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The mind is a terrible thing to waste. This is one of the more used slogans when it comes to education and learning. So how do you keep from wasting a great mind? Most would say by feeding it valuable information and keeping it challenged. Whether you’re talking about public elementary school or private colleges, most people would agree that furthering education is important. Choosing schools can be one of the most important decisions a student and their parents ever make. College isn’t for everyone, but if you have the desire to learn, you should be able to attend college to further your education. The difficult part about college is deciding which school to attend. There are thousands of colleges in the nation, and choosing where to spend four plus years of your life can be a huge undertaking. There are many resources to help you find the school that meets your education and pricing needs.

One of the colleges that might help you on your quest is Boston College. Boston College is a Catholic university that offers more than 4,000 degrees to students. Boston College also ranks 34th among all national universities. One of the major signs of a good university is the rate at which it grows. Boston College is one that has experienced a 75 percent increase in undergraduate applications in recent years. The college also offers a law school and graduate schools in arts as well as social work. One thing that’s important for incoming students is options. Many students want to have the option of many different majors to choose from in case they find they don’t like their first choice and want to choose something different. Another important quality for incoming students is student life. Many students want to be involved in a school that has tradition and plenty of organizations that they can join. Boston College offers several organizations for students to participate in.

Boston College is of course located in Boston, Mass. Boston College offers all the most popular major fields of study such as communication, biology, sociology, English and several pre-professional programs. No matter what your field of interest, Boston College is worth considering if you are looking to further your education, or have a child that will soon be entering college. Of course there are many options for furthering your education. Boston College is one of many that would love to have the opportunity to educate you.

College is a great investment in you or your child’s future, and what school you attend is an important life decision. The best way to make an informed decision is to have all the information you need before deciding. Going to college is a great achievement and one that should not be taken lightly. Boston College would love to earn your business and educate you.

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Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley

They ran the 112th Boston Marathon Monday (4-21-08). The triumph was that Robert Cheruiyot (try to say something close to Cherry-ott) of Kenya won his 4th Boston Marathon. The tragedy was that America hardly noticed.

Cheruiyot won the 26.2-mile race in 2 hours, 7 minutes and 45 seconds. He ran alone for the last several miles. Cheruiyot won the Boston Marathon in 2003, set the course record while winning in 2006, and won in 2007, making this year’s victory his 3rd straight and 4th in 6 years.

Excuse me while I inhale deeply due to boredom.

Two guys from Morocco finished 2nd and 3rd and two guys from Ethiopia finished 4th and 5thall of them have unpronounceable names. Imagine a Nike ad saying, “Run to Victory with Nike. Like Bouramdane, Boumlili, Asfaw and Adillo do!” Notice how American it sounds, and appreciate how difficult it can be to market foreign runners with foreign names in America.

No one seems to have the clarity to recognize it or nerve to say it so let me be the first: national track meets and famous marathons in America have sunk to a new low in interest because America cannot seem to produce American-born runners who can currently win signature events.

This is the short evolution of the oldest continuously running marathon in history: American Clarence DeMar won his 1st Boston Marathon in 1911 and his 7th in 1930. American Bill Rogers won his 1st in 1975 and his 4th in 1980.

A KenyanIbrahim Husseinwon in 1991and this year Robert Cheruiyot won. In between Hussein and Cheruiyot, Kenyans have won the race 14 times in 16 years and 16 times in 18 years, losing only to a South Korean in 2001 and an Ethiopian in 2005.

This year, when an American finished 10th, it was called a miracle in some running circles. Americans have not done squat in recent years.

Among 32 elite runners previewed as possible winners in this year’s competition, not a single American was even mentioned as a possible winner in our wildest imagination. More than 25,000 runners qualified for this year’s run and 98% finished.

If you are wondering, an EthiopianDire Tune (I swear I did not make her name up)won the women’s Boston Marathon. The first 5 women finishers were from anywhere but America.

Cheruiyot picked up $150,000 (the most ever) in prize money. Cheruiyot is a super guy and a world class runner. His main concern Monday was running 2 hours, 7 minutes and change because he wants to represent his countryKenyain this fall’s 2008 Olympic Games.

Just because he won in Boston does not mean he will be part of the 3-man Kenyan team. Four other Kenyans have run UNDER 2:07 this year in major competition. Yikes! This just shows you how dominate the Kenyans are in worldwide marathon competition. Interestingly enough, no Kenyan has yet won gold in the Olympic games even though it is their specialty.

