- 11:43 PM
- 11/21/09
My wife and I were just talking about this. Our 9-yo son is playing in the NFL Flag Football league for the third year, and he's a bit bored. He says he's ready for tackle.
I've taken him to Big 10 and some high-caliber FCS games, and while he was awed by the size, speed, and power of the players, he didn't really grasp the danger inherent in these guys running into each other time and time again. But my wife and I both winced when we saw safeties barrelling into receivers. Just imagining our kid getting hit like that makes my hair stand on end.
That said, I'm going to allow him to do the Pop Warner/junior high thing and see how it goes. I'm not ruling out any possibilities in any direction.
posted by Uncle Toby at 11:45 AM on September 30
Pretty great!
Two notions come to mind:
1. Emphasis once again how different tennis reality is from the rather bland, textbook tennis coaching I was treated to in my youth. Open stances on the forehand side were actively discouraged. As a serve-and-volleyer, I spent as little time as possible behind the baseline, but what few forehand drills I tolerated early on were of the "step forward into your forehand" variety. That was fine when I was small and playing with a tiny wooden Wilson Jack Kramer, but later, playing at hs varsity pace, with various midsized graphite sticks, I wish I'd had some more imaginative coaching on that score.
2. I would LOVE to see a similar analysis of clay court footwork. The mechanics of the sliding groundstroke are an athletic marvel on par with anything else in sport for difficulty.
How great is it to watch game film with someone who can break it down like that, esp. with no regard for its conventional broadcast value?
David Foster Wallace, who had a lot more tennis experience than most tennis fans, once noted how many insights on the game he gleaned from watching a match with an experienced coach. A few years ago, Agassi was a commentator for about half a set for a US Open match between Federer and somebody I can't recall. His comments were few but very specific--he pointed out small but important aspects of the game that I'd never have noticed on my own.
posted by Uncle Toby at 11:44 PM on September 01
A perfect game in baseball is taken as a triumph of the defense, while soccer scores at least look like failures of the offense?
posted by Uncle Toby at 03:44 PM on July 24
PAM SHRIVER
That would make this my favorite off-court tennis story of all time.
posted by Uncle Toby at 09:08 AM on July 17
dviking, I think that riposte has some merit, but it overlooks the urgency of realities like hunger. Children starve in the meantime. And how many stable jobs are created in third-world countries by conspicuous consumption?
C.S. Lewis addressed this question:
In any event, the choice isn't simply between giving people handouts and buying expensive toys. Plenty of charities do infrastructure stuff.
posted by Uncle Toby at 05:13 PM on July 06
How about Peter Singer's take on how disposable wealth should be used?*
The Sparknotes version: if you have disposable wealth, and are aware that it could be used to save lives (e.g. mosquito nets, food for the hungry), and choose instead to spend it on luxuries (e.g. multiple opulent houses, extravagent cars), then you have decided that those possessions are more important than human life. Singer says you need to own up to the fact that you think upgrading your tv set is more important than the good that money could do for children in dire poverty.
Regardless of whether you buy Singer's argument, doesn't it seem incredible that Tiger could donate $90m and still have $10m left to play with? In what way would his life be diminished if he did that?
Singer's great fun to debate with college students--I used to assign the essay just to watch the fireworks the next week. But I take his point seriously. And I take Ricardo's point just a seriously, because it reminds me that my time and hands could be contributing much more than they do, right here in my own community.
* For the the purposes of this discussion, I consider Singer's other, even more controversial ethical standpoints to be irrelevant.
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:51 PM on July 06
I'd like to see some wrestlers and some rowers on this list, but "speed" as a criterion probably holds them back. (Also the bogus "Success and Competitiveness" category.) Still, they've gotta rank pretty high for power, stamina/recovery, and coordination/flexibility. And what about competitive lumberjacks? They've got a lot going for them, especially when you factor in the logrolling part. On preview: Bode's an interesting suggestion--wouldn't have thought of him.
