As the name suggests, Sports Journalism reports on sports topics and events and it is an essential element of any news media organization. Today a career in sports is at its boom and which also brings wonderful career opportunities for sports journalists as well. Television, radio, magazines, internet have become an integral part of people’s life. Many of them are ardent fans of different sports; they switch to TV, websites, newspaper for getting latest updates and news in their sports. Thus, the scope of sports journalism is increasing gradually. Sports Journalism prepares students to sports reporting career and also introduces them with the writing of a sports writer and media professionals use.

But still a lot to done in this field, it is disappointing to say that there are not enough good sports magazines in Indian languages. A couple of English magazines are available in the market which cater with the need of limited fans but many sports loving people who are not comfortable in English do not enjoy this privilege.

Today it is a rewarding vocation which requires talented and skilled media professionals. To be a journalist you need to know inside out of your subject and have a passion to make a mark in this vocation.

It also demands lot of hard work and onus. However, rewards are lucrative, a journalist gets box seats at the games, meets internationals sports star, gets lot of exposure while traveling from one country to another, getting to know the people who train Olympics athletes and fame appreciations from the readers and fans.

Today, internet has become an important part of sports journalism. Almost all journalists have to start from ground zero. So if you are an aspiring Journalist, you can start with your own blogs on your favorite team or particular sport. This helps you to build up your portfolio of self-published clips and if any sports organization finds your blog interesting then you could also get a chance to work with them.

Today Sports Journalism has turned into long form writing, it also produces popular books on sports which include biographies, history and investigations. Many western countries have their own national association of sports journalists. In India there has been recent growth in Sports Journalism. The sports column in various leading newspapers is widely popular among readers. Indians today not just appreciate cricket but they have also understood the importance of other sports also like football, hockey, wrestling, boxing etc.

You could go for a degree in sports journalism which could enhance your writing and reporting skills and also trains you efficiently in the areas sports. You would learn to write technical details about a sport in a simple manner. One could also opt for journalism and match reporting course which deals with going to sport games, sporting events, and venues, meeting with players then reporting all this to sports crazy audience.

The career opportunities in sports journalism are – match reporter, freelance sports journalist and sports writer. You would get to work in newspaper, radio, TV, magazines and online journalism.

There’s a story I read the other day about the football player from Oscar Smith High School in Chesapeake, Virginia, Lonnie Andrews, Jr, who was killed July 1, 2008. Very sad story from what I’m hearing.

The story is that he got into an argument with a 17 year old kid who subsequently shot and killed Andrews. The young football star was all set to attend Virginia State University on a football scholarship and had many other college programs showing interest in him. The future looked great for Lonnie Andrews, Jr. He was going to play college football, get an education and begin a major part of his life and future but that’s all over now. And as for the young man who killed Lonnie, what can you really say? His life is ruined as well! Now two lives are over at such a young age.

Too many times you read these stories about young African America men who play sports, who come from the inner cities that have been killed. This is not the first time this has happened and sadly this will not be the last. They’re leaving home, leaving the streets behind for a better life but your friends are being left behind as you move forward. Jealousy sets in because this person or that person did not make it out, did not get a scholarship for college and, for some reason in the African America community, this turns into hate or rage and leads to someone being killed for no reason; for making it out of the inner city.

Leave, high school sports stars and never come back is my message to you! Everyone from your world is not happy for the success you have achieved. The unfortunate ones who could not play a sport or achieve anything in school are left behind with no future or no hope and often times they don’t want you to have a future of your own.

The haters out there feel that if they are not able to have a future then they, the haters, don’t want you to have a future either. It’s very sad but there is always that rotten element out there looking to bring you down because you are successful and moving on in life; because you can go places and do things.

Leave, sports stars and never come back! If you do, someone from your home town will not be happy to see you come back.

What happened to Lonnie Andrews, Jr. is just another sad and sick story about a promising high school athlete cut down too early who was trying to do something with his life and too often you read about or hear about this on T.V.

To all the sports star athletes: once you are set to leave for college, just leave. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going and never come back.

Biography, Stories, and Facts About Dizzy Dean

Back in the day before media was printing a sports star’s every spoken word, Dizzy Dean was entertaining fans, the media, and the world like very few sports stars ever have. Dizzy Dean was a natural clown who loved to bring smiles to the faces of all those around him. Few baseball players have done it better, and the stories that have been told about his life are legendary.

Before the 1934 season Dizzy made the outlandish prediction that he and his brother Paul would win over 40 games in one season. They didn’t win 40, they won 49! Dean won 30 games in 1934 in one of the greatest seasons any Major League pitcher has ever accomplished. Dean lead the infamous Gashouse Gang to the National League pennant and a World Series duel with the Detroit Tigers. It was in Detroit where Dizzy Dean would endear himself to fans all across America and establish him as one of the best pitchers and most entertaining baseball players of all time.

