My Plan of Action

- Complete reading "Play Their Hearts Out" and take notes to implement into article - Create an extended version of introduction to provide more in-depth information about AAU basketball - Try to obtain more local evidence of AAU basketball to support my opinion - After finished project is done, I need to revise my papers and pay attention to detail - I need to find more specific examples of players and AAU teams to make my article not sound too "general", but in a way readers can realize that this is a real problem today

The Corruption of AAU Basketball 1

AAU which stands for American Athletic Union is used to create higher level competition for basketball’s elite players. It is a great way to expose players’ potential because sometimes the high school level of competition just isn’t enough. Grantland’s Jonathan Abrahams recently wrote an article about Andre Iguodala, whom currently plays for the Golden State Warriors of the NBA. According to him, Andre suffered a loss in production under high school basketball because he was forced out of his comfort zone and time to time had to play under the basket because of his height. He was introduced into AAU, and completely blossomed to a star player because of the elite talent that revolved around the organization. While some praise the aspect of AAU ball, critics believe it is an organization full of corruption. NBA agents, college coaches, shoe companies want to raise sales and to simply have the best talent to represent. They want to find the next Michael Jordan or LeBron James, but are limited in doing so. AAU basketball is able to fill that void, but with a cost that relies on illegal actions such as providing impermissible benefits that could actually hurt the player in the long run. Numerous college athletes have been suspended because of impermissible benefits and links to NBA agents and boosters.

Football Debate

There are obviously risks at play in contact sports especially if it’s football. But the fact of the matter is people don’t care at all because of the excitement it brings. Americans enjoy themselves through this type of entertainment; they enjoy to see a football player get viciously tackled leaving them stunned on the football field. The disgusting fact is that instead of most fans to react with a response that seems to care about the player and to see if he’s okay after the play, it is nearly always going to be “He got destroyed!” That’s the sad fact of our modern era: Americans are too caught up with entertainment. They ignore the important things such as possible injury that could result in death or major injuries like concussions. I wouldn’t blame it on anyone because the players were already predisposed to enjoy football therefore making it a huge impact on their life. The players become easily attracted to football playing the sport for the majority of their upcoming life. The players know what is exactly at stake, but their passion for the game shuns the dangers that revolve around football. The only thing here to blame is the American culture. Our children become grown with the same intentions of our elders – we enjoy dangerous entertainment. Some people argue that football players are completely safe because they are padded and are equipped with helmets. Arguably, football is one of the top sports that have the most injuries per year due to the groundbreaking force that football players bring to each other’s bodies. We must recognize that some of our entertainment is corrupt and brings too many negatives than positives. Watching football to see football players risk themselves for pure entertainment is almost identical to watching people beat each other to death. The American society has to come to realization that we have to protect our future generation from some of the dangers. Of course, entertainment plays a large role in the American society, but why can’t be in a way it brings an assurance of safety?