Wednesday, January 28, 2009

For Matt. F.: Basketball Follow-Up

Here's the information missing from the first article I posted on the lopsided victory of a gaggle of basketball girls.

And while it is that the girls beat a team of others with "learning differences" (from first article), those girls with learning differences were not suffering from anything debilitating; e.g., dyslexia, ADHD, etc. They were more than capable of playing basketball at an equal level to the team that beat them.

5 comments:

matt.f said...

I still see it differently. The article mentions that "spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points." That seems more like bragging rights to me, instead of a sign of good sportsmanship. In my mind, a good coach would have recognized that the other team was outmatched and maybe made some changes in his lineup. He could have moved his forwards to guard, brought in his bench warmers, etc. It would have strengthened his own players and given the other team at least somewhat of a chance. The best part is that Dallas Academy would have been none the wiser. I dunno, Grimes still comes off as a douchebag.

Unknown said...

Well, Matt, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the game. While I politely disagree with you, I do conclude in a bit of an off-handed way that it is only a game. I figure anybody getting bent out-of-shape about winning or losing has missed the point in the end: to compete for fun, and physical enjoyment. Making a franchise out of sports, or firing people for unrepentant superiority at the game just seems to me to be what I've noted: an object of cynicism.

I'm a heckler when it comes to sports. But I'm the worst kind of heckler: I heckle both sides of the competition, and I heckle the industry altogether,

Unknown said...

Oh, and Matt: my wife agrees more with you than me. She has a deeper appreciation for sports than I do, and is less cynical about these sorts of things, overall.

I guess when it comes to sports, I'm just a jerk. Maybe one day I'll be able to figure out how to appreciate them more. For now, the whole industry just seems overblown and ridiculous, to me.

matt.f said...

Christopher said: For now, the whole industry just seems overblown and ridiculous, to me.

Well I couldn't agree more. Personally, I have no taste for sports whatsoever. However, I recognize that they can serve a useful purpose, when, ah, the coach isn't a big jerk.

Craig said...

The part about the disabilities actually was in the first article. It also says that the school has been playing for years without ever winning a game. As far as the disabilities not being severe, well they are obviously severe enough to cause the girls to be placed in an alternative school.
I don't know that the players are at fault, but I question more the logic of the organizers of this event. Is this supposed to promote some kind of positive effect? Maybe they're trying to give the girls a taste of what they can expect from the "real world", as people call it, when they graduate?