By: Michael Sweeney

Icarus is a movie about the how sports journalism can completely turn over sports. Icarus starts out as an experiment for Bryan Fogel. He wants to dope and see if he can win an amateur cycling event without getting caught. He gets the help of Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory at the time. What followed changed not only cycling, but all Olympic sports all together. It is discovered that Russia has a state-sponsored Olympic doping program.  Because of sports journalism, Fogel, with the help of Rodchenkov, was able to discover something much more than he originally hoped.

This documentary was an incredibly effective use of sports journalism. One of the biggest ways it succeeded was that there were cold hard facts. Sports journalism is truly an incredible thing. Fogel’s original goal was to see if he could beat a doping test. What happened after that was crazy. This is the power of journalism. One of the biggest story lines that made this documentary very effective was the story of Grigory Rodchenkov. Since he was the head of the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory he was not only putting his livelihood on the line, but his life. Throughout the documentary his life was in danger. This was a storyline that was relevant through the entire documentary.

The other storyline that was very intriguing was Fogel’s progress through his regime. From the first race, he did clean to the race after he doped. It was intriguing seeing his progress. While the final results of the last race did not show it, the doping was certainly effective. One storyline that was truly the main part of the film was how Fogel started to uncover more and more when it came to the Russian doping scandal. It started with some evidence, and then boom. Fogel and Rodchenkov were at the center of a worldwide controversy.

Icarus was not only an interesting film, but it showed excellent sports journalism. As the film progressed, we saw Fogel find more and more tidbits of information and with the help of Rodchenkov, he was able to uncover a state wide doping program.

By: Michael Sweeney

When it comes to basketball coaches, collegiate and professional, they come from all walks of life and take different paths. Trent Angelucci is no different. Like a lot of coaches, collegiate and professional, Angelucci was first a player. When Trent was at South Carolina, he was trying to walk on the basketball team. Unfortunately, he broke his leg and was unable make the team. This brought him to the idea of coaching. He managed to get his first coaching job as an assistant at Transylvania University, a D-III school. Angelucci said that the only reason he got the job is because “They needed someone old enough to drive the team bus.” Along with being an assistant for the Varsity team, he was the head coach of their JV team. The recruiting at Transylvania was also a lot more difficult because they were a D-III school. Angelucci used his own car, paid for his own gas and would go all around the state of Kentucky watching as Angelucci puts it, “A bunch of 6-foot-tall white dudes.” While he worked practically for free and was working 6am-1am every day for a year, he believes that it was an incredible opportunity and it gave him a whole lot of valuable experience, Angelucci learned a lot while at Transylvania University, but nothing more important according to him than “Duke sucks!”

Angelucci’s next stop was Georgia Tech. There things were a lot less stressful than at Transylvania, but Angelucci still put in a lot of hours. He worked as a video coordinator. He helped break down opponent’s film and he researched and developed reports about other teams. Along with those duties, Angelucci made themed videos for recruits that were coming to visit. Along with trying to wow recruits, he also researched them, followed them on social media, and helped host visits. While at Georgia Tech, Angelucci was never the one making recruiting trips to recruit’s homes, he was very much involved in the recruiting process. According to Angelucci, one of the biggest things that he learned was that “Duke sucks!”

Now at Southern Utah University, Angelucci served as a special assistant to the head coach during the 2016-2017 season. He was promoted to Assistant Coach in 2017 Looking at the upcoming season Angelucci is very excited and optimistic. I was very curious to hear what his goals for the team are going into this year since last year was a struggle. Last year the Southern Utah Thunderbirds went (13-19) overall and (5-13) in conference, SUU struggled mightily on the road going (2-13). When Angelucci told me that his goal for the team was “To win league” it surprised me. While the record mat not show it, SUU was much better than their record shows. They were in a lot of very close games and even played the Michigan State Spartans tight, who were the #1 team in the country at the time. I asked Angelucci what he looks for in a player and he said, “A player who plays defense, plays multiple positions, long, can shoot, and works hard.” He said that these are exactly the type of players we will see on the floor for SUU. One of the biggest things that fans will notice according to Angelucci is that they will be playing more “position-less basketball.” SUU has a lot of long players that can shoot. One thing that really intrigued me is that he said that many of SUU’s best players were not playing last year. Many of them were not able to play last year. When listening to how SUU is going to play it reminded me a lot of the Warriors. The combination of long players, defense, the ability to play multiple positions, it seems like SUU is going in the direction of the NBA. Very three point heavy and an emphasis on position-less basketball. When asking Angelucci about keys to success with this style of basketball, he responded, “Have Steph Curry and Kevin Durant on your team.” Angelucci believes this team can be very good. If you look at this team on paper last year, they were bad, but they were in almost every game they played, including the game against Michigan State.

