Night of TV + Kelly Tilghman and "That Word"

Wow, what a night of TV on Sunday! I was yelling at the TV half the night--couldn't believe what I was seeing. Hey, it's not every day that you see that on TV! I couldn't stop cheering and yelling out "Talk British to me, baby" and "Say something I don't understand! Then say it again! And purse those perky lips while you're doing it, and adjust your petticoat!" I mean, a Jane Austen adaptation I've never seen before, with an attractive actress playing the part of Catherine Morland? Northanger Abbey was on PBS, and Felicity Jones did not make me angry one bit! Oh, the football games were all right too.

Ha-ha, I've always wanted to pull a dumb routine like that on this blog. Anyway, on to more relevant topics. Recently, bloggers such as D-Wil , Michael David Smith, Awful Announcing, and The Starting Five have been covering the Kelly Tilghman story and aftermath as a serious incident. However, other bloggers and writers are brushing off Kelly Tilghman's use of lynching to refer to how the other players could stop Tiger Woods. (For an amusing parody on such efforts, see here--highly recommended!). They are referring to it as a mere slip of the tongue, an understandable lapse given how long commentators must opine on live TV. However, what bothers me is that I think we may have gotten a glance at Kelly Tilghman's heart, what she really thinks. And no, this is not an effort to pile on a woman who already has received her punishment and criticism. The reason is I have a Kelly-esque story of my own about a slip of the tongue.

It was my sophomore year at a small, mostly white high school (35 kids in grades 9-12), and I was on the basketball team. That is, they let me wear a uniform because they had no other players; don't think I was any good. We were a suburban school, and we went into the inner city to play an all-black Christian school. They were taller and more athletic than us, but we had a secret weapon that we did not fully appreciate until that night. Our 5'7" senior shooting guard, Ricky, who had ridiculous hops (could 360 dunk a volleyball) and a quick first step, decided to try to save our season. He went head-to-head with their athletes, scoring 30+ despite being double-teamed often, and we only lost by 4. Moral victories do exist. We won our next 15? games in a row after that loss.

Anyway, in the locker room after the game, one of my fellow bench scrubs and I were conversing in awed tones about the athleticism of the black players and the boisterous nature of their fans. He said something like "Wow, those guys looked tough and mean--it was a good thing Ricky was on tonight!" I said back "Yeah, I was kind of scared they'd pull a gun on us on the way back to the locker room!" Suddenly, our only black player, a freshman, spoke up. He said "You mean you thought they'd pull a gun because they were black, don't you?" I tried to stammer out that since it was in the middle of the inner city, I thought there would be tough people there, but he gave me a look. He said something else to correct me (I can't recall what, it was a while ago), and let it go.

You know what? My heart's thoughts were revealed when I said that. Why didn't I just say "beat us up" instead of "pull a gun"? Why did I go the extra mile and say something that made no sense in context with the situation? I said it because in my heart, there was an equation that said tall muscular black people + inner city = gang members. And when the left side of the equation came up in conversation, I spoke up and revealed the right side of that heart equation.

The saddest part was, I was completely wrong in this case. That team was one of the classiest teams we played all year, and they made sure to praise our shooting guard after the game for his amazing performance. But I was too busy thinking about size and skin color and the inner city to see the truth. Ironically, later in the year, a scary, violent incident did happen after a game. We walked out of the locker room to see a fan putting one of our star players in a choke hold. Of course (you can't make this stuff up), the fan was a white country boy. So much for me being able to determine the real threats to our team...

My point in telling this lengthy story? It's not about slips of the tongue. It's about a person's heart being revealed. My concern is that what Kelly said revealed a little piece of her heart. It's not that she herself would ever consider lynching a black man, any more than teenage me would ever consider exchanging gun fire with black gangsters. It's that she has been in situations and environments where biased words were said about black people, and she let those concepts get into her heart without questioning the speakers or the ideas. The Golf Channel was right to suspend her for a little while.

I don't want her fired. Lord knows that there's plenty of hate and wrong thinking in all of our hearts, so why should she suffer because hers was on TV? But for the last time, this issue isn't about "sensitivity" or "Sharpton" or "slip of the tongue"; it's about our souls and the sadness and sin that resides within each of us. We don't just need greater racial sensitivity, although that would be a nice start. We need a true soul-cleansing, one and all. I'd say more, but I don't preach without taking an offering, ha, so I'll let it go for now.

For you brave souls who read this far, a treat; watch Mehmet Okur play the old "I'm tired and I need to wipe sweat off my face...AFTER I DUNK ON YOU!" trick. I love playing this trick myself in pick-up ball...only, it's more like a lay-up, and I trip over my own shoes while trying to convert. But other than that, exactly the same!

