Green Speaks To Worcester State College Student-Athletes
Student-athletes at Worcester State congregated in a campus lecture hall on Wednesday, February 20 to hear Mike Green speak to them regarding the usage of alcohol on college campuses.
GREEN SPEAKS TO WORCESTER STATE STUDENT-ATHLETES
Worcester, MA, Feb. 20, 2008 - On
Wednesday, February 20, student-athletes at Worcester State
congregated in a campus lecture hall to hear Mike
Green speak to them regarding the usage of alcohol on
college campuses. Green makes over 100 presentations a year
to colleges and universities across the country including Penn
State, Florida State, Boston College and BrownUniversity among
others. Green did not use a preaching or moral tone when
making his presentation but instead uses a humorous interactive
method to not only show the affects of alcohol usage in their life
in a way that helped them see the forest from the trees.
He made the Worcester State student-athletes feel at ease and
delineates between alcoholism and drinking problems from "One Night
Problems". Green began the program by asking everyone in the room
how many people have had a problem with alcohol. One person
raised their hand. He then proceeded to ask questions such
as: have you ever fallen down, gone to
the hospital, vomited, etc. Most of the room raised their
hand. He then asked again, how many people have had a problem
with alcohol and the majority of the hands were raised.
Green's use of the phrase "One Night Problem" resonated when he
noted that 98% of the people in this
room will not be alcoholics. He proceeded to tell a tale of
an athlete who broke his arm in a game, got drunk that night and
while lamenting the fact that he had a broken arm and was out for
the year in a 5th floor lounge slammed the cast against a window so
hard that he fell out
of it and died. He concluded that the player was not an
alcoholic, but that "One Night Problem" can be just as bad.
Green offered some sobering tales about his previous drinking
habits and what they cost him as well as some that he has
encountered over the past 20 years or so that he has been speaking
to young people. He covered things as elementary as the
amount of alcohol in certain drinks to the affects that alcohol has
on sexual behavior. He offers advice on things such as how to
hold a glass so as to protect it from being spikes to "spotting"
and never leaving a friend behind in an intoxicated state. He
ponders such thing as the language that motorists have created in
flashing high beams to notify others that there is an officer up
ahead but can't figure out why we can't get keys away from
intoxicated friends.
The program lasted just under an hour but received rave reviews for
students and administrators alike. Freshman Erin Moore
remarked, "His use of real-life stories really gets your attention
showing us that even drinking for one night can be very
dangerous".
