Live Essay

Roughrider Park

As an athlete when we step out onto our prospective court, field, or gym our bodies feel the sensation that where we are is the place we are meant to be. When I arrive at Roughrider Park I am greeted by a sensation so great butterflies start to flutter in the pit of my stomach. I can’t help the smile that appears on my face every time. It is a rush every single time my eyes look over the stadium, my nose smells the freshly cut grass, and the determination comes into my mind to succeed. Here at Roughrider Park I don’t only learn about the game of softball, I also learn a great deal about life. To the naked eye, Roughrider Park is just a field with a fence, and it’s a place where girls play around with a ball. However, if a person chooses to look at it closely enough, they will discover the game of softball isn’t actually a game, instead it’s actually life itself. In our society the status of being an athlete is degrading. It is no longer something people strive to be, instead it is looked down upon. Society views athletes as role models, and as of late, those role models have let many down. Despite those athletes, there are athletes that truly love the game who will never let society down. In the end those athletes aren’t in it for the money or glory, instead their in it for the game.

Looking at Roughrider Park through a softball players eyes I see everything that most people see, but with a whole new perspective. At the first gate there is a sign that reads, “Be Here Now,” and it’s that sign that makes my mind focus on the task at hand. The task is to be here today to improve, to succeed, to learn to be a better softball player. The opponent’s dugout is where the other team awaits hoping to make me fail. The stands hold people who want me to succeed, and people who want me to fail. As an athlete I have to learn how to get into mental state of mind where no one can touch me or my thoughts. The fans could be yelling positive or negative things, but I hear neither. Walking up to home plate I turn to look at the entire field, I see three spaced out white bases. It’s my goal to touch all four of them to score a run for my team. The infield dirt marked up by the metal spikes underneath the cleats, I can see where my opponents stand to defend us. Looking out farther I see the scarred grass from the outfielders, and then I see the fence. This fence is there to tell me two things, first is that I can’t possibly get it that far, and second is that if I do hit it over I’ll feel as if I have accomplished something only so many people have.

What I can see is only the beginning at Roughrider Park, my other senses are hit with the same intensity. Before I step onto the field my nose picks up the scent of fresh cut grass and wet dirt. However, the most distinct smell at a field is the smell of sweat. I can only think of all the hard work and determination that cause it. The distinguished sound of aluminum hitting leather is unmistakable. I can taste all the sunscreen in the air being put on by both teams to prevent sunburns. When I feel my hand-print in my leather glove I remember all the times it has gotten me through. The red seams on the ball tickling my fingers as I throw it to my partner down the field. It’s a rush when I walk up to the plate with the bat in my hands and the winning run on third. In the stands people are chanting my name, hoping I knock the run in, and my teammates are anticipating what is going to happen next. The minute I step into the box, all the sounds disappear and it’s just me and the opposing pitcher. When she gives me a pitch to hit, the “pop” of the bat on the ball and the feeling that I got the job done is a remarkable feeling. Despite all the bad and failure that can come upon me, I come back to practice the next day to continue improving myself.

The game of softball is very closely related to life; there is a boss, there is an opponent, a salary, and people overlooking what you are doing. When I walk into Roughrider Park, I see there are two stone dugouts, one for my team and one for the opposing team. The opposing team is like the competitor in the business world, instead of selling things to beat me, competitors are trying to score more runs. However, like in the business world there are rules a player must abide by in order for those runs to count. Umpires regulate the rules and see that the rules are being followed by players. If my team loses it doesn’t mean that I or my teammates get fired, instead it meant that for that day or week my team wasn’t at its best. At the end of the season, or accounting period for a business, the team with the best record, total wins and losses, will compete in the tournament to become National Champions. If my team succeeds in winning that tournament, it would be like having a huge net income for the accounting period for a business. All this learning about life, friendship and how to strive to become a better person starts everyday at Roughrider Park.

In today’s society athletes are no longer favored by communities or society itself, instead it has become something that no one wants to be a part of. In the old days athletes were an idol to children across the nation. Here at Roughrider Park, we are lucky to have a community that comes and supports us on a daily basis. Athletes are still somewhat idolized, but there have been numerous sex, drug and illegal scandals. In all the tabloids there are more and more scandals that involve athletes each day. Gangs have become a huge problem in society. More athletes are coming from or have been involved with gangs and it is causing numerous problems. There is a lot of negative decision making on the athletes’ part and young children look up to them as role models. With that being said the children are following in the athletes’ foot-steps and causing a chain reaction to making bad decisions. Instead of society looking for the good in all sports, they look for the worst, which causes views to change. It is my goal as an athlete to show that the majority of us are involved with this sport because of our love for it. Coming day after day to Roughrider Park I work hard to strive on my continuing goal on bettering athletes to society.

