The end of my blog

I have learned quite a bit about myself from writing this blog. The first thing is that I don't really like sharing my opinions on stuff with the free world. I am extremely social and friendly and talk all the time but there is something agitating about posting these blogs and knowing that anyone can read them and then criticize my opinions. I have also learned that talking about sports does make me happy and I h0pe to work for the NFL in the very near future. Maybe I will try to be a sports broadcaster one day...for now, I am glad to be done with this blog. I had a great semester but I am looking forward to keeping my thoughts to myself for awhile. Maybe I will blog again one day but I don't think it will be any time soon.

Steriods and Baseball

Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell is concerned with the aspect of steriods in baseball. He had collected tons of data and documents and conducted hundreds of interviews but Mitchell will not state exactly what he is trying to figure out through the collection of this data. I think that is a little odd...and I guess my main question is why steriods seem to be such a bigger issue in baseball than in any other sport?? You would think those involved in my contact related sports like football would seem more likely to take steriods. Just my opinion, go figure! :)

Baseball Tattoo Battle

A St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Fan is suing a tattoo parlor over a misspelled tattoo. The day after the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, a fan spent $190 at a local tattoo parlor to have “St. Louis Cardinals, World Series Champions, 2006” written across his back. Proud of his new tattoo, he showed his mother, who asked what the “Worlb Series” was and whether the Cardinals won in 2000. Obviously not the tattoo the fan had asked for. The fan is now seeking $25,000 in damages. To me that seems like an awful lot of money...but I know nothing about the abilities and cost to fix a tattoo so maybe that is why the sum is so large??

Georgia State Football Team??

So apparently Dan Reeves, former coach of the Atlanta Falcons, has been asked to help Georgia State University decide whether or not to start a football program. The university has 26,000 students (it is the 2nd largest university in the state after UGA). So you would think that since smaller schools in the state have football programs, Georgia Southern University and Valdosta State University are prime examples, that this would be a good idea. Well, maybe not. Apparently, the attendance for their basketball team is very low and if they get a team, they would be playing in the GA Dome, which seats 71,250. It is a tough sell. I think it is a good idea, but personally I would like to see my alma mater Kennesaw State University (the 3rd largest university in GA) get a football program started before GSU does. GSU has a lot of competition with GA Tech being right next door. I think GSU could have a successful Division 2 team but I think that is as far as they will ever go with in state rivals GA Tech and GA leading in the hearts of the state's population.

Oh the Gators

One of the highlights of the past week for me was the fact that Chris Leak, the QB from the National Champion Florida Gators, did not get drafted on Saturday. He did however sign as a free agent with the Chicago Bears. Although he had a great season, obviously, judging from the fact that he took his team to the Championship game, he is a bit on the small side for a QB. He is only 6'0, 203 lbs. That is small compared to almost all of the other QB's in the NFL and the NCAA. As a UGA student and football fan, I had to chuckle to myself about the fact that the Gators QB was not really of any interest to the NFL. Nice huh? GO DAWGS!

UGA players drafted into the NFL

So last Saturday, four former UGA football players were drafted into the NFL. Quentin Moses was the first former Bulldog to get drafted by the Oakland Raiders, who took him in the third round. This was a little disappointing considering he was a top 10 pick going into the last season. The Raiders had a lot of good picks, including the first pick of the draft, JaMarcus Rusell, the QB from LSU. DE Charles Johnson, who was also predicted to go in the first round like Moses, was the 83rd pick, going to the Carolina Panthers. The Atlanta Falcons also drafted a Bulldog alumni, TE Martrez Milner. And finally, the St. Louis Rams took OT Kendrick Shakleford. While the draft was successful for some of our graduating GA Bulldogs, the talent that we have here now is going to far surpass this year's seniors when they go into the draft. I look forward to seeing what happens.