From being hired at a D-III school because he had a driver’s license to being an assistant coach at a D-I school, Trent Angelucci has had quite a ride, but he is not even close to done yet. This year, all eyes are on the Big Sky Championship. The last bit of information he gave me was simple, “Duke sucks!”

 

 

 

For my interview I interviewed Austin. One of the things that we had in common was that we both learned to love sports from our dads. I think that is one of the easiest ways for kids to connect to their dads. While i loved sports at an early age, Austin was different. He did not like sports when he was younger. He was a very rambunctious kid that didn’t like to sit around. So sitting down for a game was not ideal for him. Austin said that he dad complained to his mom that “My only son doesn’t like sports.” Honestly, when I have a kid I’d probably react the same way. Slowly as Austin grew a bit older he started watching sports more. The game that made him a sports fan was the 2006 BYU-Utah game. Austin’s dad is a huge BYU fan and Utah was a very good team. BYU won off a walk-off touchdown as the clock expired. That made Austin realize he loved sports. His dad was a huge BYU, Utah Jazz, and Dodgers fan. Naturally Austin became a BYU and Jazz fan. I asked him what his favorite sport moment was. He said “Either the BYU-Utah game in 2006, or when I saw Jimmer Fredette drop 52 points in a game live.”

I interviewed Paul. He was born in New Jersey and has lived in Cedar City for a number of years. He lived in Vegas, but moved here with his wife top give their son a better education. Paul said that he is not a huge fan of Cedar because of how small it is. Being from the East Coast cities are not as spread apart and the closest big city to Cedar is Vegas. They believed that their son would get a better education in a smaller town than he would if they were in Vegas.Paul’s son lost his hand he believes that his son would get more care in Cedar. Paul said that he came back to school to be able to allow his wife to not work. He is going to school to be a mortician. I found that very interesting. I never met someone that wanted to work with dead bodies. It certainly would be an interesting job. We talked a lot about sports and our favorite teams. He seems to be a big fan of most sports. We both laughed at how all over the place my teams are.

There aren’t really that many sports that I hate. But there are sports that I like less than others. I would say my least favorite sport in basketball. There are a number of reasons. I have watched less and less of the NBA throughout the years., The biggest reason is the emergence of super teams. Being a Heat fan that may be hypocritical, but at least when Lebron was in Miami there was competition. Now, it’s the Warriors and everyone else. It’s not fun when every single year you can predict who is going to win the Championship. It’s just boring to me. The product of basketball simply isn;’t as good. While I am not the biggest fan of every team raining 3’s all game, I understand it. To me the NBA is the worst league out of all the major sports. When the best part of your season is free agency that’s a problem. I have simply become less interested over time which is unfortunate. I used to love the NBA when I was younger. College basketball is also something that I don’t watch a lot. Unless it is March Madness I simply don’t care. March Madness is amazing to watch. The first couple days are insane, but the actual basketball isn’t entertaining. The product isn’t good. At least with college football the games are exciting. College basketball is exciting because of what’s at stake. Basketball is a great sport, but over time I watch less and less of it. I still love and care about my team, but unless my team is playing I’m not really inclined to watch.

This is one of the oldest sports debates in the book. Should college athletes be paid? I can see both sides of the argument and honestly, my position is on a bit from both sides. Do I think that all athletes should be given a weekly or a monthly check from the school. no. My Issue with that is that it is way too complex, How do we decide how much they get? Does every athlete get the same? If so, why is it fair that the starting quarterback from the football team would make the same as the last guy on the bench for the basketball team. The other issue is that for most schools. Football and basketball keep the other programs around. Without a football or basketball team, most schools wouldn’t have an athletic program. One of the ways I would pay players; however is merchandise sales. If a piece of merchandise has their likeness on it, jerseys, shirts, etc the players should get a cut of that. That’s why when you buy a college jersey most of them just have a number. It’s a work around. I firmly believe that players should not be given a salary, but they can be compensated in other ways. For example, the NCAA has some of the dumbest regulations i’ve ever seen. For example, there was an athlete that received a bagel from their university, which was fine, but as soon as they put cream cheese on it, cream cheese that was provided by the university, it was a violation. That is asinine. The NCAA will never pay their players because they are as corrupt of a company as there has ever been. This is a difficult topic because there aren’t just football teams and basketball teams. There are others men’s and women’s sports that compete for universities. The problem is they don’t make money. Another issue is that smaller schools could not afford to pay for players. It would be a great thing to pay players, the issue is, it is too difficult to figure out a good system right now.