I believe that everyone has a passion for something in life and mine is softball. I know what it feels like to put my heart and soul into something and fail multiple times, but also know the feeling of being on top of the world. I don’t view softball as just a game because to me it is so much more than that. I have a second family, and the field is my second home. Everything has a negative side to it, and for sports it is the negative issues in the tabloids. If more people came to Roughrider Park and watched my team practice, they would see that it isn’t just some dirt and grass. Instead it is a home to 19 girls and 4 coaches who lay everything each of they have on the line to succeed or fail. Yet, they all know that no matter which one it is, that they have accomplished something that only a selected number of people can do.


Works Cited:
"Athlete." Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Web. 29 April 2010.
"Crowd Cheering." Professionally Speaking. Web. 28 April 2010.
"Idol." Dictionary.com. Web. 28 April 2010.
"National Champions." TJS Collectables. Web. 28 April 2010.
Peterson, Tobias. "Top 10 Sports Scandals, Controversies and Oddities of 2003." Pop Matters. N.p., 7 Jan 2004. Web. 29 April 2010. .
"Roughrider Park." Web. 29 April 2010.

"Softball Homeplate." Web. 28 April 2010. .
"Softball Player." Urban Dictionary. Web. 29 April 2010
"Umpires." MLB.com. Web. 28 April 2010.
Weaver, Tom. "Celebrating Positive Sport Role Models." The Daily Campus. N.p., 18 Jan 2010. Web. 28 April 2010. .
"Yavapai Softball." Youtube. Web. 28 April 2010.
"Yavapai Softball." Go Roughriders. Web. 29 April 2010. goroughriders.com

Visuals!

This video is explaining why companies use management firms/companies. This video is important to my paper because it is the counter argument, helps by giving me research on the counter argument.



This second video is a leadership video, all managers must know how to lead the people they are managing. This video shows numerous famous leaders in this world. I can use this in my paper because it shows the components on how to become a manager.

Annotated Bibliography

Kirsten Lambertson
English 101
Annotated Bibliography
5 April 2010
Darrow
Annotated Bibliography

LoBue & Majdalany Management Group. AMC Institute. Web. 2 March 2010.

This source will be a source that I look at to use most of my information for this paper. By just browsing it I have learned so much and I think it will be very useful for using to help me with my paper. LoBue and Majdalany Management Group provides many different types of management services. The four main ones that they advertise on the site are association management, membership administration, financial management and marketing programs. They are a group of professionals that offer different type of management advice depending of what is needed. At L&M they provide management expertise to companies, people and new comers into the management business. L&M has a link on their website where it has a list of the companies they help, and I think that by having that information it makes them look very credible. One thing on the website that stood out to me was when I went to the ‘Contact Us’ link they have offices in three parts of the world. L&M have three offices in America, one in Europe and one in Asia. I believe that just by seeing where their offices are located shows that they know what they are doing and is a very productive management group. L&M is very resourceful and is cost-efficient when it comes to dealing with customers. The entire staff holds a type of management degree, or is currently in school better their degree. To me as a prospective customer seeing that all employees have a management degree would make me very confident while using their business. L&M is a very productive management group.

Challenge Management Inc. Web. 29 March 2010.

.">.

This blog is for people who are involved with association management. The writer of this blog writes about different controversies, news and all he can about it. CMI stands for Challenge Management Inc, they are located in Dallas, TX. CMI supports numerous trade associations and helps professional societies in achieving their goals. Having an unknown author makes me a little concerned when using this blog for my paper. There are numerous quotes and evidence of things that the author is saying throughout the blog. He has pages and links for sites or events that he talks about. CMI helps organizations that are starting out or struggling to become the type of business they are looking to be. The heading on this page reads, “Observations on Association Management” to a reader this just makes it seem like one person’s opinion not actual fact. A positive thing about this blog is that it has so much different information it has a search bar that narrows it down and highlight the words put into it. To me that is a very helpful and easy technique to roam the blog. This would be useful for my paper because it expresses the difficulties that CMI is facing. One blog entry that I found that explained controversy was that managers need to learn to communicate with other managers and companies.

"The CAE "Controversy"." The Association Blog. 03/17/2005. Web. 7 Apr 2010.

.">.