Unfortunately for Cheruiyot and track and field and running in America, the foreign dominance in winning here has created a marketing nightmare. It is flat out difficult, nay impossible, to market world-class foreign athletes on American soil, no matter how much they win or how many records they set. Nobody in America seems to care.

I found the USA Today coverage of the Boston Marathon buried on page 7 in the Sports Section Monday. There was frankly 6 pages of more interesting sports news to read than some foreigner winning the Boston Marathon again.

There are no major track meets on prime time television anymore, only the Olympics gets major coverage. The venues that used to draw thousands of fans now sit empty by comparison. There is little, if any, coverage. Big time sponsors run the other direction when meet directors come calling.

It happens because America cannot seem to produce runners anymore that are worth a crap. They just are not competitive and cannot win events like the Boston Marathon if their life depended upon it.

Do not blame the foreign runners who once were poverty stricken and then found a way to win in America and go back home like a new-found millionaire. The foreign runners were hungry. Making a living in America is easy. We do not seem to have any would be runners left who are hungry enough to train harder and smarter and beat the foreign runners.

We also do not seem to have a coach in America who can motivate our runners to get up off of dead center and do something spectacular. There is currently not a runner in America that can handle heavy marketing and promotion because there is no one out there that can deliver when it counts.

The fact that Americans think they cannot beat Kenyans is rubbish. They once thought that it was impossible to run a mile under 4 minutes too. Kenyans BELIEVE they can win; Americans do not think they can win. I just want to get up and slap some sense into our American runners and coaches.

We did not become the greatest nation in the world because we had our eye on second place, or because we wanted to make a big deal out of finishing in the Top 10 at Boston.

I really think this is not about raw talent. We must have at least a dozen talented runners among 300 million people. I think our lack of world-class American runners is more about a lack of desire and determination. The marketing problem is not going away, and the fans and sponsors are not going to come back big time until America produces American-born runners who can win against the best the world has to offer.

As a lifelong runner and one who enjoys running for running’s sake, I am distraught that our runners have become such colossal failures on the world scene.

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2007 has been a great year for sports fan in Boston, with the city’s national sides in all of America’s major competitive sports tasting a degree of success, from baseball to soccer.

The Boston Red Sox have quickly become America’s favourite baseball team, outshining their east coast rivals, the New York Yankees. The Sox topped their Eastern Division, and then beat Central Division champions the Cleveland Indians by four games to three in the American League Championship Series play-offs; before storming to victory in the World Series, defeating National League champions, and World Series rookies the Colorado Rockies. The Red Sox won the Series in four games, sweeping the Rockies to collect their second World Series championship in four seasons and their seventh overall. It also marked the third sweep in four years by the American League champions. In the process, the Red Sox became the first team to win the last two World Series they had appeared in since the New York Yankees who achieved it in 1998 and 1999.

Not to be outdone, Boston’s football team, the New England Patriots, recorded another successful season, being crowned Division Champions for the fifth season in a row. If their current form continues through the play-offs, they could well find themselves in the 42nd annual Super Bowl in March 2008 as American Football Conference Champions.

Things are also looking promising for Boston’s basketball team, the Boston Celtics, who hold the record for most NBA championships ever with 16. After a disappointing 2006-2007 season, which saw them play to a 24-58 record, the second worst in all of the NBA, the Celtics are once again sitting at the top of the Atlantic Division, having won twenty games and lost only two so far this season, and are almost certain to make it to the play-offs.

Another team improving on their fortunes after a disastrous 2006-2007 season is the Boston Bruins, Boston’s ice hockey team. They finished bottom of the league last season, but have fought their way to serious championship contention this season, currently sitting in second place of their Northeast Atlantic Division.

The NFL, NHL and NBA seasons are all still in full swing, and anyone wishing to catch Boston’s teams in action on their home turf can book into a hotel in Boston.

Although they don’t play in Boston itself, the Foxborough-based New England Revolution soccer team represents all of New England. Up until their 3-2 victory over FC Dallas in the 2007 US Open Cup, the Revolution had never won a major trophy in Major League Soccer in their thirteen-year history. They were one of three teams in MLS that date back further than 2005 to have not won one of the three major titles in MLS (MLS Cup, US Open Cup and the MLS Supporter’s Shield). They came close five times, reaching the US Open Cup final in 2001 and the MLS Cup finals in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

There’s never been a batter time to be a sports fan in Boston, and those fans will be hoping that trend continues for some time.

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