Reflections: Celebrating the Spirit of Athletics

Abstract

The original intent for this SIP was to explore the history of baseball, a longstanding desire of mine. However, after spending several months reading the "best" books to be had on the topic, I soon found that the well was dry when I sat down to write. Although interesting, the information lacked personal connection and therefore I found myself pondering what is it that forces me to write about athletics? This is the question I attempt to answer in the following pages. What I have concluded is that it is the people involved that are most important to me. Each piece in the first section is dedicated to an individual whom in some way has affected my life. In the second section, I attempt to address my own athleticism by writing about a twenty-two day bike trip around Nova Scotia, Canada. The final section is comprised of articles that I wrote while interning in the sports department at Foster's Daily Democrat in Dover, New Hampshire. Together these three sections look at athletics from different perspectives and in different mediums. However, each piece in this work was written by myself and is a reflection of the relationship between athletics and myself.