Athleticism Exposed: The “Real” Reason Why Humans Play Sports

Antoi Sayers
Staff Writer

    Imagine it. A sports player flies down a field, court, or pitch. They carry a spherical instrument made of

animal skin towards a set goal. Their lungs shrivel and contract. Their body purges itself of water, and their heart races far past a sustainable rate. Do they make it? That does not matter. What does matter is why they find themselves in this situation in the first place.

    Today, in America alone, millions of children, teenagers, and full grown adults will play a sport. Be it the three giants, football, basketball, and baseball, or less athletically taxing offerings like croquet, curling and golf. Almost none of these people will pinch themselves and ask why they put themselves through these acts that make no sense when explained out loud. What do they stand to gain by reaching these arbitrary and ultimately woefully unnecessary goals? Why do we play sports?

    It turns out that a large part of that answer lies in the culprit for all aggressive and competitive activities—the opposite sex. But what is it about sports that makes us attractive to our prospective mates? Researchers now believe symmetry is to blame, and that makes sense. Athletic talent, especially that which is given naturally, is very hard to come by, and those who have a half of their bodies significantly longer or shorter than the other half will have a much harder time playing, much less excelling at a sport.

    Karl Grammar, a German ethologist and evolutionary biologist, studies facial symmetry and how it affects those we are attracted to; his findings concluded, “faces created by combining individual faces into composites [were] shown to be more attractive than the individual faces.” It is biologically natural to find people with symmetrical faces and bodies more attractive. It is something that cannot be consciously controlled because of evolutionary traits gained when humans were nothing more than nomadic hunters and gatherers. This was when human survival was a lot less of a sure thing and our biggest enemies were bacteria.

    In his report on human symmetry, B. C. Jones, a Professor in the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow said, “disease and infections during physical development cause small imperfections (asymmetries). Thus only individuals who are able to withstand infections (those with strong immune systems) are successful in developing symmetric physical traits.” Those with strong immune systems are what we were looking for 2000 years ago, and it's what we look for now, whether we realize it or not. The biological arms race has not ended yet.

    These holdover traits are apparent in other unexplainable, but important, parts of human life like kissing. The act of two individuals pressing their germ infested mouths together and mixing their fundamentally different DNA with saliva is not necessary for any kind of relationship, yet almost every human has or will do it sometime in their lives. Researchers believe that this was a way of bolstering our own immune systems with the germs of another, thus getting our offspring used to certain diseases before they were born.

    Though most of us will never realize it, whether someone kicks a ball, hits a puck, or swings a bat, they don't do it for the fun or energy release that they believe they do. They do it because of the biological longing deep within them, the longing to attract someone special to share their life with.

Clash of Rivals

Stephon Hall
Sports Editor

    Broward College’s Men’s Basketball loss against in-state rival, Miami-Dade College on Jan. 29, at Central Campus gym 67-66. The beginning stages of the game started off slow for both squads as Broward went ahead by two early in a first period that was intense, to say the least. Miami Dade didn’t make it easy against the Seahawks as both team were tied at 16 during the first half.

    The teams were neck to neck until Guard, Mikhail Rolle shot a two-pointer, putting BC in the lead with a score of 33-32 at halftime. One Seahawk, Daniel Ramis, scored 18 points, which included five 3-pointers. “I work on my throws, mostly getting a lot of reps during training,” said Ramis. Other contributors include Kareem Roach and Dashawn Richmond with 9 points, William Cruz with 12 points and David Gaberlavage had 13 points. These players helped by adding points to the scoreboard with free throws, 2 pointers, as well as 3 pointers. In the last half, BC struggled but managed to keep up with Dade. BC’s Guard, Cruz, suffered injuries to his knee, wrist and his head in the second half, but kept on playing despite those issues.

    Miami-Dade wasn’t to be denied as they kept the game close with them tying the game up until they took the lead in the closing stages of the game. Miami Dade also took advantage of the free throw line with 29 attempts and making 20 of them. Dade took the lead against BC 67-64 late in the period and Ramis made two crucial free throw shots, cutting the deficit to one; but, unfortunately, the Seahawks ran out of time to complete the comeback as Miami Dade escaped a close one.

    Early on in conference play, BC defeated Dade with a score of 85-61. “The Officiating was very poor. The worst part is, the Head of the Referees, was standing in the stands not doing anything about it,” Said Head Coach Bob Starkman, who, clearly was frustrated with much of the officiating throughout the game.