End of the semester

I am taking a detour from sports for a moment to talk about my semester in PR Campaigns. So the Spring semester is finally coming to an end. I just wanted to point out that I learned a lot. In this class, I learned to expect the unexpected and take life as it comes. There is no need to stress out about the little things you cannot control. I had fun working on the PR Campaign for the Athens Symphony Orchestra. While the project itself was not very thrilling, I really enjoyed working with my group members. They are all pretty cool people and I wish them all the best of luck as they graduate. (well, some of them, us grad students are still going to be around for a semester or two more.) I worked on a PR Campaign as an undergrad so I had unfair expectations about how this project should go. While we chose to go a completely different route than I am used to, we somehow managed to get there in the end. Our client seemed pleased with our work and our presentation. I guess the main lessons I took from this class were life lessons and not so much PR skills. But, I think that is what makes a class great. :)

The NFL Draft

So Saturday was pretty much my favorite day of the year, NFL Draft Day. My love of sports started at 10 years old with the announcement of Jacksonville becoming home to an NFL expansion team, the Jaguars. Since then, I have followed this team and the league religiously. I will probably have more posts on the draft to come, so I will treat this one as an introduction. Basically, I was not at all happy with the Jaguars second round draft pick. This is a team that is known for having an amazing defensive line. So why in the world they decide to draft yet another defense player is stupid in my opinion. With the QB, Leftwich, having ankle surgery at the end of the season last year and Garrard having to step in during the post-season, we need to build up our offensive on the off chance that Leftwich gets hurt again. He is an awesome QB. Without him, Garrard is going to need all the help on the field that he can get. I think we should have used our second round pick to get a better offensive player coming out of college.

The Don Imus Story

This whole situation just kind of sucks. I feel bad for all parties involved. The now famous radio broadcast has cost this radio personality his job after over 30 years of being on the airwaves. While the comment was not very politically correct, I think an apology could have been a better sentence for him. It's amazing that 50 years after the Civil Rights movement we are still fighting the battle between the races. I just think it is sad that such a great nation has to have things like this pasted all over their media outlets. We need to be concerned with a lot of more important issues affecting the US, other than someone's negligent comment on a radio show.

Duke Lacrosse Players Cleared

Well, for those of you who do not know this, I am quite a big Duke Basketball fan. So, while reading the news today, I was happy to come across an article on MSN.com regarding the Duke Lacrosse rape scandal. According to the article, today all charges against all three players were dropped. I have been following this incident off and on since day one. It is nice to know there is finally and end to this saga. I just wanted to say that I think it is awful what those boys had to go through in the media and the toll it has taken on their lives. It was an incident in our nation's history that shows us just how powerful the media can be and how much it can damage people. We think because celebrities choose to be in the spotlight, they deserve all of the negative attention given to them by reporters. In this case, these young men can now say they did nothing to "deserve" what happened to them, and hopefully they will be able to rebuild their lives. See link below for full story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18046103/?GT1=9246

The Big Lead

thebiglead.com is an Internet site that has been very critical of the television station ESPN. Recently an ESPN radio personality, Colin Cowherd, encouraged his listeners to flood this site with hits in an attempt to shut the site down. He was successful. After this first attempt's success, he encouraged his listeners to do it again, mainly just for fun. ESPN's original statement regarding the incident was a typical PR move. It had no real sense of compassion or interest in what actually happened just a blanket statement apology and a promise that it would "never happen again." ESPN's ombudsman, Le Anne Schreiber, was not satisfied with this response and went to Traug Keller, senior vice president of ESPN radio, for a clearer indication as to how ESPN was going to handle the situation. Keller was more than happy to give a statement of remorse and also explained that this type of behavior was not mentioned in their policies since it had never happened before. ESPN does not tolerate the use of their airwaves for personal attacks on websites and will be doing everything they can to prevent this type of behavior in the future. I was impressed with the fact that Keller had such a quick response to Schreiber's questions. I just wonder why the intial reaction from ESPN's communication's team was not as thorough when then first occured. My question is, is PR just getting lazy these days? It seems like many companies just have a blanket statement apology when an incident occurs and do not elaborate on the situation at hand. I think as future PR professionals we need to take these types of events into account. Click the link below for the full story.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=schreiber_leanne&id=2830113

