Barton College Football! Wait what?!

Why would a high school senior choose to come to the small town of Wilson, NC and attend Barton College? Barton is a small, private institution that strives on inspiring their students for a successful future. Although Barton has a great academic reputation, it is such a small school that it's tough for students to find it. Kids want their college experience to be full of fun; partying, participating in school organizations, playing a sport, hanging out with friends and they want to earn a degree along the way. Barton College needs to have something that no other small college in North Carolina has. What could that be, you might be wondering? Below I will give you one thing Barton can add to attract more students. 

In America today there is nothing more popular than football. It is the most popular sport in the United States and it is something that can attract a lot of fandom by the students and residents of the City of Wilson. Although football is not a cheap sport to start up, especially at a small college, in the end it would all pay off. This is not something that could happen over night, but with fundraising, donations, and dedication this private college could become a football school. Having a football team would bring Barton College not only more money and students but it would give this institution more recognition in the city of Wilson and its surrounding communities.

As a senior in high school and making your college visits, why would you attend Barton when they only take you around an average campus of about 1,200 students. College visit dates could be arranged that its on the same day as a home football game, and you could take potential students to the game and they could be attracted by an electric football stadium atmosphere. A big problem at Barton College is that many students, other than athletes go home on weekends. This means there isn't much to do on weekends and it pushes people away from Barton and that's why many people leave after their freshman year. That problem could be fixed by people planning to stay for home football games because they know that there will be a party or some event happening later. Saturday night would probably include a party hosted by what would be the most popular group of people on campus, the football team.

One big way to make money, is to get more students to attend Barton College. Not only would this attract more students that don't participate in a sport but it would add the football players, which could range anywhere from sixty to eighty student-athletes, and it would also add cheerleaders, which is about another twenty.

All of this would help the college bring in more money, but it would also give the college more opportunities for fundraising and events. Home football games would give the football program and college an opportunity to recognize an upcoming event or even recognize other teams in the school. Barton's homecoming weekend is only recognized at the home soccer games on that particular weekend. No offense, but how many alumni, other than soccer alum, would actually come to watch a soccer game against a random team. Having a football team, and eventually a football stadium, would certainly give Barton the chance to make homecoming weekend an "electric" environment throughout Wilson. You might be wondering, why would more alumni attending a football game help Barton College? I'll tell you why, the more alumni that come back on homecoming weekend, the more people you have to ask for donations. Obviously you aren't going to go up to alumni and say, "Can you donate some money to Barton College because your wealthy?" Not only is that rude, embarrassing, and impulsive but it also not effective. In order to make the most of wealthy alumni on your campus for a whole weekend, Barton College would need to be organized in planning events that would get them to donate without asking them. For example, a night at the races would be a great event to hold on the Friday before the game. This is when you are in a big room or event hall with food, beverages, and obviously alcoholic beverages. Tables would be set up and televisions would be all over the room, making sure everyone has a good vantage point of a television. Then throughout the night there would be simulated horse races played and people at the event would bet on horses. If they win, they would get raffle tickets to put into a drawing of their favorite prize. The prizes are at the front of the room, all donated from people throughout Wilson, the Barton community, or whoever else would want to donate. Each prize has a closed box in front of it, allowing winners to put their tickets into the box of the particular prize they hope to win.

I'm sure your thinking that Barton College benefits greatly from the fundraising and having a football team, but how does this attract kids to Barton? The more money Barton College can raise is the more that they can save in order to make improvements to the campus that will attract potential students. Football is an attraction within itself, but the opportunities it will make available for this private institution are endless. Keep in mind that all of this success, money, and plans might not happen right away, but all great things start small and grow into something great. 

Although it is unlikely that there will ever be a Barton College football team, due to how expensive and difficult it is, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. All it takes is for one person capable of starting a football team to believe in it and begin to plan and save. It's obvious that you can't have one meeting and just start a football program the next day, but Barton College should begin to plan now in order to set this institution up for a successful future. 

I am willing to bet that if this college started a football program, enrollment would go up vastly. Never underestimate the power of sports, especially when that sport is football, the most exciting and entertaining sport in America.

GO BULLDOGS! 

Can Steroids Hit a Baseball?