    Despite a great effort from the bench by Daniel, he understood the missed opportunity of this game. He also kept it in the perspective with optimism. “We’re a team so we’re going to bounce back from this but it’s a tough loss against our rival, Miami-Dade,” said Ramis.

    There are only a handful of games left for the Seahawks to play against state rivals and February is filled with crucial match-ups against Indian River (Feb 1st at Home & Feb 15th Away), Eastern State (Feb 5th & the season finale on Feb 22nd at Home), Palm Beach State College (Feb 5th) and Miami-Dade (Feb 19th Away) The Seahawks are 16-6 on the season with a 4-2 record in conference play.

A Strike in Voting

Stephon Hall

Sports Editor

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     The Baseball Writers Association of America rule this playground called integrity. A group of people left with determining who is qualified for Hall of Fame status without a hint of suggestive issues with Performance Enhancing Drugs (or PEDs for short) or “character issues” pertaining to an individual. Every year, Baseball writers submit a HOF ballot for their player of choosing and the player(s) must be in the 75th percentile in order to qualify. In an unprecedented grasp of surprise, one baseball writer decided for the good of America and said, to heck with morality and gave his vote to Deadspin, a sports website that isn’t like other traditional sports websites. Who on earth would commit such a gamble? Well, Dan LeBatard of ESPN (and, sometimes, the Miami Herald on a freelance basis) would make such a decision.

     He grew tired of votes for potential candidates like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling, for example getting jilted because of steroid use in the Major Leagues. I’m still astonished at the idea that Baseball, which benefitted from the home runs performances of Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa (Both players were pursuing Roger Maris’s 61 home runs in a season in which both of them broke with McGuire at 70 and Sosa at 66). That was back in 1998, for those of you wondering how long ago where we as fans or pundits didn’t care about supplements.

   
     Too much of sports, just like baseball, is placed in a cathedral, where every player must take some ridiculous oath to uphold a lot of the principles of the game that pertains to keep a level of pride and respect for the game by staying away from the “magic elixir” that we tarnish many players legacy for in favor of character shaming, because Ryan Braun let you down by taking that potion to keep playing at a high-level. But, players were taking “Greenies” to improve performances on the field and other forms of amphetamines. So, it’s fair to keep players we deem as jerks or “shamed” the game to a point where a particular Simpsons character utters “Will someone please think of the children” as an out for such debate? We didn’t mind it during the eras of Babe Ruth, Willie Mays or vice versa.

     I can’t give a poignant answer as to why, but, man, it’s all so curious as to why LeBatard did what he did by giving his vote away so that fans could have a say on who deserves this honor. I mean, Bob Costas, Vin Scully, Bill James and other baseball historians can’t even vote at all. Dan later regretted this decision when he became a significant part of the story as he first confirmed it on his television show “Highly Questionable.” ESPN and the Herald strayed away from his decision in separate statements.

     So, while his stance didn’t do anything but revoke his voting privileges, it was a brave attempt to shake up the BBWAA a little bit. Unfortunately, that fire didn’t grow rapidly enough for that organization to balk to a reporter who’s known for sports anarchy. Someday, this may change, but for now this is a “moral victory” for baseball writers and just the beginning for this interesting debate on who deserves voting power.

FL University's Sports Season (2013)

Bella Riccitelli

Staff Writer

     Universities throughout the state of Florida experienced lots of success this past season. During the 2013 season, schools such as Florida State University(FSU,) University of Central Florida(UCF) and University of Miami(UM) underwent loads of success.

Jameis Winston winning Heisman award

     FSU had lots of joy and pride flowing through their campus this year. One specific talented athlete is Jameis Winston. Winston, quarterback, won the Heisman Trophy Award. This college freshman also helped bring his team to the national championships. He also won the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) against the Auburn Tigers in early Jan. Although facing scandalous accusations this year, Winston is obviously not phased and continues to rise as a football player.

     Another noted athlete is Yashira “Cheetah” Delgado. This FSU senior is a guard for the women's basketball team and a talented one at that. Delgado is also named one out of 29 candidates for the Lieberman Award. Just standing 5’2, Delgado has made a name for herself in college sport history.

