CA and David's pres.

I wanted to say great job to CA and David on their presentation. Though I’m not a sports buff, it really kept me entertained and interested. I was really impressed at the connection they made between Clemson and USC’s fight and the fight in the NBA. Maybe the connection was obvious to most people, but it certainly hadn’t been to me before. Though sad, I think the fight in the NBA probably did encourage our team to fight with USC. This is an example of how much power and influence the media has on society. Maybe the players could have been influenced by the press that they would receive if they turned the fight into a brawl. Seeing the NBA’s fight being replayed over and over and over could have led them to believe that since the NBA’s brawl was made out to be a huge deal, their brawl could be a majorly publicized incident as well. This is probably stretching it, but it could be a possible explanation to our athletes’ actions.

As for the speech that the NBA guy made afterwards, I didn’t consider him to be a very promising rhetorician. Besides the fact that he waited too long to make the speech, (therefore missing the point of kairos), his speech seemed to lack sincerity. The way he dodged the question posed about the NBA fight influencing Clemson’s fight seemed to me to be cowardly. The they’ll handle their problems, we’ll handle ours attitude he takes seems to characterize him as a person who can’t own up to mistakes, mistakes that might happen to influence younger people. I can’t pinpoint what rubbed me the wrong way about his speech, but for some reason he came off as a man who didn’t really know what to say and just spoke because he was required to.