Take Flight Going to the Rim Using Your Reptilian Brain

http://blog.mitchellandness.com/?tag=/ncaa (This was the Sports Illustrated issue for the 2009 March Madness tournament.)

Sports Illustrated uses all three parts of the brain in its magazine. The "reptilian" brain is used by all of the athletes that make up the sports shown in the magazine. These great athletes show their talents in the sports they play, by fighting and playing until the very end of games. They are well-trained persons who have an instinctual knack for giving their all in the sports they play. Whoever their competition, athletes in general will fight until the clock stops. The 2nd part of the brain, the "Limbic" brain is used by the magazine journalists who write the magazine. For example, if the story they are talking about is an emotional one then the writers have to make the story emotional for the reader. Also, playing sports can get pretty emotional because of how much winning means to the athletes. A lot of emotions are shown if a player wins, but even more emotions are shown if and when that players loses... The "Neocortex" brain is used by athletes who are thinking about how to win during a game. An example of this would be a point guard in basketball diagnoses a defensive scheme in order to score the ball. The point guard might see an opening for a drive to the basket because of the zone scheme that promotes an isolation like this to happen. If the point guard executes the drive, he will score the basket and add two points to his/her team's overall score. This is just one example of rational thinking during the play of a sport. Using all of these parts of the brain allows for a sport to be fun, emotional, and complex to understand. Good players not only try their hearts out on every play, but also have a deep understanding of the way their sport is supposed to be played in order to win. Sports Illustrated is such a successful magazine because of the all the fun and competition in all sports exhibited by players that truly care about what they do for a living. The website is shown here: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/?eref=sihp

Dribble-Drive

(Above) This displays an example of smart point guard play, by #1 Derrick Rose (former point guard at The University of Memphis).

An "Epistemological Shift" is shown in Sports Illustrated by the great amount of pictures in the magazine. Instead of just words, the pictures in a magazine make the read much easier and fun for the reader. From photos from the profiles of junior athletes to photos of insane dunks, showing pictures in this magazine is key to its success. The whole truth is shown using these images, because what's happening is 100% true. A dunk is a dunk, and a touchdown is a touchdown. Period. Advertisements are also a big part of this epistemological shift. There are a lot of advertisements in the magazine that makes money for companies looking to endorse their product. Sports Illustrated helps them do that. Having images in magazines like this one is important because of the statements that words can simply not describe alone. The picture below is historic in many ways, and it's a lot easier to snap a photo of the moment instead of possibly ruining it with words. The photo below shows that sports can be more than just sports, and that hard work in life can be rewarded with fame. That is why this magazine is unique: it involves events that can really make a difference in the world.

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/dan/sportscon/ali2.jpg (Muhammad Ali dropping Sunny Liston in one of the most famous sports photos ever taken.)

In the third power tool set, "Production Techniques" are used often in Sports Illustrated. The camera angles on all the pictures are of course professionally done. The editing put into the magazine makes sure everything looks perfect before sending it out to the general public. The font attracts the reader with every article in the magazine. Good production techniques are important because it makes reading the magazine easier to comprehend, and more fun to read in general.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/baseball/files/library/MLB.jpg (This is Chone Figgins, an MLB player on the Seattle Mariners. Notice the font used for the title of the article, "Feel the Glove".)

Sports Illustrated uses humor, repetition, and scientific evidence in all of its issues. Humor is a given whenever reading the magazine because reading about sports is meant to be fun and light-hearted (for the most part). For example, most of the titles in the magazine are humorous depending on the issue at hand. Secondly, repetition is sued because talking about sports is repetitive. The whole magazine is about sports, so I guess that is considered repetitive just talking about various sports. Lastly, scientific evidence is used all throughout the magazine to provide analysis of players. An example of this would be the statistics of a player after a season ends, like the BA (Batting Average) of an MLB hitter after the seasons over. Then using a specific stat, the writer (and then reader) can analyze if that player did great, O.K., or poorly during the last season. The statistics can be represented using graphs, diagrams, etc. to best help the reader understand the statistic. This makes Sports Illustrated extremely informative because of the detail of every stat represented in a particular sport. There are millions of statistics involved with sports, so it's up to the reader to choose which one they think is most important to understand. Doing research on the statistics of a player can be the difference between a contract worth 474K and 20 Million dollars a year for that player. Simply, it's cool because we (the readers) get to be a part of the decisions involved with sports/players.

http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/7/C/5/3/colbert-sports-illustrated.jpg (A picture of Stephen Colbert posing for the magazine, it's funny. Period.)

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