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:28 PM on June 20
a quote from Johnson deeply disappointed in Antonio and in the sport of athletics furthermore, his favorite form of writing is literature, and he is fascinated by the governmental form of politics. That's the IOC's traditional name for "track and field" On topic: He did the right thing. Which is also, frequently, the difficult thing.
posted by Uncle Toby at 12:55 PM on June 06
I'm with Chico. I always wanted to like her as much as I liked her backhand. Which, by the bye, I began to tire of, somehow. It seemed . . . self-conscious, or something. Like it was calculated to please a coach. The fault was in me, of course, for extending my irritation with her persona to annoyance with a stroke that a hacker like me can only dream about.
posted by Uncle Toby at 03:53 PM on May 14
I love achievement that's out of proportion--numbers that loom like mountains no one will ever climb. Good stuff, here. My favorite unmentioned record? Cael Sanderson's collegiate record of 159 wins, ZERO losses. He wrestled at Iowa State, and I'm a Hawkeye fan, but this one doesn't hurt. It's so huge and impressive. Anyone with an inkling of what elite wrestling requires knows what that number means.
posted by Uncle Toby at 01:26 PM on April 18
As an African-American co-worker once explained to me, "When someone else gets their toes stepped on, you don't get to tell them how much it hurt. That goes double for when they get hit in the head. And when their racial identity is attacked, you should forget about giving them advice on how they ought to feel about it. That's for them to decide. Your job is to listen to what they have to say about it." Or words to that effect. It has been a few years, but it was an eye-opener for me as a 25 year old white guy whose job was working with low-income, primarily African-American kids. Anyway, in this case, I'd be amazed if the photographer and the editor didn't know the subtext. There were certainly hundreds of shots to choose from. They picked out this one. They knew what they were doing. I wonder what LeBron would have said if they had shown him the poster and the picture side-by-side and asked him to endorse their choice.
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:01 PM on March 27
My eight-year-old son is going to be so bummed . . . he heard some announcers speculating on Favre's retirement at the end of the season, and he told me to change the channel. To him, every interception was the receiver's fault.
posted by Uncle Toby at 12:46 PM on March 04
Very nicely said, Howard_T. Like baseball gloves, baseballs are hard to throw away. Even the raggediest are good for something . . . like the last few pitches to your kid before you retrieve them from the outfield . . . probably carrying them in a five-gallon bucket . . .
posted by Uncle Toby at 12:38 PM on March 04
Hardly earth-shattering, but a nice Monday-morning curiousity, I hope. More about her is available here, including the information that, "At P-C, Brock is both the vocal and instrumental music director for students from fourth through 12th grades, in addition to being yearbook advisor, junior class sponsor and head boys’ basketball coach." I visit school like this--the writer notes that with 41 total students, it's "one of the smaller 1-A schools in the state"--pretty often, and can attest to the multitasking required of the coaches. Some drive the bus to away games, too.
posted by Uncle Toby at 08:41 AM on January 14
Maybe should Ty should just donate a matched amount, no strings attached.
posted by Uncle Toby at 03:44 PM on January 10
There's a lot to like in the essay. My favorite bit: "If ever there was a situation where taking part mattered to me more than winning, this was it." I include myself in the very large number of people who apply that lesson to sport and life both. Almost the most impressive thing about his story is that it broke in the media and he weathered the storm. The fact that he came out of it unresentful and, apparently, pretty happy says a lot about him.
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:26 PM on January 08
I became a Colts fan the day Sanders signed with them--the fact that Dallas Clark is there, too, just makes them more fun to watch for this Iowa fan. He was a lot of fun to watch in Iowa City--you could see teams becoming aware of him and designing schemes to stay the hell away from his part of the field.
posted by Uncle Toby at 11:25 AM on January 08
Post title of the month! Even beats rcade's bold "show us your tits" gambit. Isaiah Thomas failing to suppress a smirk while the crowd booed Marbury was just . . . precious.
posted by Uncle Toby at 08:51 AM on November 21
Nice link! (Odd that it's a little older than your average FPP link. But still nice.) Makes me miss my late-70s vintage Wilson Richie Zisk glove . . .
