Bumblin' B's

[wilburt]

AndOne:

Contrary to your emotional rants, I totally understand your comments and the concept of sportsmanship.

I do not like your attitude nor how you express your opinions.  That is what I have a problem with.  Calling the Coach an ass and other disparaging terms, referring to the game played as like gangsta ball, and calling me a neanderthal is not very tame as opposed to calling an ignorant person like you "stupid"!       

It's fine to have opinions and strong ones at that, but the constant name calling and allowing me to goat you into further name calling clearly reflects YOUR lack of class (by having to revert to name calling) because I'm sure your parents taught you better!

[diehardfan]

First of all, I want to say that I think that PETA and Greenpeace are crazy psychotic organizations full of hypocrites who value life less than the people they hate so much. With that out of the way…

Secondly, I know that there are probably two people who are going to read this. But hey, if I make it really boring, maybe it will scare off the stalkers. LOL! The main points are highlighted. If you don’t understand, please email me rather that insulting/speculating my supposed opinion... I really had good reasons for stopping posting. Frustrating me into posting is a creative technique, but it's not going to work in the long run. 

But I also feel that there are parallels between how you act and how you carry yourself in something like a basketball game and how you act and how you carry yourself in life.  If someone would completely humiliate his fellow man on the basketball court, which, seemingly, has little to know real bearing on his existance, how will he treat his fellow man in life?  Will he carry though life believing that, just because he can trample someone, he should? 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not even going to begin to say that every participant should recieve the same sized trophy and everybody should get a ribon and a cookie just for participating, but, even in victory, if you carry yourself with humility and grace instead of pompus personal pride and arrogance, then it will affect those around you in a positive way, not a negative one, and it will carry over into life... it will breed leaders who don't think it's their God-given right to lord themselves over those who are below them, rather that they, as leaders, are there to serve, not to crack the slave-driver's whip.

Perhaps this is all a stretch, but then again, maybe it's not.

That’s some good stuff right there. Your wife is a good influence on you. Hehe...

In the context of sports I get pretty darn upset about people with bad sportsmanship... because I do think it translates into how they behave toward their fellow man later in life. Note how my original message on the daily dose started with that preface. I was trying (obviously unsuccessfully) to contextualize my remarks. My point had several parts, that were obviously not clearly delineated. My points were only these, and not any of the other things that people have speculated (though I do admit that David has a relatively remarkably good ability to figure out my hasty jumble of words!)

1) I acknowledged the strong real life effects that coaches have on their player’s character. As a former athlete I have experienced first hand the effects of good and bad coaches on my actions and thinking. I’ve had coaches that made me feel worthless and inadequate, and others that inspired me to try harder. My father is a Tae Kwon Do Grandmaster, and my family has owned a Tae Kwon Do School for longer than I’ve been alive. For years I have seen first hand the affect that he has had on incredibly troubled “at risk” children, by instilling discipline, perseverance, confidence, self control, respect for authority, etc. I’ve seen kids who are failing out of school, and who turn around under his teaching. Does school directly relate to the martial arts? Well, no, not exactly, but twenty years later we have students coming back and attributing their successful careers and family life to my father and the lessons he taught them as a child. Obviously lessons learned in sports translate into the rest of life. This is why I love Point Special’s post so much. I personally thought that this should be obvious to people, and that’s why I didn’t spend a lot of time on it… it was just a preface to the rest of my statements.

2) If we use the really strong adjectives to describe something like our frustration with basketball, it will diminish our ability to adequately describe real evil. Yes, the character we exhibit when faced with relatively small things shapes how we will respond to the bigger things when we encounter them. But words are powerful. If the Lincoln thing is an abomination... then what are poverty and oppression? What words are left? As a little background on this, I did a weird experiment on myself in high school, where I stopped watching movies rated over PG for a year. What I found was that when I watched the news, I cried at the tragedies it showed… they became more real to me. There's no way to describe it... it's just how it is. Desensitizing is real. I think that by not being careful about the words we choose and way that we think about things, it will make very important lines, like the difference between what was genuinely bad sportsmanship on the part of Lincoln and poverty a little more blurry than they should be.

