It takes all sorts of playing styles to please all sorts of people, especially when play is viewed as a continuum of styles — street ballers to balletic ballers, macho ballers to sissy ballers, break-the-rules ballers to strict-rules ballers. Choose your poison or choose your elixir, it all comes down to personal preference.
My own preference is informed by my experiences as a boy growing up in a basketball-loving town in Montana. When the weather was colder than hell outside, we all retreated to a hot, raucous gym to inflame our competitive home-town passions (and warm our applauding fingers). It was there that we watched our young players match their skills with players from other cities and towns from across the state.
It was pure fun! The game was played with all the skill and finesse that these teens could muster; and our team won the state championship three of the four years that I was in high school. We played against all sorts of communities from around the state — rodeo and ranch kids, small town and city kids, miner and smelter-worker kids, lumberjack and mountain kids, you name it. Many of these kids were from poor to average working-class families, some were from privilege.
The connecting element was these kids' desire to become better players and to beat the opposition. The underlying ethos that permitted the game to be played, though, was the rule of law, ie. the rulebook governing the play. Rules, plus the black-and-white-shirted referees who ensured that the rules were followed. Enforcement of the rules helped to provide a level playing field for those that wished to pit their skills, rather than their brawn, against one another.
The game was played below the rim, the coach often benched the gunner or the ball hog; it was a team sport played by team players who followed the rules (or they were relegated to watch from the sideline). Sure, there were outstanding, competitive players, but behind them, there was a team, and commitment to teamwork, an esprit de corp, which advanced the team.
The basketball court was where many young aspirants of the game learned the art of being an effective, cooperative citizen. In today's "me" or "win-at-any-cost" world, respect can be a vanishing value; fortunately for some however, it is still a model to behold.
That is why I love our women's basketball team and view with caution the team-hopping transfer portal and the ego-aspects of NIL profitability. And I’m not impressed by the macho testosterone display that has become the hallmark of men’s basketball. Maybe that is what women’s basketball is to become, as some might assert, but I see it as a fool’s paradise. The tendency for games to get out of control has never been more evident that in some of the games this year around the country that morphed into street brawls. I hope that the fights that broke out in women’s college basketball are just aberrations, and that the trend is met by a more powerful counter-wave of civility.
It is my hope that we can craft a game that melds competitiveness and cooperation within an ordered, respectful framework. That way, the game can become a microcosm of a civil society, and can inspire more humanness in its participants, both players and fans. I see this potential in the fans seated at Maples who seem to truly love our players and coaches, and who seem to truly love this simple sport inspired by someone, with time on his hands, trying to throw a ball into a fruit basket mounted on a pole.
My own preference is informed by my experiences as a boy growing up in a basketball-loving town in Montana. When the weather was colder than hell outside, we all retreated to a hot, raucous gym to inflame our competitive home-town passions (and warm our applauding fingers). It was there that we watched our young players match their skills with players from other cities and towns from across the state.
It was pure fun! The game was played with all the skill and finesse that these teens could muster; and our team won the state championship three of the four years that I was in high school. We played against all sorts of communities from around the state — rodeo and ranch kids, small town and city kids, miner and smelter-worker kids, lumberjack and mountain kids, you name it. Many of these kids were from poor to average working-class families, some were from privilege.
The connecting element was these kids' desire to become better players and to beat the opposition. The underlying ethos that permitted the game to be played, though, was the rule of law, ie. the rulebook governing the play. Rules, plus the black-and-white-shirted referees who ensured that the rules were followed. Enforcement of the rules helped to provide a level playing field for those that wished to pit their skills, rather than their brawn, against one another.
The game was played below the rim, the coach often benched the gunner or the ball hog; it was a team sport played by team players who followed the rules (or they were relegated to watch from the sideline). Sure, there were outstanding, competitive players, but behind them, there was a team, and commitment to teamwork, an esprit de corp, which advanced the team.
The basketball court was where many young aspirants of the game learned the art of being an effective, cooperative citizen. In today's "me" or "win-at-any-cost" world, respect can be a vanishing value; fortunately for some however, it is still a model to behold.
That is why I love our women's basketball team and view with caution the team-hopping transfer portal and the ego-aspects of NIL profitability. And I’m not impressed by the macho testosterone display that has become the hallmark of men’s basketball. Maybe that is what women’s basketball is to become, as some might assert, but I see it as a fool’s paradise. The tendency for games to get out of control has never been more evident that in some of the games this year around the country that morphed into street brawls. I hope that the fights that broke out in women’s college basketball are just aberrations, and that the trend is met by a more powerful counter-wave of civility.
It is my hope that we can craft a game that melds competitiveness and cooperation within an ordered, respectful framework. That way, the game can become a microcosm of a civil society, and can inspire more humanness in its participants, both players and fans. I see this potential in the fans seated at Maples who seem to truly love our players and coaches, and who seem to truly love this simple sport inspired by someone, with time on his hands, trying to throw a ball into a fruit basket mounted on a pole.