The Essays, a book full of opinionated essays, is carefully written with much wit and knowledge by Michel de Montaigne. His style of writing includes many examples (personal and otherwise), humor, wit, great imagery, and random thoughts to get his opinions supported by his readers. I have analyzed "On the Power of Imagination" and attempted to write in Montaigne’s style. Throughout "On the Power of Imagination," Montaigne uses a mixture of personal experiences and other’s experiences to aid the reader in relating the topic to their own lives. In my essay, "On Columbia’s Athletes’ Stupidity and Intelligence," I will incorporate these aspects of Montaigne’s style as well as other aspects of my own writing style to shape the reader’s opinion on athletes at Columbia.

As you read this essay, I ask you to keep in mind a quote from Montaigne in "On the Power of Imagination": "I have no proper skill in composition or development, and am more ignorant than a child of the words and phrases used for the most ordinary things" (Essays, p. 47).

"On Columbia’s athletes’ stupidity and intelligence"

I am not sure, yet, exactly how I feel about athletes at Columbia University, but by the time I finish jotting down my opinions on both their stupidity and intelligence... I’ll let you know. Additionally, you, as the reader, should be able to form an opinion of the athletes at Columbia University. On the Columbia campus, an athlete is part of a minority. The most common opinion students here have regarding athletes is that they lower the school’s academic reputation. This being because they are, supposedly, stupid. I am affected by the judgment on the stupidity of athletes because I am an athlete. When I came to Columbia University, my first experience was field hockey pre-season. This is probably the most stupid aspect of an athlete -- to put one’s body through such pain for an activity which is supposed to be fun is absurd. Personally I have been through this awful experience, and just so you can get an idea of my stupidity, I’ll give you an example of a day of field hockey pre-season. As a team we would wake up at six o’ clock am to meet at the gym for breakfast at seven o’ clock. We would then have practice from eight to four with an hour and a half for rest/lunch. Then we would return to our rooms around five o’ clock so exhausted and sore that we would sleep until the next morning. Being the idiots that we are, we would get up the next morning and go through the same routine for two weeks.

I must say, I am not the only stupid athlete. The football players, for example, eat until they can feel the food stuck in their throats to become large enough to be able to play the sport. To play football, you have to be as fat and tall as humanly possible. The larger and unhealthier you are, the better player you become. I have once heard a football coach tell one of his players that if he didn’t put on a good ten pounds, he would not be getting as much playing time. Also in the weight room, I’ve personally seen numerous football players look at themselves in the mirror and say, "Man, you look good!" How stupid can you get? Telling yourself you look good when you just put on ten pounds of pure fat. Where do we get these athletes? The more people one of these football players can hold back, the better player he will be and the more likely you are to be drafted into the NFL.

On the other hand, wrestlers, crewmen/women, and gymnasts have to lose weight just to participate in their respective sports. How stupid can you be? You can play, but only if you loose fifteen pounds first! The whole idea of playing a sport is to have fun. My opinion of having fun is not having to suck weight. Most of these athletes go on a severe diet and/or starve themselves to loose weight. I have several friends on the wrestling team who, literally, will not eat a few days before a meet. Sometimes they will run for long amounts of time with trash bags on their bodies until the sweat profusely to loose weight. This is not very much fun.

Maybe I am stupid because I spend much time at practice and games and so little time at my desk and computer doing homework or reading my books. Don’t we realize that not doing our homework is going to make our grades suffer? Time spent at practice is also wasted because most of the athletes are not going to make a living playing sports. Most athletes at Columbia University, including myself, are not interested in an athletic career, but want to graduate and make a lot of money. After all, why do you think we come to Columbia? I can think of many athletes who received honors for their high grade point average and good performance on the playing field. This shows that not all athletes are stupid, although common sense is another question.

This brings me to the next point: the intelligence of Columbia athletes. As an athlete, I came to Columbia knowing that I would make a great career for myself after graduating. Besides knowing that we are intelligent because we actually got into Columbia, we have been intelligent enough to use our athletic abilities to get into the university. Many athletes in the Ivy League use their athletic abilities to get them into the university. That is very intelligent. I know a friend who called and talked to my field hockey coach all the time and told her that she was coming to play, but ended up not playing once she got here. She used our coach to get that extra pull to make sure she got in.

Athletes are also smart because they know that being a member of a team automatically gives them close friends. So if I were not to get along with any of the other students at the University, I would have the hockey team to talk to. I remember going out and seeing all the teams hanging out together and having a great time. I would be introduced to people as a field hockey player. People I didn’t even know would come up to me and say "You play field hockey right?" Our team hung out together every weekend and have the best times of our lives. We spend every minute of every day together.

One of the most intelligent things that an athlete has figured out and non-athletes have obviously not figured out is how useful sports are for loosing or maintaining weight. Is there a better way to loose weight and get into incredible shape, than to do it while having fun playing a sport. For example, I feel that I don’t even have to work to get my body into shape and still, everyone is envious of me. I always tell them to play a sport, but they just don’t believe me.

We also have other features that make us intelligent. First of all and most importantly, we are able to balance both our schoolwork and our athletics. I almost wonder if non-athletes hate us because we are so intelligent and they cannot handle the fact that we are more talented than they. They hate us for all the accomplishments we have made while being athletes.

Also, stress from schoolwork is relieved when playing sports. Relieving stress, getting in shape, making friendships, and getting the best education- who could ever think of one activity that incorporates all these benefits? Only an athlete. Think of these advantages enjoys by athletes... now what do you think? Is it pure stupidity or intelligence?

Throughout the paper I adopted Montaigne’s style of including many examples, such as the football players, the wrestlers, and friends. These examples are truthful and help relate to the readers reality. Although Montaigne’s examples were also from books, I could not find any books on athlete’s stupidity or intelligence so I had to refrain from the use of textual examples. An important aspect of Montaigne’s essay is honesty and simplicity. He addresses this in his exert to the reader: "I want to appear in my simple, natural, and everyday dress, without strain or artifice; for it is myself that I portray" (Essays, To the Reader). I held this style throughout my essay and used complete honesty and simplicity to make the essay easy to read.

Montaigne incorporates humor in his essay. He refers to a man who could command his bottom to break wind as often as he wished as a man who could synchronize his blasts to the metre of versed that were read to him. My humor has been used with the football players eating as much as they can and looking in the mirror talking to themselves. This reference to humor is a very shallow attempt, but there are apparent attempts in Montaigne’s writing.

Montaigne’s use of Latin in his text shows his intelligence, but I am not able to use Latin in my essay because I am ignorant of the language and to include it in the essay without knowing the language would indicate that I am not being honest. Another aspect of Montaigne’s writing that I did not include was a synopsis of the writing style of his essay at the end. I feel that with a essay that is going to have the reader form their own opinion, then the ending should be left open to ideas.

Overall, Montaigne chooses a very laid back style of writing - like a journal. He does not get distressed about the grammar or development of the essay; he is more concerned with the context of the essay. He wants to make sure he secures all his thoughts and feelings on the paper before he looses them. I take a personal liking to this style of writing. It is similar to my own, in so many aspects. Although I do not disagree that the way the paper is presented is very important, I feel the ideas are the most important component of the paper. Altogether, this assignment was a very interesting one and I enjoyed writing my own piece of Montaignian essay.