Before Dizzy Dean threw his first pitch he made his presence felt. On the day before Game 1, Dean joined the opposing Detroit Tigers during batting practice. There he could be seen bragging to the Tigers team, taunting their players, and taking batting practice using Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg’s baseball bat. After that he was entertaining the media by wrestling with a Tiger’s skin and playing with the stadium’s band. Love him or hate him, Dizzy Dean had a knack of making everyone around him smile.

While Dizzy was a bundle of fun before the game, he was all business after it started. In Game 1, Dean struck out six in an 8-3 victory. In Game 4, he entered the game as a pinch runner. When a grounder was hit to shortstope, he raced to second base to break up a double play and was hit in the head with the baseball. Dean ended up in the hospital with a head injury. The next day’s headline was both funny and comforting to the Cardinal fan at the same time. The headline said “X-Ray of Dean’s Head Reveals Nothing.”

Despite his head injury, Dean returned for Game 7 and pitched a masterpiece. He allowed only one runner to reach third base and clinching the World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Dizzy Dean Interesting Facts:

• One day while being interviewed by reporters, Dizzy Dean gave each a different story of his life. Later, he said that he did this because they all wanted exclusive stories.
• In the 1934 World Series, Dean won two games for the Cardinals while his brother won the other two. This is the only time that two brothers won all four games of the World Series.
• He had so much confidence in his fastball that he would yell to the players that it was coming.
• Dean was one of the few white baseball players who went on barnstorming tours with black pitcher Satchell Paige.
• Dizzy Dean had a movie made in his honor called, “The Pride Of St. Louis”.

As a young man, I was in youth track and cross-country and was able to rank nationally, and post 4-consecutive years with no loss and all first place, and I was lucky to find something I was good at early on in my life. I didn’t realize it back then when people use to come up and want to meet me and tell me how much they enjoyed watching me run and win. Today, I do understand, as it is an innate sense we have to watch others, especially underdogs, overcome and win. Perhaps why the Rocky series movies were so popular and why people like movies like the Karate Kid.

Recently, I watched a very inspirational YouTube video about a young athlete. A 7th grader cross-country runner who beat all the high girls at the State Championships, her name is Grace Ping. You might want to watch the following videos yourself:

1). “Grace Ping [GP], 7th grader, takes down the ENTIRE 2015 Roy Griak high school field” on the FloTrack Channel.

2). “GP Not Allowed to Race NXN” on the MileSplit Channel

3). “GP After Racing Pro 3K At UW Indoor” on the MileSplit Channel

4). “GP Story” Sean Tehan Channel

5). “GP – Athlete Of The Week” Chris Barriere Channel

One commenter wrote: “why am I watching this video, I’m not even in track let alone athletic.”

My reply was simple: “Because you love an individual with that level of spirit and will to win. We all do.”

You see, it makes us feel alive, it makes us smile and see someone go beyond, go the distance, defy the odds and win. Americans will always hold such values and hold a special place in our hearts for those who remind us what we are capable of. It turns out the super cross-country runner Grace is not just an anomaly – she is also a cross country skier – and those long skiing training endeavors helped her develop strong cardio, will, determination, high pain threshold, and legs of steal, even for a 13 year old.

It is amazing what the human body is capable of, and yes, she obviously has good genetics for running, but it’s more than that, it’s her intense training, training that is transferable from skiing to running. Interestingly enough most skills are transferable, especially the human trait of perseverance. She’s got that, and well, so do you. She’s found her “inner winner” and maybe it is time that you found yours too. Please consider all this and think on it.

Okay so, I watched the Olympics, particularly I am interested in track and field events because I was a star athlete in High School and College. My mom likes the swimming events as she made the US Olympic Swim team in 1964. My brother also a track star from high school noted that the winning times in track for the women’s was about what he’d run in High School, actually a little slower 3-seconds for instance in the 800 meter. Okay so, let’s talk about the issue of transgender in sports and the controversy of the South African gal who won her race and got a gold medal, but some have said “It just isn’t fair because for all sense and purposes she is a he.”

Now then, regardless of the Olympic Committee’s finding on this issue, what about the future; would it be fair for male athletes to all of a sudden decide they are female, what if a male has their male genitalia removed, could he then compete in the women’s events? Why even ask the question, you ask?

Well, I mean with all the political correctness you’d think that we are all “equal” in every way right? That you should use the bathroom of choice, whatever you feel like, based on your perception of your identity? Well, if so, you should be allowed to compete as a woman even if you were born a man.

