Colorado State and the Spirit of Sports
By Ken Reed
In his weekly column on college basketball, Nick Kosmider of the Denver Post touched on the tragedy that stuck Colorado State University (CSU) basketball player Emmanuel Omogbo last month. While on the school’s Ft. Collins campus, Omogbo was given the heartbreaking news that a fire had destroyed his home in Maryland and killed his parents and niece and nephew in the process.
Kosmider did a great job outlining the support Omogbo has received following the terrible accident. It’s a nice antidote to all the negative news in the sports world these days. Here is an excerpt from Kosmider’s column:
As horrific as that tragedy was, it showed the true spirit of the tight-knit college basketball community. Donations to CSU’s GoFundMe account set up for Omogbo poured in from across the country. Wyoming star Josh Adams implored the supporters of his team, a Border War rival of the Rams, to donate anything they could. Other college basketball players across the country took to social media to express their support.
My former colleague Don Williams of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal chronicled the path of Omogbo’s junior college coach in Levelland, Texas, Steve Green, who jumped in his car and drove all the way to Colorado just to let Omogbo know he was there for him. Green then drove back the same night.
This all came on top of the varied and unwavering support provided to Omogbo by CSU’s administration, coaches and players, the latter group having chipped in to purchase their grieving teammate a TV, simply because he didn’t have one.
The bond of a team has been tested in Fort Collins, and in this way the Rams and college basketball have triumphed in the face of tragedy.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world, with over 150 camps in 30+ U.S. states and Canada. We discuss problems in youth sports today, including single sport specialization, the growing gap between the “haves” and “have-nots,” the high drop-out rate in competitive sports, and the growing mental health challenges young athletes are dealing with today.
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Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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