Many people today would argue that the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series is North America’s premier racing series. The only real competition in the U.S. is IndyCar NASCAR and IndyCar are the two big dogs when it comes to racing in North America. So why has NASCAR seen a huge drop in tv ratings and attendance?

Many people would argue that it is because many biggest stars have retired. I do agree that it is a component of the drop off. In the past few years Dale Earnhardt Jr, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Carl Edwards have all retired, While that is going to hurt the sport, I also think that that is an excuse for NASCAR fans to why their motorsport that they love is struggling. You do not see ratings drop like this in other sports if stars retire. To me, the biggest reason why NASCAR is struggling is the constant need by the NASCAR higher ups to change the rules. The biggest and most controversial change in the last couple years was implemented before the 2017 season in which stage racing was announced. Stage racing splits the race into three segments and placing in the top 10 in a stage would give a driver points. Winning a stage would give you one playoff point. This was a very controversial rule because a lot of people believed that it took the natural progression out of a race. To be honest, stage racing is not natural racing. It forces cars to be bunched up again for a restart after a certain amount of laps and takes away a fair amount of strategy and what many racing fans believe to be one of the more exciting aspects of racing, fuel millage racing. I was one who gave stage racing a shot at the beginning. At first I did not mind it, but I have grown to really dislike it. The higher ups of NASCAR are trying to make NASCAR into something it’s not, a typical sport. Motorsports are not “typical” sports. These stages seem too much like quarters or periods and for racing, that is not right.

One of the other most controversial changes made was the playoff format. Once again, what motorsports series other than NASCAR has playoffs? I mean really? Once again the heads of NASCAR are trying to make racing like basketball or football. The playoffs start with 16 drivers. IF a driver wins a race in the playoffs they automatically advance to the next round. They race until the top four drivers are remaining and then the finale is held at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The issue with this format is that if a driver the first 35 races, but had an engine problem at Homestead, they would NOT be the Champion, To me, that is absolute garbage. The most dominant driver all year deserves to be the Champion. The playoffs should be gone from NASCAR. NASCAR should develop a points system like F1. In NASCAR there are around 40 cars in the field so I would say the top 20 should get points. First place gets around 40-50, second place around 5 less, and then keep lowering the amounts. Then 15-20 should get one point. There should also be bonus points given out to the driver with the most laps led. The driver with the most points and the end of the season wins the Championship. Boom. The champion does not need to be crowned at Homestead! Homestead should be a celebration of the season and if takes until the last race to crown a champion, that’s awesome, but if not, that’s racing. Sometimes guys are just really good some years. My issue with NASCAR is that they are going away from what racing should be. I know what NASCAR could be. Going to races is one of my favorite things to do, but the bosses of NASCAR who think they know what the fans want truly have no idea.

The last main issue with NASCAR are the cars themselves. This sentiment was acknowledged by Brad Keselowski, who has been a full time driver in the highest series of NASCAR since 2010. He said “It is time for this sport to design a new car that is worthy of where this sport deserves to be and the show it deserves to put on for its fans.” The issue with these cars is that clean air is everything. Clean air means that once a driver get up to the front they can practically check out. If they are the fastest car on the track its fine, the issue is when there are faster cars that get caught up in dirty air and because of dirty air and aero alone, they are not able to challenge for the lead. An issue the aerodynamics of the car is aero push. There have been numerous times in which a car has not even touched another car, but because of the aerodynamics of the car it has spun out and wrecked. Another issue with the cars is the lack of off throttle time, This is the biggest change that needs to be made. Off throttle time leads to better racing because that puts more emphasis on the abilities on the drivers, not how fast your car is. Sure slow cars can’t go fast, but fast cars can sure be slowed down my drivers, Like Keselowski said, “it is time for NASCAR to reevaluate the cars that they are putting on the track and make a better car that provides better racing.”

While NASCAR has a lot of work to do to make NASCAR’s product better, it is possible. The changes that need to be made in terms of format are getting rid of the playoff system and making the points system simpler, very much like the F1 system. Getting rid of stage racing is also a must. That would make the points being given out much easier to understand and help fans understand what is going on. In terms of the cars, the cars need to be redesigned. That will take time and money, but in the end it will be worth it. If NASCAR and their engineers can build a package that gives the drivers more off throttle time and puts the racing more in the hands of the driver and not in clean air, then the racing will improve. If NASCAR can implement these changes or some form of them the sport will not only become more exciting, but can bring fans that have left back, and who knows, maybe bring more fans in.