posted by Uncle Toby at 01:30 PM on November 01
That's a fantastic comment, Howard_T. Reminds me of reading "Zen in the Art of Archery," by Eugen Herrigel. In many of its most memorable passages, Herrigel describes a problem he has with a technical aspect of archery and his teacher's unexpected, non-technical answers. One memorable episode involves the release, which, with a high-powered recurve, can be quite difficult. His teacher's advice was to release the string "like a child holding a grownup's finger. You know how firmly a child grips; and yet when it lets go, there is not the slightest jerk, because the child does not think of itself, it is not self-conscious, it does not say, 'I will now let go and do something else,' it merely acts instinctively. That is what you must learn to do. Practice, practice, practice. The shot will come as effortlessly as snow slipping from a leaf." I believe that's what we've come to call "the zone," no? And for certain, highly-practiced athletes, the crafting of a shot, as it were, is not really a matter of choosing among alternatives. There is too little time for that.* Concentration means ignoring the decision tree, not processing it faster. That eliminates a great deal of self-consciousness and doubt. (A great flaw of hackers like me is changing the shot 3-4 times before actually striking the ball.) One of my frequent opponents as a teenager was incredibly frustrating to play, because he simply didn't care what the score was, how hot it was, what kind of wind was blowing, how I behaved, etc. He simply played the point in front of him. Never smiling or frowning, certainly never tossing racquets or kicking his water bottle, he acted like he was a ball machine playing a ball machine. In lots of ways, his game was technically weak, and over time I learned to beat him--mainly by acting more like him--but when I was a hot-headed 15-yo, he let me over-think everything and self-destruct. Apologies for the off-the-rails essay, but good links and comments will do that to a guy on a Friday morning. *One of the best points DF Wallace ever made in his many tennis essays was the role of time in tennis success--good players with enough time will hit devasting shots, but better players "simply deny [their opponent] that time." The difference is measured in microseconds.
posted by Uncle Toby at 09:21 AM on September 28
Howard_T: What a terrific comment. Funny, pop culture likes to pidgeonhole engineering types as soul-free, analytical Gradgrinds, but the engineers I know always talk about experiences like yours--the moment when rigorous preparation yields excellence--with great passion. Moreover, your notion of being at once owned and sustained by a passion marks your son as fortunate in his father. For my part, the joy Price finds in mastery--both his own and others'--reminds me of the first stanza of Hopkins's "The Windhover": The Windhover To Christ our Lord I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king- dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion. Gerard Manly Hopkins
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:09 PM on July 20
Changing their shoes every changeover? The original grass "fell victim to a plague of worms? Weird all the way 'round. Maybe for the next round they'll divide it down the middle, i.e. ad court clay, deuce court grass, or vice-versa. Which, since Nadal is a lefty, would be very interesting, indeed. (Of course, that arrangement sounds like an ankle injury waiting to happen ;-)
posted by Uncle Toby at 01:50 PM on May 02
Actually, it's possible the kid whose parents wrote the letter is not on full scholarship. (For that matter, maybe the player didn't complain and the letter was the parent's idea entirely.) And the notion that a full scholarship somehow covers all the expenses of attending college far from home is mistaken. Kids from low-income homes often find the out-of-pocket cost of their full ride is much greater than advertised. And since when do parents give up the right to express their opinion just because their kid might be getting a scholarship? I grant that sending a letter anonymously is the worst way to do it. For my part, I'd have no problem sitting across a desk from Dan Hawkins, or anybody, if I thought my kid's interests were ill-served by their policies. I wouldn't be a helicopter-parent, either; I work at a college and know what they are. No responsible, reasonable adult should have a problem with another grown-up questioning their policies. As a teacher and administrator, I'd have no problem with it. The number of parents with excessive concern for their kids is minute compared to the number of those who never speak up or stick their neck out. When one of them shows up in my office, a dialogue starts that ends with everybody happy ninety-eight times out of a hundred, even if their complaint united indignation, misinformation, and muddled thinking. If Hawkins likes to dine at the big-boy table, he should be able to answer this without histrionics. I've known plenty of coaches, and most would handle a situation like this with some dignity. His conduct reminds me of those who like to play the "free education card" excessively, rubbing it in and making it clear they think the kid couldn't possibly have gone to college if it weren't for his largesse.
