1.Use your own words to write a speech story with title based onthe following talk.
2.Prepare questions for the speaker in a Q&A session.
Eric Thompson, Athletic Director of University of Cadwell in UKfor the past 30 years, has previously announced his retirement,effective at the end of next month. He gave a farewell speech at2:30pm today at the annual meeting of members of Athletics Club atthe Grand Hall.
Script of the speech
As I look around this room, I see many familiar faces: good people,generous people who’ve been friends and supporters for as long asI’ve been here. Now, all of you know I’m retiring at the end ofnext month. I’m 65, and it’s time. What you don’t know is that I’vedecided to devote the time I have left to increasing publicawareness of a serious problem for our athletes and athleticprograms. What I’m going to say isn’t going to be popular, but it’ssomething I feel I have to say, something eating my heart out. Thefact is, it’s no longer fun to play college football. It has becomea fatiguing grind. It’s a full-time job, a year-around job, andthat’s true of every college football program across thecountry.
The insanity has to stop. Coaches demand more, colleges demandmore. Alumni demand more, so college football has turned into a12-month-a-year-job that never ends. We’ve got fall games andwinter workouts. There’s spring practice, and there’re summerconditioning drills. So our players work and work and work duringthe season.
You’ve got wonderful young players literally working themselvesto death, dying so you can have a winning season. Eleven collegefootball players died in the past 12 months, and it’s a tragedy wehave to stop.
Heatstroke is a part of the problem, especially during thosedamned summer drills. Heatstroke can cause your body temperature tosoar to 42 degrees Celsius, cause a heart attack, and induce acoma. We tell our players on a hot day he should drink around 600milliliters of fluid and then continue to drink every 15 minuteswhether he’s thirsty or not. If you’re a coach, whether in highschool or college, and your kids aren’t getting water every 15 or20 minutes, you shouldn’t be coaching.
Actually, heat stroke is one of the easier problems we dealwith. Some of our players have pre- existing conditions we don’tknow about. We had a freshman die after a series of early-morningdrills. He was just 19, 6 feet 2, and 180 pounds, with no historyof heart problems. That non- detection is no surprise. Manycardiologists say arrhythmia can be difficult to find. Some peopleare born with these defects but often show no outward signs of theproblem. About 100 to 150 young athletes die each year from thecondition.