Even though this particular article in the blog is five years old it holds significance in the business world today. CAE is the company that the blog talks about, and CAE is one the top civil aviation industry and defensive forces. The controversy they talk about is the fact that they don’t have proper management techniques to run it. It is a fairly short blog but hold a lot of importance to a reader interested in this topic. I think that this will be an excellent source to use in my paper because browsing the blog I have found a few more articles that I will be able to use in my paper. The reason why I like this blog more than other blogs I have came across because it uses an actual company having a problem. Before using this blog I looked up the CAE “Controversy” on google and came across many articles on the same subject. In the blog there is a question that sticks out and really makes the reader sit back and think. Yet, the author doesn’t supply an answer to the question they asked instead they leave it for the reader to determine. This source will help my paper out a lot with all the information that it has.

Thomas, Alan Berkeley. Controversies in Management: Issues, Debates, Answers. 2. New

York: Routledge, 2003. 260. Print.

I have not read this book but I have read some exerts from it and placed it on hold in the library. So the information that I have read so far gives me the impression that this book will be very useful for my paper. Alan Berkeley explains that the main controversy in management is the communication and thought process of the managers. What I liked about the introduction of the book was the author gave a time-line of how management came about. He explains to the reader how the job of a manager has increased over time. Before Berkeley tells the reader controversies in management he first explains what a controversy is. I think that this a well written book from someone with a lot of experience. I look forward to reading this book to help me further in the research for this paper.

Collective Links!

Collective Links Assignment: Office/Association Management

1. http://www.lm-mgmt.com/index-gaw.html?gclid=CIvsy7SE6aACFRdZbAodzVT1Ug

LoBue and Majdalany Management Group provides many different types of management services to people. They are a group of professionals that offer different type of management advice depending of what is needed. At L&M they provide management expertise to companies. On the website for this organization they have a list of their clients, which helps them look good for respective onlookers. They offer association management help where they help the organization hold and prepare for meetings. L&M are very resourceful and are cost-efficient. The entire staff holds a type of management degree, or is currently in school better their degree. I wasn’t aware that there were management groups that did work for different businesses, but I think that working at an organization like this would be beneficial. It would also be very difficult as well because a person would only know information given to them, if they worked at the business they would know more about it. This organization showed me that there are different options for this career.

2. http://cmiassociationmanagement.blogspot.com/

This blog is for people who are involved with association management. The writer of this blog writes about different controversies, news and all he can about it. On his blog you can see all the different business related events that he attends. CMI stands for Challenge Management Inc, they are located in Dallas, TX. CMI supports numerous trade associations and helps professional societies in achieving their goals. The person who adds to this blog has a very appealing personality, he describes things that have to do with business and his everyday life. The author contributes very useful and very real information on the blog. There are numerous quotes and evidence of things that the author is saying throughout the blog. This would be useful for my paper because it expresses the difficulties that CMI is facing. This particular blog would help me show controversy in this career field.

3. http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/AMMagArticleDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=2361

The article is called, “Getting Wise to Knowledge Management.” It is by Diane Kirrane and was published in October of 2002. This article is very long and has a great variety of information involving different types of management techniques. Diane uses the word knowledge a lot to show how it relates to daily activities and how to become a better manager by using it. I enjoyed reading the part where she describe a ‘knowledge broker’. Being a manager of a business a person must know what a broker is so she uses it as a teaching technique. Diane could of easily used the word ‘sharing’ instead she used broker because it actually relates to the business world. I would use this article in my paper because it shows me the fundamentals on how to become a good manager. I could use this information to help when I look into the conflicts of association management. Looking through other sources most of the conflicts arise by the management techniques and this article will help me understand those better.

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_management

Looking through Wikipedia there wasn’t that much for association management. It did have some useful information on the page. It states, “Association management is a distinct field of management because of the unique environment of associations.” There are so many different types of management jobs and careers which is why I agree with that statement. Associations take a lot of work to put together and managing something like that will be a tough job. Associations aren’t as common as business and organizations, but there are enough to hold importance in the business community.
An association manager looks over and is in charge of all other managers within a certain group of people. I don’t think that I would use this as one of my sources for my paper. It is general information that I already know and nothing stands out to me.

Future Career!

The career I am looking to go into is an Associate Manager. It is a manager in a business that works with one or two types of groups in that organization. I have always seemed to drift to business when thinking about choosing a career. I am a people person, am outgoing and have been told to have good people skills. I have never been good at taking orders from people, but have always been good to dish them out, and that is when I knew a management career was perfect. I feel like I would be the best person to look over, manage, and help resource a group of people. I can cope with pressure, and not let it affect my performance. Associate managers work 5 days a week, and usually more than 8 hours a day in an office. To me that sounds like a good deal, unlike some people I don't mind working in an office day in and day out. As an associate manager I would have to hold meetings to learn and gather information to help my group, and then be able to translate that information to them. This job requires vital human relation skills, I feel that in the next few years I will acquire those skills needed.

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