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:17 PM on February 15
smithers: Oh, I just meant that dwelling on Huizinga would put a dent in any claims Gumbrecht has on a popular (or even semi-academic) audience. Sort of like the old saw about equations in popular science books: each one reduces its readership by half. There's nothing wrong with the old grad-school staple itself. FWIW, David Foster Wallace's essay on Federer might be a nice companion piece to this. I'd like to see McEnroe's game analyzed in the same way--especially his matches back in the wooden-racquet era. Watch a rainy-day replay of one of his old Wimbledon matches sometime. After some of his best shots--the ones where he manipulates pace, angle, depth, and spin in the most unexpected ways--there's often a moment of silence from the crowd before they cheer. They're surprised and delighted by the improvised beauty of it all.
posted by Uncle Toby at 09:14 AM on November 30
During his (rather perfunctory seeming) match v. Blake, ESPN flashed a graphic that showed his three-year record at something like 246-15. That has to qualify as one of the greatest modern-era runs in any sport, especially an individual sport. We're almost to "this is getting ridiculous" territory with Federer. Were it not for his stretch of consecutive losses to Nadal, there wouldn't be much to remember about men's tennis the last few years, other than Roger lifting one trophy after another. Although I personally prefer watching Roger's game to watching Nadal's, I hope the two trade victories now and then.
posted by Uncle Toby at 12:50 PM on November 21
My favorite comment on raising the hoop came from Kareem. Back in his Lew Alcindor days, he said they should go ahead and do it, as that would just increase his advantage. About the ball--do NBA players need one that encourages them to palm it even more? (Assuming that's a result of the increased tackiness.) I wonder if the NCAA will switch theirs, too? I always hated getting stuck with a ball that felt wrong--too slick; not slick enough; channels too wide/deep; something rattling inside; too heavy; a bulge; a leather ball that had been used on rough asphalt too much and had developed a weird "stubble." These dogs were either the sorry last resort of a bunch of guys with no alternative, or they were switcherooed into the game by some guy nobody wanted to confront. On preview: agreed, everett
posted by Uncle Toby at 11:21 PM on October 05
Epidemiology takes both individual and institutional behaviors into account, which makes me wonder which aspects of college athletics will influence the medical response to this development. Previously on SpoFi.
posted by Uncle Toby at 11:06 AM on September 01
So a picture of a black guy pulling gun on the diamond strikes you as only "a little awkward" as a comic-strip gag? And no stupider than gags about text messaging? And less bad because the strip is, generally, so unfunny and unpopular? Yep, there are both better and worse comics out there. Some, like Mallard Fillmore and B.C., go out of their way to talk about the world in inflammatory terms. That's their m.o. Others give us little narratives that sometimes touch on big issues with wit and a sense of scale. (I think Frazz is good at that, but ymmv.) I'm not a lifelong, avid Tank reader--this strip just kind of jumped out at me Sunday morning--so I don't know if it often takes up such topics and deploys such imagery. It just seemed worth noting that a sports-themed comic would think a black athlete pulling a gun is an acceptable way to exaggerate a cultural disconnect.
posted by Uncle Toby at 01:16 PM on July 31
I'm not trying to race-bait the good people of SpoFi. Neither am I suggesting that anyone goes to Tank McNamara for anything like insight on the role of race in sport. The cartoonists were obviously drawing a, well, cartoonish picture of clashing generations and cultures in baseball. BUT, it is appalling, no?
