I found this NCAA commercial couple of years back and kept it all this time because it had a pretty cool fencing sequence in it. I was moving some files around today and stumbled upon it again...so I opened it and took a renewed interest in what the narrator in the commercial actually says.
The commercial shows a series of fencing sequence in a court room in front of the judge and jury. The two fencers supposedly are the attorneys representing each side. As the fencing sequence comes to an end, the narrator's voice starts and it says:
11 years of fencing, 3 years of law school...find out how your child could become one of many student-athletes that go pro in something other than sports.
Now, this got me thinking. 11 years of fencing...since this is an NCAA commercial, the guy probably did not do any NCAA fencing in law school (and assuming the guy only went to college for four years...or at least done NCAA fencing for only four years since there aren't that many scholarships for fencing, and there's certainly no one that actually "red-shirts" a fencer), that means, this guys fenced competitively starting at 6th grade (3 years in middle school, 4 years in high school, and 4 years in college). All of a sudden it felt just so depressing. What is the reality of the message behind this NCAA commercial?
If you are a cup is half full kind of person, you may say...hey, this guy succeeded in his life. See? There IS a life after NCAA and sports.
On the other hand, if you are a cup is half empty (or perhaps just a realistic) person, you may wonder...hey, what's the hidden message in this NCAA commercial here?
As for me, I only have one question....why did they have to use fencing? What are they saying? That us fencers really have no future in sports after we are done with college? OK...the reality is that we don't since there's no such thing as pro fencing in the US, nor is fencing federally subsidized like it is in France and other European countries that are big into fencing. But still...couldn't they have picked something else other than fencing to make that point? You know...like field hockey, lacrosse...
As I think more about it though, this is not exactly only an American story. This is a story for a lot of the fencers in other countries as well...for one Korea...the details of the story is different, but the theme is pretty much the same here as in the US. If nothing else, fencing is at least more popular in the US than it is here in Korea.
Anyway.... ah.... the woes of non-popular sports....
Oh yeah, here's the video of the commercial....thought you might actually want to see it....
Posts
.jpg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment