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By Janet Evans
Friday, Dec 7 2007, 07:40 AM
Astronaut Leland D. Melvin, STS-122 mission specialist, dons a training
version of his shuttle launch and entry suit in preparation for a
postinsertion/de-orbit training session in one of the full-scale trainers
at Johnson Space Center. (NASA)
When Leland Melvin's Football Career Ended,
His Space Journey Began
In 1988, Leland Melvin was at training camp for the Dallas Cowboys, running to catch a pass from Danny White under the watchful eye of coach Tom Landry, when he felt his hamstring give out.
It was the end of his football career, but the start of his career as an astronaut. He launched Thursday as a mission specialist as part of a multinational crew of seven flying on Space Shuttle Atlantis in STS 122, an important mission in the assembly sequence to finish building the International Space Station.
Melvin, 43, is the son of schoolteachers Deems and Grace Melvin of Lynchburg, Va. He credits them with pushing him to do his best. He was a gifted athlete, but Melvin said his parents told him he could do more. And he was fortunate to have high school teachers who nurtured his love of chemistry. College followed at the University of Richmond where Melvin majored in chemistry, and yes, played football. The wide receiver was drafted in 1986 by the Detroit Lions, but got sidelined by an injury. The Dallas Cowboys asked him to try out, which led to his fateful day on the field with a career-ending injury.
But Melvin had a backup plan, which he said is important for anyone who plans a career in professional sports.
"I see guys, all they want to do is play basketball. All they want to do is play football. 'I am going to be the next greatest NFL player, the next greatest NBA player,' and I say, 'Hey, that is cool. Go for it,'" Melvin told ABC News. "But I pulled a hamstring. I had an opportunity, but my hamstring gave out so I couldn't do that anymore.
"What's your fallback plan? That needs to be education. If they have that education ingrained in them, just the thought if this doesn't work out then this is my plan B. And that is what happened to me, I could not continue playing because of an injury and went back to grad school and continued on," he said.
Melvin continued on with a graduate degree in chemistry and went to work at the Langley Research Center. After nine years he applied to become an astronaut and made it into the astronaut corps on his first try.
He is now a robotics specialist, a skill that takes great eye-hand coordination, depth perception and quick reaction.
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By Janet Evans
Sunday, Dec 2 2007, 11:05 AM
Believe it or not, it's neither football or soccer. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, it's bowling, with nearly 40,000 girls and guys making up teams around the nation. Bowling is fun, fast and competitive.
- Bowling is one of the fastest-growing high school sports
- 60 to 90 percent of athletes competing in bowling do not compete in other sports
- Increases student involvement in extracurricular activities
- No facility maintenance costs or equipment expenses
- Bowling is a lifetime sport – it has no age or gender barriers
- Offers healthy, safe and controlled environment for student-athletes to compete
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Franklin High School does have a bowling team, which started practice again in November.
Information is limited, but is on this site ► Franklin High School Bowling
Keep up with the latest high school news in bowling across the nation at
BOWLWNY.COM ◄
What do you think about bowling as a Varsity high school sport?
Do any readers have high school students on the team at FHS?
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By Janet Evans
Thursday, Nov 29 2007, 01:30 PM
Growing up, I had always had an interest in running, and in Phy. Ed. classes I was pretty fast, beating all the girls, and sometimes even one or two of the guys when I was really young.
In the early 70’s I went to high school in southern Florida. At that time, almost all Varsity sports where boys sports. Any girl’s sports were those such as Cheerleading, Field Hockey, and I don’t know, maybe dodge ball . . . There were no girl’s competitive track and field sports.
When I was in 10th grade I approached the Varsity Cross Country Coach and said I wanted to be on the team, even if it meant just to practice with them. I received a flat “No.” So, I lost interest in running. The following year, I approached him again. He seemed more interested, but again, “No.”
Finally, when I was a Senior, Title IX was passed. It was the first time I had actually realized I had been discriminated against for being a female. I know I had been angry that I couldn’t do a simple thing - I just wanted to run in a sport. It wasn’t a contact sport. Finally we could have a Girls Cross Country and Track Team! The coach approached me! Sure two years of doing nothing but riding a bike about five miles a day, and tanning on the beach while I could have been in great shape by now. But I said yes.
