A Sporting Day: It's Not a Game, It's a Franchise

Our group was looking at how sports and society comes to together and questioned the benefits we gain from sports. We will look at college, pro, and high school club teams. First we gathered in the lobby of the hotel to go over the plans of the day, decided our questions, and we were ready to go.  We traveled on the T to South Station to grab a bite to eat. South Station looked like smaller version of New York’s Grand Central Station. It was cool to see with all the different shops, places to eat, and a huge board with changing train times and arrivals.

After that, we walked to Metro Lacrosse’s office in Seaport to volunteer our time with all the new equipment that got shipped to them today. Metro Lacrosse is a non-profit organization that provides free equipment to kids around the Boston area who participate in their lacrosse program. One group screwed on brand new heads to new shafts, organized cones and body pads, and counted and organized helmets. It was great to help out this company as most of them are volunteers and do it for the love of the kids.

Then, we took the T again to go Northeastern University. There we met Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach Pat Duquette, who gave us a tour of the athletic facility and gave us a great inside view of a coach’s perspective on recruiting. He also answered the question of how he recruits. He said that coaches recruit different but for them, they look for the overall person who has a good attitude that can help their team to succeed along with their great talent. It was a good comparison from a non-profit organization and a high big D-1 college where they help develop young athletes for the love of the game and they could possibly send them to a college where the game could possible turn into a “job." It was interesting to see the different opinions of people of whether or not they thought the real spirit and love of the game has been lost. And for the most part, they thought it has not but it isn’t for everyone to play at a D-1 level because it basically turns into your job.

Lastly, we walked across campus to the office of Sports in Society and met with the Executive Director Dan Lebowitz. He was a former body builder and had a great insight on how he worked for what he had and worked his way up to where he is today from a poor background and being disabled as a youth. The goal of the company is to use sports as a means to create social change. He also works with the MIAA to teach a curriculum of sports leadership to 50 high school athletes to later have them teach the middle school kids about anti-bullying and good leadership skills. He feels strongly about showing good qualities through role models in sports and praises those athletes in their Athletic Hall of Fame. He gave us great insight on our future college careers and words that we will always remember.