3)I am NOT in any way trivializing this issue.  Sportsmanship is very important, and as I stated in #1 I have experience the reality of that first hand. I do get genuinely upset when players are cocky, or the crowd is crass, or the coach is offensive… that's why I bothered to list all those thing reflect bad sportsmanship... they matter to me. I am sure that much more than 100 of my 4000+ posts on this board specifically mention my issues with the sportsmanship of Wheaton and other programs I’ve seen over the years. I have very high standards on this issue, and I think it’s important in this context.

4) Although this isn’t in my initial post, I want to make it clear that I definitely think that there is a place for being fans of a sport. I love Wheaton sports. We all need time to distress and have fun. My reading of this site is one of the many ways that I do that. You guys don’t need to know all my hobbies, but I have a lot of them, and only very few of them have anything to do with saving humanity.

5) At the same time, my post was also a playful little jab at all the people who spend sooooo much time arguing about basketball which is relatively trivial, when there are bigger issues at stake. With 4000+ posts and 25hours logged on this site, and you know, the whole insane fact that I am creating a Wheaton basketball fansite… that obviously was intended to be a big huge jab at myself!  It’s important to take anything that happens and compare it to the big picture. It keeps the emotions a little more moderated, and the insults towards others a little more tempered.

6) Also in there was a call for a humility. The action of the Lincoln team did represents bad sportsmanship, sure. My gut reaction was similar to many of you… But there are issues in our own programs as well, issues that should both give us humility and treat this mistake with the kindness we could like our programs to receive when we mess up. The student fans acting crass and drunk and swearing in front of kids bothers me a lot. There are very few schools that I’ve been too that I’d feel comfortable taking my kids to when I grow up (and obviously, I’m gonna want to brainwash them into being Wheaton fans so this is important!!! ) The problems in our own programs are also the ones that we are more likely to be able to make an effective difference in. A wise teacher once said that it was better to remove the plank in our own eye than the speck in our neighbors. Even if we only have a speck and our neighbor has a plank, won’t removing the speck in our eyes first help us see better to help remove their plank? This obviously doesn’t mean that we aren’t supposed to be doing anything about sportsmanship… it just means that we should discuss the issue of sportsmanship with the same humility that we expect out of any player, coach or program we want to exhibit good sportsmanship.

And well, I really don’t have time to type any more, so hopefully that makes things clear enough that people aren’t annoyed any more. 

[wilburt]

Diehardfan you have given me something to definitely think about, contrary to your colleagues AndOne and DCHopeNUT!  They just want to rant, rave and try to poke fun and belittle people. 

Thanks again and if I am one of the two people then so be it!

Well stated sir.

[ChicagoHopeNut]

Wilburt, How did I rant or rave in response to your comments. Or your links to someone else's comments actually. I disagree with the way Lincoln played but I can find value in the reasoned arguments as to why a coach would not coach his team to play a different style even in a game where they had an insurmountable lead. However, I took offense to your suggestion that Lincoln is being criticized because of the race of its coach and players. Comments like that are insulting to everyone on this board.

[ChicagoHopeNut]

Diehardfan you have given me something to definitely think about, contrary to your colleagues AndOne and DCHopeNUT!  They just want to rant, rave and try to poke fun and belittle people. 

Thanks again and if I am one of the two people then so be it!

Well stated sir.

If anyone is belittling anyone, it is you belittling me. It is you who have changed the capitalization of my name to suggest I am a "NUT" rather than DCHopeNut. Or it could be the demeaning manner in which you labeled my "insightful comments."

[wilburt]

So I guess we are even now (DCHOPENUT) - in that we have taken offense to what the other has said.  As for anything I've said or quoted being offensive to everyone on this board I would say this:  Just speak for yourself and not presumably for everyone else.  When you assume you know what happens?

[ChicagoHopeNut]

Good Job Lincoln University.  Forget "AndOne" and his stupid @$$ comments.  If Grinnell had done the same thing they would be singing their praises! 