posted by Uncle Toby at 11:40 AM on July 31
Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al is worth an afternoon in an easy chair. A nice counterweight to The Natural, in a way. While visiting a small-town library, I ran across a bunch of instantly-recognizable, olden-style "sports biographies for boys." I remembered reading the ones on Williams, DiMaggio, Cobb, etc., so I flipped through a few. Nice little nostalgia trip, with plenty of smiles at their always-sunny portraits, even of infernal jackasses like Cobb. As a kid, I spent plenty of otherwise empty summer days browsing the (I think) 1976 Baseball Encyclopedia. I liked looking for players who had put in, say, a dozen games in 1909. That the BE had seen fit to include them was somehow reassuring. I'd like that copy back, but it was lost in a move, IIRC.
posted by Uncle Toby at 10:04 AM on July 19
Ah. Well, spot-on, in that case. Apologies for the misread.
posted by Uncle Toby at 09:19 AM on March 28
When will Federer stop being perfect? More often than not, whenever Nadal is across the net. In this Tennis Mailbag (second page; why no permalinks to specific questions?), Wertheim explains some tactics players are figuring out. Good catch!
posted by Uncle Toby at 09:01 AM on March 28
Wertheim says that tour officials told him no player would be excluded on this basis. Is that good enough? He calls their "situational ethics" into question, citing the fact that Dubai is a major sponsor of the tour. Are there other major sporting events that face this kind of situation?
posted by Uncle Toby at 12:35 PM on March 02
It's to bad for the Dungy's how deep they are into faith. . . . Sorry Dungy's my prayers go out to you. Your sincerity is your most winning feature. After your editing skills, of course.
posted by Uncle Toby at 07:12 PM on February 17
1) Just anecdotal, but people around Iowa City tell me Alford is not very well-liked there. 2) The Hawks are having a damn good run this year, but I don't know if there's much in the tank for next year. 3) Iowa fans' expectations are often just as unrealistic as anybody's. Would he rather get skewered in Bloomington or Iowa City? These factors suggest that a move might appeal to Alford. Whether IU really wants him is an open question. Prior to this year, I've heard him called "Mr November" plenty: good teams early in the season, but they flame out later. FWIW, a lot of Iowa folks I talk to wouldn't mind seeing Alford go so the Hawks could poach Greg McDermott from Northern Iowa. He's an Iowa boy with an up-and-comer's resume that includes several wins over Alford.
posted by Uncle Toby at 04:00 PM on February 17
Are they trying to bury this franchise, or what?
posted by Uncle Toby at 10:20 AM on February 08
Instead Ebert and Roeper would be thumbs-upping "Birth Of A Nation II: Rupp Strikes Back." I bet Roger would be sleeping on the couch after that one, though.
posted by Uncle Toby at 11:28 PM on January 12
"They don't want to play smash-mouth football, they want to trick you. Yeah, that Bob Sanders especially. I wish he'd just hit someone for once.
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:34 PM on January 12
The football season is about to release the nation's colleges to the pursuit of education, more or less. Soon the last nickel will be rung up at the gate, the last halfback will receive his check, and the last alumnus will try to pay off those bets he can recall. Most of the students have cheered themselves into insensibility long ago. This has been going on for almost fifty years. It is called "over-emphasis" on athletics, and everybody deplores it. It has been the subject of scores of reports, all of them shocking. It has been held to be crass professionalism, all the more shameful because it masquerades as higher education. But nobody has done anything about it. Why? I think it is because nobody wants to. Nobody wants, or dares, to defy the public, dishearten the students, or deprive alma mater of the loyalty of the alumni. Most emphatically at all, nobody wants to give up the gate receipts. The trouble with football is the money that is in it, and every code of amateurism ever written has failed for this reason. "Gate Receipts and Glory," Robert Maynard Hutchins (1938)That's how Hutchins begins his piece. He goes on to recommend taking the money out of athletics by charging one thin dime to the games. The less money is in question, the more rational the colleges' behavior. As impossible in his day as in ours. But it's an intriguing notion. On preview, nicely said, l_b_b
posted by Uncle Toby at 08:40 AM on December 06
I only watched a few minutes the second half, which promised to be nothing more than more of the same. How did the fans react? The few boos I heard seemed kind of half-hearted, too. Did they show a little "Philly spirit" at any point? As for the Seahawks, it seemed like every time the camera zoomed in on a guy, he had a big smile on his face.