In the past few years the term Esports have come up a lot. Even ESPN has their own Esports page. So what are Esports? Esports are competitive video games. I think it is absolutely ridiculous to call Esports a sport. How is playing video games a sport? With most sports it takes physical activity and physical exertion. With Esports you sit in a chair and push buttons. This is coming from someone who plays video games a lot. I enjoy them, but there is no way that Esports are sports. Now me being a NASCAR fan, someone might laugh at me and say, “Oh so Esports isn’t a sport, but NASCAR is?” The simple answer is yes. I would consider racing series like NASCAR, Formula 1, and Indycar to be motorsports. Motorsports have been around forever. The physical strength it takes to be in that car for 4+ hours with the temperatures reaching 130+ degrees in the car, and wheeling an 800+ horsepower stock car is ridiculous. Any slip up and you are in the wall. I never thought I would see the day in which people actually think playing video games are a sport. To me Esports are certainly a competition, but not a sport. Many thinks are competitions. Competitive eating and Esports to me fall under the same category. While many pro gamer do train and in shape, that does not mean they are athletes. The term sport for many people can mean very different things, but to me it needs to involve some physical exertion. I have never once been tired from playing video games. How can it be a sport if you exert no energy?

The Ewing Theory by Bill Simmons is a very interesting piece that I have thought about in the past. He talks about how sometimes a star that leaves a team does not hurt the team, sometimes it even helps them. If I were to look at a candidate of the Ewing theory today, it would be Russell Westbrook. Is he an incredible athlete? Yes. Does he make his teammates better? Absolutely not. We have seen how Westbrook plays, he’s all about his stats. His stat padding was crazy in the two years he was trying to average a triple-double. If you took Westbrook off OKC and replaced him with a guy like Goran Dragic, OKC may very well have the same record, if not better. The issue with OKC is that Westbrook, Paul George, and Melo all are ball-dominate players. There is a reason the Jazz whooped them in the playoffs. I absolutely agree that the Ewing Theory is a real thing, but it can only happen with some stars. The Mariners in 2001 was the craziest and most inexplicable example, but the others? It’s really not that surprising. Especially in basketball, you see a very ball dominant, sometimes selfish player leave and the team gets better. Why? Because they are passing, they are getting more open, and one guy isn’t taking all the shots. If you look at OKC vs Golden State. OKC has stars, but Westbrook is me me me. Golden State has multiple superstars. You would think this would become an issue when it comes to egos, but it’s not. The players on Golden State have bought into winning, nit stat padding. Even though I hate that team, watching them play basketball is beautiful. The ball movement and unselfishness is second to none. The Ewing Theory is real, but not for every star. As an example, the Cavs are going to be atrocious without Lebron.

One of my favorite sports is football, so there is a lot I would change. I would change the new rules in the NFL about hitting QBs. Being a Packer fan these first few weeks have really stung because of the new rule. I would change the body-weight rule. This is football, not soccer. Clay Matthews should be able to tackle the QB. The body-weight rule is a joke, but so are most of the officials in the NFL. Along with changing rules I would train referees and make sure they are competent. The new rule that they implemented, granted a lot of it was because of the Aaron Rodgers injury last year has ruined the first few weeks of the season for me. I understand what they are trying to do, they are trying to limit hits like the Anthony Barr hit on Rodgers, but they aren’t. There have been numerous times in which after the ball was released Rodgers was hit and driven into the ground, no flag, but then Clay Matthews gets flagged for sacking the QB. The NFL is slowly becoming a joke. This is football, you should be allowed to tackle a quarterback. A defense’s job is to get the QB, but now they cannot even tackle him cleanly without a flag being thrown. If they want a rule like this (IT SHOULD NOT BE IN THE NFL, but okay) it should be you shouldn’t drive a QB in the ground, like Barr did and don’t hit them late, that’s it. The NFL needs to fix this joke of a rule.

Another rule I would change is stage racing in NASCAR because of the fact that it isn’t traditional and natural racing. NASCAR is trying to make NASCAR more of a sport rather than a motorsport which is a joke, Also they need to get rid of the playoff format and have a traditional standings system like in F1 and how NASCAR used to have it. NASCAR, like the NFL is trying to do wayyyyyy too much. NASCAR is trying to appeal to younger audiences, but they aren’t. Put a good product on the track and people will watch, which means make a better package for the drivers! The cars now are terrible. Aero and clean air are everything.