang and I knew I had the trust of my coach but I wasn’t so sure I had the trust of my team mates if game was ever on the line but this game they showed me that they trust me. It was a tight game that came down to the final minute and ten seconds. The hole fourth quarter the game was tied at 3to 3 and with a minute and ten seconds left I had coach call a timeout. We had had the ball in the offensive side of the field so the team huddled around me. I told them “if you want to win this you have to listen to me and trust me”. I proceeded with “the whole game I’ve noticed that number 14 can’t defend with his left hand so let’s use his weakness to win. Guys jack is going to iso him so you know what to do”. The time out was over and they went back on the field. The time was ticking down and the play started to develop and just in time jack made his move and the defender couldn’t defend him so he took the shot and scored top right of the goal. We all were ecstatic that we won. Then the team asked me how I picked up on number 14 weaknesses? My response was “it’s a whole different game from this side of the field.

My hometown was a wonderful (or choose your own adjective) place to grow up.

New Bedford is a wounderful place to grow up in because of the fishing industry.

Laci had a rather eccentric style.

she was wearing a bathing suite to a weeding.

Mr. Brown is the worst teacher I’ve ever had.

he just gave work and dident explain anything.

The room seemed very institutional.

all the walls where cement with no windows.

This advertisement is for Warrior. Warrior is a well known brand in the game of lacrosse. This ad is to get the viewer to purchase their new stick Evolution 3.

The ad uses an excellent color scheme that is easy on the eyes. The colors they use are colors you can choose when customizing your gear. When you first take a look at this ad your eyes focus on the words along with the man facing the target. The person in this ad is a male estimating his age to be from 19-23. He is wearing all warrior gear that is comfortable sweat shirt, practice pants, gloves, and shoes. He is also wearing ear protection and safety glasses because in the title it refers to guns and that is the proper protection when around guns. If you notice the man in the ad is in a specific position. His body position is what we call in lacrosse the shooting stance. His feet are shoulder length apart his hands are up and away ready to shoot at any moment. You can’t see the expression on his face but from his body language you can see that he is relaxed and focused. The setting of the ad is in an industrial setting. The reason behind this is that in the title they are saying the man is like a machine so an industrial setting with machines around him fits perfect for this ad.

The advertisement uses words to catch the reader’s attention and to describe the product. For the title at the top of the page the font is larger than the description located at the bottom left of the ad. There is a word that is used twice in the title that stands out. The word that stands out is Guns. The reason this word stands out is because all the other words in the title are filled in normal and the word Guns is just the outline of the letters. The color of the text is white so the reader can read it clearly. The title of the ad makes you think a little. The tone of the description at the bottom left is catching, and confident. The way they portray the tone of confidence is the sentence that says “the perfect balance of weight, stiffness, and durability comes together to blow the competition to pieces”. The words and picture function well in this ad. The title mentions guns and there is a target just like the ones you would find at a gun range. The description says you will shoot more accurate. This is shown by the holes in the target and the holes are close together which means accuracy.

The message of this ad is if you buy the Evolution 3 lacrosse stick you will shoot faster and more accurate. I feel that the target audience is male lacrosse players of all ages but mainly high school players and up. It appeals to this audience because high school players want to have and be the best of the best so anything to help them stand out they will buy. The ad appeals to them by saying you will shoot with beastly power and pin point accuracy, along with saying you can customize the stick however you want. I think the ad is effective towards the target audience. I feel that it was effective because I am part of that audience and it made me think about buying this stick. If I was in charge of the ad I don’t think I would of done anything different.