How to Present

Last week in our PR campaigns class, we had a guest speaker from Jackson Spalding come in and give us a few tips on how to make a presentation to a client. Since each group in the class is going to be pitching their PR campaign to their client, this type of information could prove to be very helpful. I just wanted to say that the most important thing I took away from this class was the idea not to use PowerPoint. I hate PowerPoint and I get so bored when they are used in my classes. Our group has decided to not use a PowerPoint when we present to our client and I encourage other groups to try not to either. I think it shows that you really researched and studied the project you put together by not having "notes" on a screen behind you.

ATL Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick in the News

So in the world of sports recently, Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick was the hightlight. Apparently a water bottle was seized from the pro football player at a Miami airport. Initial reports said that the water bottle smelled of marijuana and was sent to be tested. Of course, ESPN, talk radio and pretty much any NFL related outlet picked up the story and the allegations were aired nationwide. Well, after testing it was confirmed that the water bottle did not have any traces of marijuana and that the NFL star was using it to hide expensive jewelry that he was transporting. So why is it that once his name was cleared, the only outlets to pick it up were the Falcons website and a tiny blurb on ESPN's website?? Defamation of character is a serious thing and even though these athletes are "celebreties", don't we as PR people owe it to these atheletes to make sure the correct information is just as easily accessable as the original accusations are?? Just a thought...

Sorority Life

So I came across this story on CNN.com today that made me a little angry. I watched a 3 min story clip about a sorority at Depauw University in Indiana. 23 Delta Zeta sorority members were asked to move out of their campus sorority house by the leaders of their national chapter. The national chapter claimed that these 23 members were being asked to move out due to lack of recruitment. All 23 members claim that they were asked to leave due to their physical appearance, saying that the prettier, more slender girls were the ones who got to stay. The links below will give you access to the story on CNN and also to the comments about the incident found on the University's website.

http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/us/2007/02/27/oppenheim.sorority.eviction.cnn

http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=18984

I just think things like this are so sad. After watching the video, my heart went out to these girls. One of them was crying and it made me feel awful. The one comment made that I think will stay with me forever was "Image is the new racism of sorts." And sadly, in today's society, I can see a lot of truth in that statement. People are now being discreminated against due to their general physical appearance and whether or not their appearance meets certain standards set by our society. With stories like this in our nation's news and with television shows like "The Swan" that take "ugly" people and perform a bunch of free plastic surgery on them to make them "beautiful", it is no wonder people behave this way. I just think the emphasis on physical appearance in our society just keeps getting worse and worse. I hope that stories like this one about the Delta Zeta sorority open people's eyes to this problem. I do not see a solution in sight, and if you do, please enlighten me. I just hope those leaders in the national chapter see these poor girls crying on tv and feel guilty about what they have done. End rambling for the day...

A Little Bit Of An Intro

I am a Master's student at UGA studying Public Relations under this large umbrella we call "Journalism and Mass Communication". For my Campaigns class, we have been given the task of creating our very own blog. Ok, well I have never blogged before in my life! So, we will see how this goes. So far, graduate school here in Athens has been a blast. I chose to study public relations here at UGA to further my knowledge in this field. I received my Bachelor's degree in Communication with an emphasis in PR from Kennesaw State University in August of 2005. After working for about a year as an Account Manager doing Client Relations and such for a small company in Atlanta, I decided that I wanted an edge on the competition and came back to school. I also have aspirations to teach college one day.

When it comes to me, I have three big interests. They are music, fashion and sports. I eventually would love to use my degree to pursue a career in one of these areas. For the purpose of this blog, most of my posts will probably end up having to do with one of these topics, so if these topics are not of interest to you, you may not be interested in what I have to say. My dream job is to work for the NFL or a major designer, maybe a music label, we shall see.

Looking forward to seeing where this blog takes me...til next time! :)