Event - Transform Weekend

Who knew you could worship God AND have a paint rave? Well...I did...randomly. Check out these pictures from our amazing 7th and 8th grade Transform Weekend at Englewood. In a week full of paint, parents and purity, lives were changed. 

-RH

Portfolio - Sports in Society (The Influence of Fanhood)

In 2010, I had the privilege of going to a post season baseball game in Atlanta.  Along with the emotion of seeing a childhood idol retire, the game was a furry of insanity. Here, in a piece for the Cardinal & Cream newspaper, I describe the occasion and examine sports' influence and relation to society.  Hope you enjoy!

View from the Seats: Postseason Baseball

October 11, 2010

            Patriotism. Religion. Fanhood.

            If you were to examine world culture, you find that these three ideologies are at the heart.  While I look at that list, I think how strange it is that a love for sports can be so intertwined in culture to be compared with the former two.

            Research in the “Journal of Sport & Social Issues” reported approximately 70 percent of Americans watch, read or discuss sports at least once a day. This is compared to 58 percent who say they pray once a day.

            Never was this obsession of sports more evident to me than at Game 3 of the NLDS playoff series between the San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves.

            Over the course of the 2010 season, I had been to five Braves games at Turner Field, which could easily be described as a “family-friendly” park. However, on this muggy October evening, fans were not so friendly; they were hostile and determined.

            The Braves had not been to the playoffs since they snapped a streak of 14-consecutive playoff appearances in 2005. Fans were hungry.

Summer Promotions - I Heart June

A few months ago, the middle school staff at Englewood decided to have a month long series of events in June, appropriately titled "I Heart June."  The promotional posters were displayed around the facility to draw interest and spark questions about the events. The randomness and variety of color did just that. Here are a few samples. 

-RH

 

Portfolio: The 2010 Haitian Earthquake

            Two and a half years after the disastrous magnitude-7.0, I look back at the story of Haitian-native, Antoine Joseph.  Joseph was a member of the Union University basketball team and this is a excerpt from a piece I did on his thoughts and reactions a month after the catastrophe.

February 17, 2010

Haiti destroyed, Joseph stays strong

            On Jan. 12, Joseph began his day like most others and was oblivious to the developing crisis that would change his life.  He and fellow Port-au-Prince native Samuel Danache, an accounting major, stayed after practice to get extra shooting practice when they received the terrible news.  As senior guard Alan North told the two Haitians about the earthquake, Joseph remembers not understanding the seriousness of the disaster. 

   

What a Super Bowl Victory Would Mean for the 8 Remaining Quarterbacks

by Keith Edwards, writer for The Penalty Flag

While winning Super Bowl XLVI would me so much to each franchise, its no secret that Super Bowl rings mean more to certain player's legacies than others. The "Marino Effect" has plagued many great players including one of my favorites, Michael Strahan. Strahan would still have been a Hall of Fame pass rusher had the Giants never won a title with him. However, prior to 2007, when you talked about him, you mentioned his sack record, the gaping hole in between his two incisors and the fact he had never won a championship. Of course he overcame that with a magical victory and a lifelong Christmas card commitment to David Tyree. 


Strahan aside, the opportunity to win a ring is especially lucrative for quarterbacks, the sexiest position in the NFL. Dating back to playing touch football in the front yard, everyone wanted to be the QB. No child ever got especially jazzed because he was the nose tackle. You wanted the ball in your hands. You wanted to directly affect the outcome of the game. You wanted to be sexy, because that's what the quarterback position is. The glamor and media glory make the Lombardi Trophy carry a different weight for the guys under center, especially for the remaining eight this year.

Group 1: The Long-Shots 

Tim Tebow, Denver Broncos

Remembering 2011: The Things We Loved

Welcome to the last year of the entire world. Maybe. If I were a betting man, I would wager that there’s not a single day this year that the History Channel will not run some “Nostradamus mastermind” or “end of the world, Mayan style” piece. The world will be blazing in a giant inferno and History Channel suits will be high-fiving and screaming “boo-ya!” the whole way down.  Heck, if the world doesn’t end, they may be setting some random fires in public places just so they didn’t waste an entire year of programming. Of course, this is a complete dramatization. 

In our final days, what better way to move on to accepting our fate than reflecting on yesteryear and our favorite things, which now seem meaningless with eminent doom waiting on the screen-in patio (rather dark intro to what I thought would be a fun piece…o well, maybe after the jump).

Welcome to 39th! "The Modern Man"

Hello and welcome to my new blog site "39th." I'd have to say an introduction is in order for this new blogger. My name is Ryan Hoover and I recently graduated from Union University with a degree in advertising and political science. 

Sadly, I'm not one of those guys who had people telling me all the time, "Hey Ryan, you should blog." It was just one of those conclusions I had to come to by myself. I wanted a place to share with my audience some tips on fashion, views on sports, politics and faith and collect a forum of ideas for modern men.

So now you're saying, "what the heck is a modern man and am I one?"