posted by Uncle Toby at 08:16 AM on December 06
UT can beat the Texans Today. Charming thought, but I seriously doubt it. The Texans are not a successful pro team at all, but the level of their competition is a good deal higher than the longhorns, isn't it? For my part, I wonder if the Texans' second string doesn't pound USC, the Longhorns, and any college team ever. On topic: Drafting/trading for team needs vs for the gate is a false dilemma, no? Draft or trade for team needs and the gate will take care of itself, though maybe on a slightly longer schedule. See: Patriots, New England and Colts, Indianapolis.
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:19 PM on November 23
The best part about this thread so far is that it's been going like 45 minutes and nobody has mentioned that the link goes nowhere. No one bothered to click through before commenting, I guess.
posted by Uncle Toby at 04:47 PM on November 07
>They can and do--they just dont play football! >>Is this your considered opinion after running the numbers? >if you know the numbers-i will run them I'm not the one making blanket statements about what certain groups can/can't/do/don't do. You're suggesting that African-American players who fit the Academy's standards don't play football. Is that notion based on anecdotes, data, or what?
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:32 PM on October 26
They can and do--they just dont play football! Is this your considered opinion after running the numbers?
posted by Uncle Toby at 12:34 PM on October 26
Tell the law prof. and the other whinners if they don't like the colors don't go in there. So if some prof at the UI College of Law routinely carries on about college football players who break the law, Kirk Ferentz can't express his reaction to it because he doesn't teach law? Of course she has the right to object if she finds it objectionable. If she finds it objectionable enough, she may even have the responsibility to make the issue public. Just because she doesn't have to visit the locker room doesn't mean she can't have and express an opinion about it. As for her having other things to do--I'm sure she's taking care of business. She's teaching at a well-regarded law school, so she probably has some game. At least she's not oblivious to or mute about things going on around her own campus. This is sort of like the NCAA mascot debacle, in that the original intent of those who chose the mascot or hue in question is not terribly relevant. In most quarters of American culture, pink means girly. So painting their locker room is, regardless of Hayden Fry's intent, the same thing as putting up a sign that reads, "We think you're girls." See lbb's comments above for more on that. NOW, I write all this as a lifelong Hawkeye fan. Grew up in Iowa City. Love Hayden Fry. Hope the Hawks make something of their (so-far) troubled season. And FWIW, I can say that anyone who knows the cultural climate of a campus town like Iowa City should not be surprised at this--it was only a matter of time.
posted by Uncle Toby at 01:36 PM on September 30
/unwarrented suspicion mode (Please)
posted by Uncle Toby at 05:44 AM on September 27
I don't understand this thinking that a football players time is so consumed by his sport that he has no time for classes. I don't understand that thinking either. But then, nobody here has said that players have *no* time. Case in point , Tim Green was an all-American in football, was a Rhodes scholar, became a pro football player, teacher, lawyer, novelist and NFL commentator . Using a superhuman resume like that as a benchmark for ordinary people seems unrealistic. That's like saying Superman flies, sees through walls, lifts giant boulders, AND finds time to write for the Daily Planet, so obviously reporters should stop complaining about their deadlines.
posted by Uncle Toby at 03:47 PM on September 16
SI's Jon Wertheim mentioned that he'd like to see more players apply the "play at the server's pace" rule, meaning they can serve when they please, even if the other player is busy toweling off their face for 45 seconds between points. Sounds fine to me. That wouldn't solve the injury timeout gamesmanship tactic, though, which seems like the sort of thing a wily vet does to a Russian hottie.
