What are you most passionate about and why?

        For me, the latter half of 2012 was devoted to completing and submitting graduate school applications.  I applied to a few varied programs with one overarching goal: Further my education so that I will be better equipped to join and improve the green sports movement, particularly to green the MLB.  
        Sitting down and writing multiple, slightly different essays on a topic results in a great amount of self reflection and goal development.  I couldn't let some of the responses go to waste as they are either informative, explanatory, persuasive, or a mixture of the three, so I decided to post certain versions here.  

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Q: What are you most passionate about and why?
A:

Sitting in a surprisingly spacious aisle seat, reprimanding myself for forgetting my travel mug, my mind is flooded with ideas for the airline to demonstrate better environmental stewardship.  I sip lukewarm tea from a Styrofoam cup as the attendant passes with a single waste collection bag— the situation literally pains me.  Luckily, Game 4 of the World Series is tonight and conversation with fellow baseball fans keeps my mind occupied. 

My greatest passion is two-fold: the environment and baseball.  As a child, Sunday afternoons were spent in five-dollar seats at the ballpark, and the responsibility I feel to protect the environment stems from traversing the roads between baseball stadiums.  My view from the car was ever changing and the intricacies of our natural surroundings will never cease to amaze me.

Fact: Lights at Petco Park use more than one million watts of electricity each night game.

Fact:  Water demand for a stadium can reach 44 million gallons per season.

Fact: The average professional baseball game generates more than 52 cubic yards of waste.

            After realizing how taxing my childhood love was on the environment, it became my mission to green Major League Baseball.  At first, the plan relied on environmental consulting.  After reading Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and recognizing in my friends and family a lack of environmental interest that corresponded with their lack of environmental knowledge, my sights set on adding an education component to green sports. 

            Two separate passions have developed into a unique goal combining the environment, a subject matter both time appropriate and time sensitive, with a marketable pastime (baseball).   We must improve today in order to sustain tomorrow, and I look forward to applying my love of baseball and the environment to help do just that.