Grant Fulton-Personal Narrative Analysis

Until this day Americans still remember the teeth grinding 1980 Olympics Hockey game or some people called it the Miracle On Ice. During 1980, The Soviets were overall ranked hockey team and said from the beginning to win the Olympics, as they had six of the seven previous years. The U.S. had their chance come up in the final round, a one on one match battling until the end. It was all down to their skill and fight, and push through till the end. Coach Herb Brooks was the one to give the U.S.A. team their fight with his prominent speech at halftime. In Coach Brooks speech he first states the hard work and effort the team has brought through the Olympics, then he gives an overview of how the got to where they are now. Being the coach of the U.S.A team he does not state his credibility, but uses dialect to give a casual tone. Coach Brooks then adds how the outcome today will accept weather at a lost or won. He talks about the tryouts and how he had already picked the team before he even watched them play, implying that he already trusted his team before they ever met. After Coach, brooks end by saying that just because the people say that the Soviets are unbeatable doesn't make it true.

Growing up requires a high demand of endurance as life is filled with hardships and challenges. Thus in order to live through them, people must be as strong as the stress and anxiety which builds upon them. Both Donald M. Murray’s “What Football Taught Me” and Lisa Keiski’s “Suicide’s Forgotten Victims” demonstrate how to persist life challenges. Despite experiencing different forms of hardships that enable them to survive through their pain, Murray and Keiski transmit life lessons about individual growth. They emphasize survival through society, authority figures, and themselves.

From single-legs and double-legs to showing ankle picks, those are some of the things that Jeff Voss has taught in his career as a wrestling coach at West Delaware which makes him a hero. His commitment to being a wrestling coach has developed a massive amount of talent to develop the knowledge of high school wrestlers. As a Coach, Voss has proven to show how he takes responsibility for his wrestlers on and off the mat all year round. His devotion to coaching has truly made him a hero.

All good things must come to an end. There will be a day, when an athlete has to stop playing ball. That transition to stop being an athlete, will be the toughest game they play. They must be prepared for the day they have to stop attending the workouts, meetings, and playing the games. Many student-athletes are depressed when they don’t make it to the pros. Studies show only about three percent of college athletes go on to play in the pros. That is why it’s important to focus and work on their relationships and to spend at much time earning the degree versus playing time. An athlete’s major provides an insight of their identity. Your education and knowledge are something no one can take from you. Many athletes go and utilize their degree once their career is over.

1. Jim Thorpe;  has been characterized as one of the greatest athletes America has ever seen. Thorpe was born on May 28, 1887 in a single room cabin in small town Oklahoma, Prague. Jim attended school at an all indian establishment in Pennsylvania, although he began his athletic career somewhere else. He began playing football and running track. From Carlisle he was selected in an third-team All-American in 1908. In 1909 and 1910 he made the first team, some say that he may dedicated his success to his coach Glenn "pop" Warner. At the age of 24 Thorpe became part of the all american team and sailed to Stockholm, Sweden for the 1912 Olympic games. Thorpe began setting records in multipart games, known as the pentathlon and the decathlon, those

Jesse “J.C” Owens, the son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, is a renowned and popular historical figure. He is treated with awe for his physical accomplishments as a record-breaking Olympic champion, but he is also recognized for overcoming the humiliating and abusive treatment he encountered while working towards this goal. Owens was born on September 12, 1913 in Alabama, as the tenth and final child of Mary and Henry Owens. When he was young, Owens suffered from a severe lung disease, pneumonia (Israel 5), however he still managed to swim and fish, and develop a love for running (Israel 6). Owens did not officially attend elementary school, but he did attend Cleveland East Technical for his high school years where he met a coach

Skin color doesn't define if one race is superior to other races. Jesse Owens was a participant in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He was among the few African Americans who represented America. Even though all the odds were stacked against him, because of his color skin, he still went to Berlin to compete. Owens father, Henry Cleveland, was a sharecropper. Mary Emma Fitzgerald, Owen's mom, took care of him. Jesse Owen took a stand against racism at home and abroad through his defiant performance in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

