The Rebirth of a Game :: Basketball NBA Athletics Sports Essays

The Rebirth of a Game Basketball in my home state goes way back, straight to the beginning. The University of Kansas (KU) hired James Naismith, the inventor of the game, as its first basketball coach in 1898. The fledgling sport caught on, and has gained force ever since. KU was also the scene of the emergence of Wilt Chamberlain, who dominated the game like none other. At the same time that â€Å"Wilt the Stilt† was breaking out, Kansas State University (KSU) had a basketball coach by the name of Tex Winter. While not as well known as Chamberlain, Winter’s contributions to the game of basketball may have been even more significant. Ask any Bulls or Lakers fan where the â€Å"triangle† offense (and resulting championships) came from. So, with my birth in 1979 in a small town in Kansas, this was the world I stepped into. Naismith, Chamberlain, Winter, and others had been incorporated into a basketball pantheon by the public. They were part of the public consciousness, but only in a supporting role. The game of basketball itself was lifted above them all, the true source of the passion. Before I was ten years old I had seen this passion at its peak. The NCAA Tournament of 1988 turned out to be a great showcase of Kansas and Big 8 basketball. The team I loved, KSU, made an improbable run in the tournament, winning their first three games. This set up a Sunflower State showdown between KSU and KU in the round of eight. The game ended up being a blowout, with KU dominating. KU went on to win the national championship in exciting fashion, beating Big 8 rivals Oklahoma in an exciting championship game. As an impressionable eight-year-old, I soaked up the emotions. The hopes and expectations, the ecstasy and the heartbre ak. These feelings stuck with me. When I reached seventh grade, basketball took a different role in my life. I played on my junior high basketball team and absolutely loved it. From November to March, my life revolved around an orange ball. From seventh grade to eleventh grade, this was winter to me. I was a true student of the game, learning and improving constantly. I became fairly good, and even won some awards my eighth grade season. During my freshman year in high school, I once scored 29 points in a junior varsity game. When I stopped growing at 6’, however, it became fairly clear that there was no future in it for me as a player.