We know that there is about 1.2% of the human population which is biologically a little off, this is normal in all species, meaning they might have some male and some female parts or their hormonal flow is off from their body parts – gender biological designation, which is probably more of the case with the South African sprinter who has tested more male than female. For this, we need to be careful how we classify, or even disqualify an athlete – after all, it wouldn’t be his/her fault that they were born a certain way – right? And, really this is the basis in part for the argument to allow transgender athletes to compete in whatever gender category they feel is appropriate.

Nevertheless, in our attempt to be fair to all concerned, we get into trouble when we put men against women in the same sport, as it isn’t fair to all those years of hard work to be denied a metal or have to compete against the anatomically stronger gender of our species. Indeed, we also need to be fair for those who are different and inclusive – as these folks are a “normal” and expected minority of any species from insects (Butterfly Research) to humans, and every type of species in between that has ever been studied by biologists – there will always be a small percentage in this category and we should and need to celebrate that diversity not condemn it, as that is the correct thing to do.

Okay now, I ask; should I be allowed as a man to compete in the Women’s Olympics, break world records, and collect all the gold medals in the Middle Distance races? Of course not – regardless of which body parts I cut off. Think on it.

Would you like to know how the sports betting tips service called Five Star Betting works? As its name suggests, this program introduces five different strategies for betting which are the over/under goals, Asian corner kicks, Asian handicaps, correct score and in play goals/corners.

1. How Will You Be Receiving Your Tips When You Sign Up As a Member of Five Start Betting?

Although all the bets can be placed as singles, the owners of this service will provide tips as 2 sets of doubles and 1 treble to help maximize profits and introduce more variation to your bets. Every day, 10 picks will be provided that also includes statistical analysis and other information like choosing the best bookmaker and best odds for every betting selection. Once your bets are placed, you can also make use of the live streaming links and live score service links to follow the bets that you have made live.

2. How Do You Know if Five Star Betting is Not Just Another Overhyped Scam?

I must admit that I was initially very skeptical about joining this service site after many of the poor experiences I have had with joining online betting tipster websites that fail to make much money. The truth is that there are many scammers in the gambling industry that claim to have the best and most profitable systems even though they may never have even placed a single real life bet before.

3. Going Through the Process of How to Bet Using the Five Star Betting System

This is evident from the fact that they do not even explain their betting procedures clearly and only give very brief instructions with a lot of ambiguity. With this membership site, I am getting very clear, step by step instructions to go about with my bets and does not cause any confusion like what most other systems do. Another fact is that I have seen two different betting guides with different names but yet teach exactly the same, reckless betting techniques.

One of them was clearly rehashed from the other and is something that punters have to be careful about when they are thinking about buying an online betting guide. Effectively, I was able to recoup my investment into this betting site within my first day of betting. However, that may not happen to everyone and would depend on the amount of capital you allocate to bet on the selections you get from this service site.

You may know him as the “Bambino”, the “Sultan of Swat” or simply the “Babe”, but his family knew him as George Herman Ruth, Jr. Known as the greatest player in baseball’s history, Babe Ruth is also arguably the first celebrity sports star whose fame spanned beyond a specific sport. In his honor, April 27th of each year is known as Babe Ruth Day. Even though he retired in 1936, fans of baseball still speak of the Babe’s prolific skills with awestruck admiration and have shared the legend with younger generations. It’s no wonder that any boy, from 2 to 102 years old, would love to dress up in a Halloween costume fashioned after this historic baseball hero.

Playing for the American Major League from 1914 to 1935, Babe started as a pitcher but eventually found his home in right field. If you’d like to dress up as the Babe, you’ve got a few choices for costume ideas based on his various team affiliations. While he joined the Boston Red Sox for the first 5 years of his career and retired after a brief stint with the Boston Braves, Babe Ruth is most well known for helping the New York Yankees win seven pennants and 4 World Series titles. Dress up in an old-time baseball costume that looks like it just stepped out of a dugout from another era. With a traditional white jersey and belted knickers featuring the nostalgic pin stripes looks just like something the Babe would wear. If you’ve got a fine eye for detail, make sure your jersey number is “3”, the same as Ruth’s number, a number that was eventually retired by the New York Yankees in 1948.

If you’re up on your Babe Ruth trivia, then you surely know that Ruth was the first player to smash 60 home runs in one season, held a long-standing record for lifetime total homeruns, and still holds records for slugging. There is no doubt he dominated the era of baseball, and of course everyone wants a piece of the Babe. One over-the-top example, the bat he used to hit his first home run for the Yankees. In 2006 it was sold at auction for a whopping $1.3 million dollars! If this is out of your price range, you can still have one of the best Halloween costumes ever with an authentic-looking wooden bat.