Go Lincoln...  And check out this article!

http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_02355.shtml

Wilburt, I am not entirely sure what I did that so belittled you. Except to take offense to the above post that most logically can only be interpretted as suggesting that the main reason the posters on this board were criticizing Lincoln was because most of their players (or all, I am not sure) are African-American. The combination of the article you link to and the comment about Grinnell leads to this conclusion. I am also not the only one to interpret this post this way.

If that was not your meaning I'd like to publicly apologize for reading it wrong and upsetting you with my response. But would ask what exactly you did mean with this post.

[sunny]

DHF,

I agree with you whole-heartedly.  There is a a disturbing practice by "talking heads" in the sports media (which trickles down to Joe and Jane Sportsfan) that things like Lincoln scoring 201 points, gratuitous end zone celebrations, etc., etc., are much bigger deals than they actually are.  The language I have read in several posts both on the boards and on the Daily Dose makes it seem as if one basketball team running up the score on another is about one of the worst possible things that could happen in the world.  Language is a powerful tool; I wish people would use it more wisely.

I am also in complete agreement with you about the other sportsmanship issues in sports that seem to be accepted or at least largely ignored.  It's sad when I think a student section that chants "You Suck" instead of dropping f-bombs or mocking a player's appearance or family is well-behaved.  I honestly can't believe people take young children to collegiate and professional sporting events any more - you are often running the risk of putting them into an environment less child-friendly and less civil than a rowdy bar. 

I am sure there are many posters who have decried Lincoln's 201 points who exhibit great class as fans.  I'm also sure that there are some who bash Lincoln but yet somehow think buying a ticket (or in the case of some places, getting in for free) entitles them to act without common civility or decency for two hours.

[ChicagoHopeNut]

DHF, Sunny, and all who addressed the issue of what words we use to treat sports events.

I would suggest there is another way of looking at this issue. While many of us have used strong adjectives to describe our thoughts on the Lincoln game I am pretty confident we all (I know I feel this way) realize that it is just a game. Inside the little world of d3hoops what happened may have been a disappointing display of sportsmanship and so we use strong words. But we also recognize that "disappointing, despicable, classless" can be used in this context and not carry nearly the same meaning as they would in a conversation over poverty, famine, war, etc.

One view is using strong words on a basketball game is that it diminishes the meaning of those words in other conversations.

The other view is that we are all mature and educated enough to know that those words can carry different meanings when we are talking about basketball as opposed to famine, poverty, etc.

Plus, if we were always limited to the sort of words whose importance most equates to a basketball game we'd all never be able to use more exciting adjectives than 'happy.' 

[AndOne]

AndOne:

Contrary to your emotional rants, I totally understand your comments and the concept of sportsmanship.

I do not like your attitude nor how you express your opinions.  That is what I have a problem with.  Calling the Coach an ass and other disparaging terms, referring to the game played as like gangsta ball, and calling me a neanderthal is not very tame as opposed to calling an ignorant person like you "stupid"!       

It's fine to have opinions and strong ones at that, but the constant name calling and allowing me to goat you into further name calling clearly reflects YOUR lack of class (by having to revert to name calling) because I'm sure your parents taught you better!

Good Job Lincoln University.  Forget "AndOne" and his stupid @$$ comments.  If Grinnell had done the same thing they would be singing their praises! 

Go Lincoln...  And check out this article!

http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_02355.shtml

Wilburt----

It seems like you are changing horses in the middle of the stream. You start things, but then can't handle the consequences. I'm sure I'm not the only one who believes the Lincoln coach acted like an ass in allowing his players to play what can very aptly be called gangster ball---beating your opponent senseless when you've already knocked him down. Is this how Lincoln's players are going to treat others when they don't have basketball to use as an outlet any longer?

Lastly, the most despicable act of all may have been your inclusion of the article about the black athlete. Was that done to support your contention we shouldn't crucify Lincoln because they're black?
Other posters seem to have the same question.

[wilburt]

THIS IS JUST TO ANDONE.  I'LL GET TO THE REST OF YOU LATER (IF I HAVE TIME).