Catch me if you can film review

Frank Abagnale Jr was an intelligent man, one of the most successful con men in history. Frank lived as a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer all before his 21st birthday. The primary technique he used was defrauding banks using different fake cheque schemes eventually amounting to over 2. 5 million dollars. Much of what Frank accomplished defied believability. There were many factors that motivated Frank to become so successful at bank freud and many factors that kept him running from and towards a destination.When actions speak louder then words, the film unfolds. In the beginning of the film, the viewer becomes aware that his father, Frank Sr., is a huge role model for him and becomes the source of Frank’s longing for acceptance and appreciation. Frank idolizes his father no matter what, and acquires significant tricks and knowledge from him that he then puts to use in the future.As the film moves along the viewer gets a look at what Franks life is like growing up in a stable uppe r/middle class life. Frank encounters a traumatic moment when he stumbles upon his mom cheating on his father and then his mother bribing him with money to feel better, both future motivations for Franks running and views on money.Once his parents are divorced Frank wants everything to be okay and to have the perfect family back together, no matter the cost. In his eyes, his father just needs to win his mother back with a better life and material things, another motivation, when in reality, the relationship has been over for quite some time, a truth made clearly evident by his mother’s affair. Unable to deal with the stress of choosing which parent to live with, Frank runs away and soon realizes he needs to find a way to make money quickly. Early on in the film the viewer gets a taste of where Franks techniques originate from.We learn that Frank Sr owned a stationary store which sold paper for different types of cheques, giving Frank the ability to distinguish different types of paper, and know the machines he's going to have to use in the future. Franks very first impersonation was along side his dad, when he posed as his chauffeur, this then gives Frank the idea to then later impersonate a substitute teacher at his new school which he gets away with for a week. Eventually Frank becomes confident in his abilities to fool many people and becomes a very cunning, charming and convincing young man.He first begins to create fake cheques at different banks, scamming them out of hundreds of dollars and eventually realizing he needs to find a different way to bring in a steady cash flow. He decides to therefore impersonate a pilot for Pan Am Airlines as a â€Å"deadhead† who is a backup pilot and therefore does no actual flying on the plane. Meanwhile the FBI’s fraud division has caught on to Frank’s scams and begins to track him down with one detective leading the investigation: Carl Hanratty, a determined, tenacious character who loves h is job. It becomes Carl’s personal goal to find Frank with little to no support from the rest of the FBI.Frank continues to scam his way across the country becoming a doctor and a lawyer and even getting married. But what is it that keeps him going? Throughout the film there are a few moments where the viewers are able to truly get into the head of Frank and try to understand why he continues to flee. For example, there are two scenes where Frank has lunch with his dad while he's still being chased. In the first, Frank is still a deadhead for Pan Am, we see that Frank is trying to demonstrate that he has money to his father by buying him a cadillac.Frank Sr, is very impressed by his kind actions and is proud of his son, this gives Frank Jr the feeling that what he is doing is right and therefore motivates him to continue so he can continue to impress and provide for his father and perhaps fix the relationship between his parents. In the second meeting with his father the view er quickly catches on to the more sour feel of the meeting. Frank Jr appears to be upset as his father has by now caught on to what he is doing, he then asks his father to tell him to stop, to which his father replies; you cant stop. Hearing those words enrages Frank and empowers him to keep going even more.Frank keeps going until finally he is arrested and put in a french prison where Hanratty comes to bring him back to the United States. Back in in the U. S Frank tries one last time to escape and runs all the way to his old home where he sees his mother in the window and her new child. Frank sees that he is no longer his mothers child and finally stops, realizing he can never again unify his family and that he has nowhere to run to anymore. Conversely at the end of the film the viewers learn that Hanratty is able to give Frank a job in the FBI cheque freud division, taking him out of jail.In conclusion what Frank Abagnale Jr is running to is the hope that one day he could find a w ay of fixing and unifying the broken family that was once so happy and in love. Consequently, Frank is also running from the idea that he will not be able to achieve this and the more obvious reasons like getting caught by Hanratty and being sent to jail. All in all, this film is a great movie showing the huge importance of family in a kids life and giving people the notion that nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it.

Analysis Of J. Tracy Power s Lee s Miserables - 1429 Words

One of the most prominent armies of the civil war the Army of Northern Virginia is one of the most commonly analyzed aspects of the confederacy. In J. Tracy Power’s Lee’s Miserables, Power evaluates the mindset of the soldiers by following their correspondence to family members as well as their use of diaries. The book is designed to demonstrate the psychological changes of the soldiers from The Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania to the eventual surrender of the army at Appomattox. Power effectively describes the spectrum of physiological states exhibited by the soldier while maintaining a theme of respect for the generalship of Robert E. Lee. While the work exhibits countless examples that become repetitive, the sentiments of the†¦show more content†¦Power effectively captures their feelings by supplying the reader with an abundance of quotes that contain complaints over the quality and quantity of rations. One in particular complains of, â€Å"pickle d beef,† which he said could just as easily be dog instead of beef (258). During this siege the once confident Army of Northern Virginia no longer predicted a quick end of the war. The soldiers echoed an uncertainty for when the war would end while expressing a desire for it to be soon. Power depicts a descriptive picture of the life of the soldier by referencing the numerous hardships including extended periods in the trenches as well as long periods without fresh clothes. Many of the soldiers complained of having tattered and worn-down clothing and expressed strong desires for new clothing. Power further captures their desire by noting opinion of the inspector general of the army who believed that â€Å"the small rations and inadequate supply of clothing is doubtless promoting desertion among the men† (224). Perhaps one of the must detrimental occurrences in the Army of Northern Virginia was the act of desertion. As the siege of Petersburg and Richmond extended into t he winter of 1864 and 1865 the physical hardships, re-election of Lincoln, as well as news of Sherman’s march caused many soldiers to desert. The combination of these discouraging events led to desertion rates of up