     UCF had their share of victories as well during the 2013 season. Attending the BCS bowl for the first time in history, the Knights brought home the winning title for their school against Baylor University. Quarterback Blake Bortles started making his way to the top during the 2013 football season. Bortles accepted a scholarship from UCF back in 2010 and shimmied his way up since then. After becoming a part of the Knights’ football team, Bortles, now a senior, has brought his team the best season to come. He has thrown nine interceptions and collected 25 touchdowns. Bortles has publically announced that he will be entering the 2014 NFL draft.

     Storm Johnson, running back for the Knights, is another football athlete that is making it big. Like his teammate Bortles, Johnson plans to enter the 2014 NFL draft. Johnson, candidate for the Doak Walker Award, has scored 14 touchdowns for his team.

     Football isn’t the only team that made news this past season. The men’s basketball team for UCF competed in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the American Athletic Conference. Additionally, both of Michael Jordan’s sons have played basketball at UCF.

     “I was filled with school pride when I attended UCF,” said Cathy Arminio. “I went to every game I could go to, basketball, football, you name it. I’m proud to see that the knights have come so far. They’re really stepping up to the plate in the sports universe.”

     The Miami Hurricanes have gone through an interesting year when it comes to sports. All though their football season this year wasn’t anything to write home about, the Hurricanes of UM still made headlines in the news world.

     Stephen Morris, quarterback, finished his football career by scoring 49 touchdowns and throwing 30 interceptions.

     “I went to UM a few years ago and I loved attending the football games,” said Rachel Hall. “The energy in the stadium during a football game there is incredible. It’s thrilling now, as a graduate, to see UM’s games on TV and to hear about their victories, and even sometimes losses. UM is a good school with amazing athletes."

     Through all of the ups and downs of the 2013 season, UM, FSU and UCF still have hope and pride stored within themselves.

Stephen Morris UM QB:

(Photo taken after a win against UF 21-16)

Football: Turning Players Brains Into Mush Since 2002

Stephon Hall

Sports Editor 

     Football, the new American pastime is a spectacle of big hits and big plays that is watched on Sundays, Mondays & Thursday for our perusal. We all appreciate the impact of how these men bludgeon one another for a shot at the Vince Lombardi trophy every year in what can be considered our new form of Gladiator, except it’s not set in Rome. Alas, once all of the fun and games of tackle become serious, our collective jubilation turns into dread, once a player is lying motionless on the field from head-to-head contact. Some of the head injuries maybe minor and other could be serious. The average force two human beings colliding with one another is at 100 gravity forces (or G-forces), that more than a car accident, shuttle launches or spinning your body in circles. The NFL recently dealt with a $765 Million settlement on concussions with former players that who are dealing with symptoms from head injuries with $10 million going to research and education for concussion research; but, in the ever-ferocious game of football, progress is only plentiful when many are impacted by the symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (or CTE). While we adore the big plays, despise that crushing interception from a quarterback on your football team, getting hit is just part of the story, but it’s what’s underneath that is putting some of the legends of the game in a world of pain.  

     

     First one, one of the issues that the NFL is dealing with is the neurodegenerative disease CTE, which is connected to memory loss, aggression, confusion from many hits to the head. CTE is usually caused with concussions from impact from explosions, head injuries and other irregularities. Once the brain goes through that impact, tau protein is accumulated from lots of brain hits. The more the brain goes through these traumas, the more its

degenerates. Being that the mind is the motor of the body, collisions affect coordination and balance. Before the NFL (also the NCAA & public schools) got proactive on concussions, there were no doctors on the sidelines to check for head contusions, just only for possible injuries for hands, knees, stomach, etc. The brain has never been treated as seriously until now, due to a big lawsuit and a large group of former athletes that made this happen.

     Masculinity is to blame for a lot of this, especially, since, those with nagging headaches used to hide the condition for the good of team and being emasculated for admitting said injury to the press. And, if that information were to be reported upon, fans would belittle player and proceed to call him “soft” and other suggestive words. Football has always promoted its game with such overwrought grandeur without the mentions of numerous problems the game can lead on such a mortal spirit that is the human anatomy. Luckily, the game has progressed along to the point that admitting a problem is ok.

     In closing, WGBH’s FRONTLINE aired a special episode called “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis” Tuesday, October 8th on WPBT channel 2 at 9pm. You can also catch it online at PBS.org/FRONTLINE if you managed to missed it on television. The season premiere spanned over two hours and promises to deliver a comprehensive study into head injuries and the pain these players have went through daily.