AndOne look at the strong use of your choice of words here.  You have used "despicable", "crucify", "ass" "gangsta ball" and other choice words to describe the behavior of a basketball team and its coach.  And you have described me as a neanderthal.   

YES, your comments specifically have a underlying racist tone to it.  It is one thing to say that the Lincoln Basketball team behavior was unsportsmanlike (that is fair criticism that I may or may not agree with) BUT it is quite another to say they need to be "crucified" and refer to student-athletes as "gangstas" (would you call the Grinnell team a bunch of gangstas if they did the same thing ).  In short, that is over the TOP and to paraphrase the use of one of your favorite words -  perhaps unsportsmanlike (or uncivil) on your part.   

But it (your comments and maybe one or two others) perhaps is a reflection of an undercurrent of racism in basketball and I cited an article to indicate that maybe I am not alone in that belief racism in basketball still exists in the minds of many!

DHF hit the nail on the head with his comments and I pretty much agree with him!   

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

(would you call the Grinnell team a bunch of gangstas if they did the same thing ). 

Actually the Grinnell team is a bunch of gangstas, don't let the high SAT scores and the fact that they go to school in Iowa fool you.  I've been there.  I know.

[Titan Q]

First of all, I want to say that I think that PETA and Greenpeace are crazy psychotic organizations full of hypocrites who value life less than the people they hate so much. With that out of the way...

Secondly, I know that there are probably two people who are going to read this. But hey, if I make it really boring, maybe it will scare off the stalkers. LOL! The main points are highlighted. If you don't understand, please email me rather that insulting/speculating my supposed opinion... I really had good reasons for stopping posting. Frustrating me into posting is a creative technique, but it's not going to work in the long run. 

But I also feel that there are parallels between how you act and how you carry yourself in something like a basketball game and how you act and how you carry yourself in life.  If someone would completely humiliate his fellow man on the basketball court, which, seemingly, has little to know real bearing on his existance, how will he treat his fellow man in life?  Will he carry though life believing that, just because he can trample someone, he should? 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not even going to begin to say that every participant should recieve the same sized trophy and everybody should get a ribon and a cookie just for participating, but, even in victory, if you carry yourself with humility and grace instead of pompus personal pride and arrogance, then it will affect those around you in a positive way, not a negative one, and it will carry over into life... it will breed leaders who don't think it's their God-given right to lord themselves over those who are below them, rather that they, as leaders, are there to serve, not to crack the slave-driver's whip.

Perhaps this is all a stretch, but then again, maybe it's not.

That's some good stuff right there. Your wife is a good influence on you. Hehe...

In the context of sports I get pretty darn upset about people with bad sportsmanship... because I do think it translates into how they behave toward their fellow man later in life. Note how my original message on the daily dose started with that preface. I was trying (obviously unsuccessfully) to contextualize my remarks. My point had several parts, that were obviously not clearly delineated. My points were only these, and not any of the other things that people have speculated (though I do admit that David has a relatively remarkably good ability to figure out my hasty jumble of words!)

1) I acknowledged the strong real life effects that coaches have on their player's character. As a former athlete I have experienced first hand the effects of good and bad coaches on my actions and thinking. I've had coaches that made me feel worthless and inadequate, and others that inspired me to try harder. My father is a Tae Kwon Do Grandmaster, and my family has owned a Tae Kwon Do School for longer than I've been alive. For years I have seen first hand the affect that he has had on incredibly troubled "at risk" children, by instilling discipline, perseverance, confidence, self control, respect for authority, etc. I've seen kids who are failing out of school, and who turn around under his teaching. Does school directly relate to the martial arts? Well, no, not exactly, but twenty years later we have students coming back and attributing their successful careers and family life to my father and the lessons he taught them as a child. Obviously lessons learned in sports translate into the rest of life. This is why I love Point Special's post so much. I personally thought that this should be obvious to people, and that's why I didn't spend a lot of time on it... it was just a preface to the rest of my statements.