posted by Uncle Toby at 08:30 PM on September 12
This was a very fun tournament to watch. The great thing about Federer is that he's just as entertaining to watch when he's winning big--variety and execution without peer. He's right up there with the best pure shotmakers ever. Others that leap to mind, among players I've watched several times: Agassi, McEnroe, Marcelo Rios, Henri LeConte. Almost any decent pro will make shots that boggle the mind of a hacker like me, but these were guys whose every matched seemed to include a couple of highlight-reel specials. I don't think he's the "greatest ever" yet, either--that's an adjective that sums up a player's career, at least in my own personal usage. But I will say that at his best, his game is the best I've ever seen.
posted by Uncle Toby at 02:49 PM on September 12
dyams, I'm glad you're doing that kind of good work. I know a little bit about those kind of situations, as I've had similar jobs. My quarrel is with the notion that blue-chippers are usually punks and thugs. (As well as the reverse, which was actually the original statement: the punks and thugs are usually the blue-chippers.) I take "thug" to mean "criminal." Yes, lots of talented kids come from troubled or troubling backgrounds, and some of them behave badly even after they get to college. But are "dazzling hoops skills" really good predictors of antisocial behavior? Also, lots of athletes are on partial scholarship, especially if they're eligible for things like a Pell Grant. And those who are eligible for a PG are generally pretty poor, so supplying them with basketball shoes (a tool of their trade, btw) doesn't exactly free up a lot of funds. Money for other shoes tends to come out of the same funds tapped by the rest of us. For that matter, I've known plenty of athletes who wound up taking out student loans because their grants-in-aid didn't quite cover everything.
posted by Uncle Toby at 03:51 PM on August 17
Unfortunately, it's the "punks and thugs" that usually have the most dazzling hoop skills. Usually? Really? On what basis are you making this generalization?
posted by Uncle Toby at 08:47 AM on August 17
Those are great pieces. Thanks for pointing to them.
posted by Uncle Toby at 11:47 AM on August 16
Damn . . . I hope it doesn't turn out too bad for those guys. That looked terrible. I agree that there seem to be a lot of them this year, though who knows if it's really above average. The collisions puzzle me a bit--don't they do the old "I got it I got it!" anymore, or doesn't the other guy hear it, or do they get tunnel-vision when they're going for the ball and not see the other guy with their peripheral vision, or what?
posted by Uncle Toby at 08:49 AM on August 12
Moore has filed a civil suit in Denver naming Bertuzzi, former Canucks forward Brad May, Canucks coach Marc Crawford, former GM Brian Burke and Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment, which owns the team. mel, is that what you meant when you said "I guess if the man himself hurt holds nothing against"?
posted by Uncle Toby at 04:32 PM on August 08
Hey, slimfire and/or gr8--why not have a go at explaining what you think is "fucked up" about Baghdad Basketball? Did you really mean that, or was that a weak pose? You have a chance to express at length what you find fascinating about it--now go ahead and take that chance. I think you'll find doing that is a lot harder than just posting something you know lots of people will find insulting and then making smartass remarks about their point of view.
posted by Uncle Toby at 05:06 PM on August 04
The fourth major league game I ever saw in person, I was in uniform Wow . . . I wonder how common that is? And whether it's more common in some sports than others?
posted by Uncle Toby at 08:14 AM on August 02
(You know that's what I trying to point out, right, lbb? I mean, the admittedly weak joke there was that her legs are not exactly overlooked or underdiscussed.)
posted by Uncle Toby at 03:23 PM on July 28
Not only is she a good tennis player but she has some great legs. See, that's why I love SpoFi--it's full of folks who are willing to say what the rest of the world conveniently "overlooks."
posted by Uncle Toby at 12:12 PM on July 28
I hope she turns out like Roger Federer, whose mental game was a couple of years behind his incredible physical gifts. Like everyone else is saying, let's see her crush the field in some contests with her peers--maybe that'll help her develop that kill-or-be-killed mentality so helpful in later rounds.
posted by Uncle Toby at 11:52 AM on July 15
Des Moines Marathon Delayed by Train
I know someone who was there. He said it was the dumbest thing he's ever seen at a big race. Turns out the organizers had sent the route to the railroad and they said no problem. Apparently, the matter slipped their minds day of the event!