Money Well Spent...?

As we get closer finishing our high school careers and shipping off to college, students' dreams of playing sports at the colligate level are within reach. But half the battle of earning that scholarship is the work you put in the classroom, hence the title student-athlete. Academics are even more important for Division III scholarships where the market for sports isn't as big, and where the schools are mostly private and want to maintain a high standard for academics.
As much as we would like to believe that being a student-athlete stays true to its title, more and more investigations are proving that the balance of sports and studies isn't exactly equivalent. The University of North Carolina, praised for its dominant and historic basketball program, is one of the schools under investigation. Here at New Trier, we all love test scores, so I'll give you some: 34 basketball and football players were admitted into the school with SAT scores lower than 400 and ACT not reaching 16 (CNN). It's sort of cringing to think that there are kids from low-income families who have the grades to get into college and could really use the scholarship money, but instead its given to athletes who might end up leaving school after a year to play professionally. Chicago Bulls point-guard Derrick Rose didn't even take his own ACT, but managed to earn a full scholarship to the University of Memphis. Rose left after one season to play in the NBA.
To most Americans, a good education is the path to a better life. Yet we are cheating ourselves and deserving students the access to that education when we let sports and entertainment override our values.

What do think about these scholarships? What can be done to change this?

"It's just Vapor!"

The other day I was changing in the locker room after gym when all of a sudden, a cloud of fruity smelling smoke fogs over my head. The origin of this mysterious smoke turned out to have been coming from a couple of kids puffing an electronic cigarette, or e-cig for short. The common response from young e-cig smokers is usually "Dude, relax! Its just vapor!" Well technically the smoke releasing from an industrial factory is "just vapor," but you don't see people smoking the same chemicals. That ignorant response bugged me, and sparked an interest of research on the product. A commercial for Blu Electronic cigarettes I found surprised me when the the same excuse, that is was "only vapor," was used. The commercial claimed the product to be a "safer alternative" to smoking regular cigarettes. They are safer by the fact that there's no tobacco present, but that also means e-cigs aren't regulated by the FDA. This means that companies like Blu are not required to disclose the contents of whats inside. Most of the vapor is nicotine, and health experts are not sure of the effects of inhaling pure nicotine in large quantities. Electronic cigarettes haven't been around long enough for long term effects of smoking them to be determined.  

The commercial's main theme is "freedom," which we as americans cherish. But because of how much of this product remains a mystery, how much freedom should be given? Chicago has seemed to already to be taking the "freedom" into their own hands. Rahm Emanuel stated today that electronic cigarettes will be banned in most indoor public buildings. So sorry locker room smokers, looks like your fun is up.

What do you think about e-cigs? What amount of "freedom" should be given?

Info on E-Cigs: here