There were few Girls Cross Country teams formed in southern Florida that first year. My team consisted of me, a 17 year old, and one other girl, a freshman, who was a great runner and would have been bumped up to Varsity even if she hadn’t been. You couldn’t have only one girl on a team!
My school wasn’t happy about Title IX, and did not push for any new girls sports. We trained with the boys after school and on weekends (we couldn't keep up at first and we were a distraction running in our bikini tops - hey, it was hot). Our school was so not accepting of a girls program that it wouldn’t give us official uniforms and we sat outside the locker room, angry, while the boys had team meetings inside. We ran against teams of 8-12 girls, usually all African American teams. And we beat them. In the following years, our team gained girls, and real uniforms.
At meets, it was HOT. We didn’t carry around water bottles back then. Never heard of them. Most of the home teams would make giant “vats” of Gatorade. Most of them looked like pig feeding troths, filled with lime green liquid. It was just gross. I’m glad the girls usually ran first, because by the time the guys got to the vat, usually they were scooping that Gatorade into their mouths with their sweat-dripping hands! YUK.
Why am I telling you my back-story? This past week the creator of Gatorade passed away, and that picture of those green vats popped right into my head.
Dr. Robert Cade, who invented the sports drink Gatorade and launched a multibillion-dollar industry that the beverage continues to dominate, died Tuesday of kidney failure. He was 80. He created Gatorade in 1965, at the University of Florida, along with other researchers. He had been trying to find something to help the schools football players replace the carbohydrates and electrolytes they lost through sweat while playing in the swamp-like heat in Florida...
The research on Gatorade all started because the former Gators Coach, Dwayne Douglas, asked the doctor why the players weren’t peeing after the games. And this changed everything.
“Using their research and about $43 in supplies, they concocted a brew for players to drink while playing football. The first batch was not exactly a hit."
"It sort of tasted like toilet bowl cleaner," said Dana Shires, one of the researchers. "I guzzled it and I vomited," Cade said. "
"The researchers added some sugar and some lemon juice to improve the taste. It was first tested on freshmen because Coach Ray Graves didn't want to hurt the varsity team. "
"Eventually, however, the use of the sports beverage spread to the Gators, who enjoyed a winning record and were known as a "second-half team" by outlasting opponents. "
"After the Gators beat Georgia Tech 27-12 in the Orange Bowl in 1967, Tech coach Bobby Dodd told reporters his team lost because, "We didn't have Gatorade ... that made the difference."
Read the story of Gatorade and the University of Florida's football team
Gatorade, the Idea that Launched an Industry
Instead of the original four flavors, Gatorade now comes in over 30, and is sold in 80 countries.
Born James Robert Cade in San Antonio on Sept. 26, 1927, Cade, a Navy veteran, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. Cade was appointed an assistant professor in internal medicine at UF in 1961. He worked until he was 76, retiring in November 2004 from the university, where he taught medicine, saw patients and conducted research.
James Cade 1927-2007
I know it bothered me back in the 70's that I was not allowed to participate on a simple running sports team.
I'm more upset about it today than I was back then. It felt more like a “bump” then.
You see, when you are being discriminated against, you tend to accept what is going on as everyday life; you don’t like it, and you keep trying to change it, but until someone gets in your face and says to you "YOU ARE BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST," you don't tend to REALIZE IT.
What happened in sports back then in the 60s, and early 70s was WRONG.
Now we have girls who, the past few years, want to wrestle in a contact sport with boys because there are no girl’s teams. The boys do not go along with this. I am on the side of the boys in this one.
I don’t believe Title IX was meant to pit boys and girls together in a contact sport such as wrestling. I know a girl is allowed, and should be able to make a football, baseball, soccer, or whatever team if she is as good as or better than her fellow teammates of boys. But if I were a boy in high school, I too would not want to be wrestling a female in a competition. I guess, if I were the boy, I would take her out, but most of the girls are in different weight classes, too . . . Instead, the boys are forfeiting their matches. It's a pity.
Read an article from the New York Times on this topic:
More Girls Take Part in High School Wrestling
What do you think about the invention of Gatorade?
Did you realize there was discrimination against women
in sports in the 60’s and 70’s?
What about Title IX now?
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