2) If we use the really strong adjectives to describe something like our frustration with basketball, it will diminish our ability to adequately describe real evil. Yes, the character we exhibit when faced with relatively small things shapes how we will respond to the bigger things when we encounter them. But words are powerful. If the Lincoln thing is an abomination... then what are poverty and oppression? What words are left? As a little background on this, I did a weird experiment on myself in high school, where I stopped watching movies rated over PG for a year. What I found was that when I watched the news, I cried at the tragedies it showed... they became more real to me. There's no way to describe it... it's just how it is. Desensitizing is real. I think that by not being careful about the words we choose and way that we think about things, it will make very important lines, like the difference between what was genuinely bad sportsmanship on the part of Lincoln and poverty a little more blurry than they should be.

3)I am NOT in any way trivializing this issue.  Sportsmanship is very important, and as I stated in #1 I have experience the reality of that first hand. I do get genuinely upset when players are cocky, or the crowd is crass, or the coach is offensive... that's why I bothered to list all those thing reflect bad sportsmanship... they matter to me. I am sure that much more than 100 of my 4000+ posts on this board specifically mention my issues with the sportsmanship of Wheaton and other programs I've seen over the years. I have very high standards on this issue, and I think it's important in this context.

4) Although this isn't in my initial post, I want to make it clear that I definitely think that there is a place for being fans of a sport. I love Wheaton sports. We all need time to distress and have fun. My reading of this site is one of the many ways that I do that. You guys don't need to know all my hobbies, but I have a lot of them, and only very few of them have anything to do with saving humanity.

5) At the same time, my post was also a playful little jab at all the people who spend sooooo much time arguing about basketball which is relatively trivial, when there are bigger issues at stake. With 4000+ posts and 25hours logged on this site, and you know, the whole insane fact that I am creating a Wheaton basketball fansite... that obviously was intended to be a big huge jab at myself!  It's important to take anything that happens and compare it to the big picture. It keeps the emotions a little more moderated, and the insults towards others a little more tempered.

6) Also in there was a call for a humility. The action of the Lincoln team did represents bad sportsmanship, sure. My gut reaction was similar to many of you... But there are issues in our own programs as well, issues that should both give us humility and treat this mistake with the kindness we could like our programs to receive when we mess up. The student fans acting crass and drunk and swearing in front of kids bothers me a lot. There are very few schools that I've been too that I'd feel comfortable taking my kids to when I grow up (and obviously, I'm gonna want to brainwash them into being Wheaton fans so this is important!!! ) The problems in our own programs are also the ones that we are more likely to be able to make an effective difference in. A wise teacher once said that it was better to remove the plank in our own eye than the speck in our neighbors. Even if we only have a speck and our neighbor has a plank, won't removing the speck in our eyes first help us see better to help remove their plank? This obviously doesn't mean that we aren't supposed to be doing anything about sportsmanship... it just means that we should discuss the issue of sportsmanship with the same humility that we expect out of any player, coach or program we want to exhibit good sportsmanship.

And well, I really don't have time to type any more, so hopefully that makes things clear enough that people aren't annoyed any more. 

Well said, April.  I have a much better understanding of your position on all of this now.

[Pat Coleman]

They sent us a press release so I can post that:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Rob Knox, Assistant Athletics Director for Sports Information Management,
(610) 932-8300 ext. 3384


Lincoln's official statement on this past weekend's men's basketball game

Lincoln University of Pennsylvania has a long and proud tradition of excellence in
athletic competition and firmly embraces the principle of good sportsmanship.
Accordingly, it is with much regret the demonstration in opposition to that
principle by the men's basketball coaching staff in Saturday's game against Ohio
State University-Marion. It was an anomaly.

We have reiterated to our coaching staff the university's expectations concerning
athletic competition from opening to final whistle. Like all institutions that play
on the field of athletic competition, Lincoln University's ultimate goal in a game
is to win, but for Lion teams winning must occur with fair play and good
sportsmanship in focus.

As our teams move forward to the remainder of this athletic season and into the
future, they will display the principle of good sportsmanship in all its
ramifications.

Sincerely,


Alfonso Scandrett Jr.
Director of Athletics

[sac]

interesting press release, especially the part where they mention the coaching staff.