In John Updike’s poem “Ex-Basketball Player” the poet uses literary devices to depict the existing way of life of a once-famous sportsperson. Flick Webb was in before times a gifted athlete on his high school basketball team, and he was commendable of much awe. However, Flick never acquired any other skills to prepare him for a future. Accordingly, he now is locked into an unskilled job and his former glories have pale to all but Flick himself. Updike has created a character that is at this point in time going nowhere and spends most of his time thinking about his former days of glory. Flick dwells more restricted by the past than the present because the past was much brighter for him. Flick’s emotional retreat into his earlier period is exposed

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese is undoubtedly captivating and entertaining. Even so, a close scrutiny of the novel reveals the novelist’s careful development of Saul’s character not only with the aim of capturing the journey he embarks on, but also linking his journey to the theme of suffering. Thus, rather than presenting a static character, Wagamese chooses to present a dynamic character whose emotional state evolves over time as he goes through various crises in his life. Saul goes through an emotional journey that is marked by pain, isolation, loneliness and fear, numbness and resignation, excitement, a relapse to isolation, and freedom, and this journey builds on the theme of suffering.

Using evidence from the story I can clearly state that Chris McCandless from “Into the Wild” was full of braveness and courage, as well as arrogance and stubbornness. The last time his parent saw him alive he was muscular, clean shaven, and fresh off a college diploma. When he died he was skin and bone and had a very shaggy beard. He had so much to live for and threw it all away to follow his dreams.

“When Jackie took the field in 1947, something unusual rose up in all of us. For he’d demonstrated something could he done. Jackie Robinson took courageous steps for all of us. In a world still turns by racial hatred, he symbolizes judging people on merit rather than physical characteristics. His legacy is in hope he offered to millions of black Americans and the enlightenment of others.” Jackie took large steps for not only baseball but for America. In my essay I won’t only talk about what Jackie did but his long lasting legacy.

In Canadian history there are many famous people but one stands out among the rest, and his name is Terry Fox. The reason I found him interesting is because most of my grandparents had cancer or still have it. Terry Fox is not only an inspiration to people all over the world, but a legend in his own right.

As the ball hits the tennis surface at Rowley Park in Gardenia, California, Mr. Meade is finishing up his tennis lesson with his only daughter as his wife looks on from the sidelines. It is a beautiful fall breezy dusk evening on 132nd Street in Gardena, California. The Meade family enjoying their tennis outing preparing to pack up and head home for the night. Looking at this family, you would never know that life for Mr. Meade has not always been so carefree. Through years of hard work, continuous education and seizing every opportunities placed before him, he was able to prosper and assimilate almost seamlessly into the American fabric of the Los Angeles landscape. His life and experiences for the most part were ethnically and racially blind with only distant brushes with racial tension. William Meada was an example of the Hawaiian Japanese Americans that prospered and assimilated well into the fabric of America despite the racial and ethnic tension of Los Angeles’s history and maybe even because of it.

Travis Lazarczyk doesn’t consider himself a sportswriter but rather a writer about people with sports as a backdrop. His most exciting stories to write about comes from the accomplishment a group of people or individuals, specifically high school basketball teams. The most emotional story he has ever wrote about was Dick McGee. Dick was a friend and Lazarczyk’s feature on Dick felt he was writing an obituary rather than a feature. Travis came to answer questions for Thomas Colleges EH-111 Section G sports writing and composition class.

Jesse Owens won the most gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He was an African American runner, who against all odds became one of the best track athletes in Olympic history. Owens would soon become a model of success for all African Americans. Jesse Owens was the star of the Berlin Olympics in 1936; his early life, training and motivation, and his overall performance in The Olympic Games made him into a hero for all African Americans.