Arguably the hardest thing to do in all of sports is to hit a round ball with a round bat. If you look at in terms of physics it seems hard, but for those of you who have played baseball at a high level, you know it's even harder than that. In Major League Baseball, the players are not only hitting a round ball with a round bat, but they're doing it while the ball is coming in at ninety miles per hour or above. If a fastball coming in at a hundred miles per hour was all that these hitters saw, baseball would be the easiest sport in the world because they knew what was coming and could time it up. People in America fail to think that these hitters have a split second to decipher between a fastball at 100mph and a change up that looks the same but is only coming in at 75 mph. Batters in the MLB have two-tenths of a second to react to a ninety mile per hour pitch, which means it's even less than that to react to a one hundred mph pitcher, which you could see thrown by Cincinatti Reds closer, Aroldis Chapman. Like I stated earlier, that would be a lot easier to hit if he didn't throw a nasty curveball. In the MLB a curveball appears to be coming straight for a hitters head until it drops off at the last second and crosses the plate for a strike. However, some of the best hitters do a great job of picking up the spin of a curveball, which is why it's not the hardest pitch to hit. Ask any baseball player from high school to the MLB what is the hardest pitch to hit, I guarantee that well over half of them would say that it is a change up. The reason it is so hard to hit is because it looks like a fastball coming out of the pitchers hand and is so hard to pick up that it's an off speed pitch, you think it's a fastball until you swing and look silly.

You might be curious to why I am preaching about the difficulty of hitting in the major leagues? After giving you the background and difficulty of hitting, nowhere did I mention steroids hitting a baseball. As you all know, last week, the National Baseball Hall of Fame failed to induct any players. The biggest reason was the controversial topic of steroids. Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Jeff Bagwell, among others were robbed from the Hall of Fame and it's no secret that it was because if steroids.

Personally, I don't agree that they should be kept from the Hall of Fame for accusations of steroids. People make an argument that they "cheated," and honestly that is an absurd thing to say because steroids didn't hit those home runs and steroids didn't make all those plays in the field and steroids certainly didn't help them react to the pitch and square it up on the barrel. How you lift and how hard you work in the weight room is going to determine how strong you get. I'm not saying they didn't take steroids, because I think they did, just like 80% of players in the MLB. But in order to get stronger you need to put hours of hard work in the gym. Cheating is when you altar the game to make sure your team wins. Cheating is done between the lines during a game. Another reason that this irritates me that they didn't get into the HOF is because an unidentified source that works in the medical field working personally with Major League Baseball told me that before spring training about 80% of players have high testosterone when they get their blood work done. These guys are just the ones that got caught because they were continuously tested but steroids are becoming a part of the game of baseball.

Voting for the Hall of Fame is done by a majority of people who've never played the game of baseball since they were twelve years old. They just think it's cheating because its helping them get stronger. It would be cheating if they were participating in a weight lifting competition but of course, that's not the case. I want everyone to imagine themselves in the MLB, playing 162 games, only one off day a week, at the field early in the morning and leaving late at night, on the road for days at a time, oh and lets not forget that these guys are doing this physical torture in their late thirties. People who don't know baseball say, well it helps them hit the ball farther, yes that's correct, but a lot less than you think. Bat speed is what allows hitters crush the ball 500 feet. Have you ever watched Dustin Pedroia hit? Well if you haven't he is 5'7" and 165 pounds. So that means it's impossible for him to hit a home run, right? That's false, because Pedroia has hit 90 home runs in his career. Now they're are people that will argue that it's not even close to Bonds 762, and certainly that is correct. But what they don't know, is why that margin is so large between the two. A word all of you are very familiar with, approach, but you never think of that word in terms of baseball players. Barry Bonds had an approach every time he stepped in the batters box, hit the ball out of here. If you look back on Barry Bonds career, you will see he had a lot of fly ball outs. Because his approach was always to hit the long ball, which means his swing was different than Pedroia. Bonds would drop his back shoulder trying to get under the ball so it would give him an opportunity to hit a Lon fly ball out of the stadium. As some of you don't know, when a pitch is thrown on the outside part of the plate, hitters are taught to wait back and hit the ball to the that side of the field, which would be to right field for right handed hitters and left field for lefties. Bonds tried to pull most balls because you have more power pulling the ball, because he was a "home run hitter." On the other hand, Dustin Pedroia's approach is to take what the pitcher gives him. He has a level swing, and tries to hit the ball in gaps of the outfield, depending on the location of the pitch. Every once in a whole, Pedroia will get a pitch right at his belt, known as a perfect pitch to hitters, and hit a home run.

I would love for a body builder who has taken steroids to grab a bat and play a game in the major leagues. He's going to do amazing because since he took steroids, he's cheating and it will automatically make him hit home runs, isn't that right? Absolutely not, I would be willing to bet all the money in the world that he would not get one hit, in one hundred at bats. But as the voters say, taking steroids is cheating. If that's true, why couldn't the body builder hit home runs? It's simple really, steroids don't hit home runs.