Pure Sports: Team Juggling, Part 2

Hi all. I was going to either write the next installment in the "Controversy" series or post my interview with a WNBA player. However, both are not quite ready for posting. So please check back next week for the good stuff. Also, I wanted to introduce you to Brad's blog on pickup basketball. He wrote an article about 10 classic fouls in pick-up basketball that you should read. Don't forget the other blog that features significant pick-up basketball content, basketbawful. Also, check out Dan's video of a crazy Red Sox fan (are there any other kinds? ha) at his site.

Last juggling video of the summer series, promise. To update you on the last series, Vova and Olga do not juggle as a team together anymore. Thus, Vova was considering juggling with Kristina instead, seen in the videos below. In the end that too fell through. But these videos exist, and it's too bad it didn't work out. Kristina does some throws that I hadn't seen Olga do in the videos. I think it helps that Vova and Kristina are of similar height.

Pure Sports: Team Jugglers, Part 1

Ok, you all are going to laugh, but yes, I found so many good team juggling videos that I had to split this in half.

Leapfrogging to continue juggling (very short video):


Vova and Olga Galchenko do a promo in army gear with overdone Russian accents:


Vova and Olga Galchenko on the Today Show, juggling clubs over Al Roker (last minute):


Watch the foot passes to start this video, stay for the through-the-legs and behind- the-back passes.

Pure Sports: Female Jugglers

Two more juggling posts at least, reader. I know, I know, but really, there's not much else going on, and like I said, I'm rather busy nowadays. I don't have cable, so I can't give you insightful analysis of the WNBA play-offs.

I find it oddly soothing to sit back and watch the pins/balls rotate in the air to music. This one is for the female jugglers that I found on Youtube, and then I'll have two more for male jugglers and team jugglers at some point. Juggling seems to be a sport where women might be able to beat men, because of the emphasis on touch and control. I'm not sure, but I believe women are a little better at precise handiwork than men, based on scientific studies? Anyway, take a look and see if you think you could do as well.
Before I show off just how good the Russian girl is at this, here's an American girl juggling to impress her juggler boyfriend.


Caution: The following video is rated "A" for adorable. Olga Galchenko, 6 years old, juggling 3 balls at once. I can't do that now. More info about her and her brother, the juggling prodigies, at Wikipedia and Time



Olga attended circus school in Russia, where she was trained quite well in her juggling. 12 years old. Kick-up into 5 clubs. What's that? Watch.


5 clubs, on a unicycle:


5 clubs, while doing a split. Watch the end. Ouch! ha.


Here's a longer video of her practicing her solo act, still 12.


Olga and her brother then got "extraordinary talent" visas to come to the US. Olga is 17 now, starting college somewhere in the US. As always, check http://www.galchenko.com for more. Here's her act at 15 at the World Juggling Federation competition:

Pure Sports: Ballin' at the Graveyard

I already got in my Wednesday post yesterday, but here's a little something in case I can't get back to my computer this week. Check out ballinatthegraveyard.com; it's a documentary (in progress) on pickup ball at a basketball court in Albany, New York. Here are a few clips; language warning applies here. I'd love to play there sometime.

AV Wednesday: Pure Sports

Every so often, I like to post videos that don't have anything to do with professional athletes. I call those videos "pure sports" as they are of competition from the D III college level on down. Here are two videos of amateur athletes in action.

The first is of Andy, a reporter for his high school, getting pulverized while trying to return a female volleyball player's spikes. Yes, I think this is funny:


The second is of a girl's basketball team in Greece. I'm not sure what the ages are, but what I did notice is that the quality of play is improving in women's basketball leagues. Some of those moves or shots I would have some trouble executing; I haven't been always able to say that in the past.

Pure Sport: Bambiball

As you've probably figured out by now, I'm not just going to talk about the big three pro sports. Time to pay respect to a girl who has some great soccer tricks. She goes by the alias "Bambiball". I first found out about her from Google Video. I especially appreciate the foot-dragging trick to bring a soccer ball off the ground; I can barely do that with a basketball.



Since then she's gotten better, and has appeared for different video game expos and such. The push-ups might be my favorite move here.


Go to http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=bambiball for more videos.

Pure Sports: Pick-up Ball Injury Etiquette

As my long-time reader knows, I like talking about amateur ("pure", in some respects) sports too, not just pro sports. So let's talk about pick-up basketball.
Last night I played some pick-up basketball, and was on two winning teams in a row for once. The second game saw a nasty collision where two teammates ran into each other and went down fast and hard. I thought that this is a good place to share some basic rules for how other players should behave during an injury in pick-up ball:
DON'T start shooting the basketball nonchalantly next to the guy who's face-down in pain. What usually happens is that the player moves to the other side of the hoop to avoid the hurt player...and then the rebound falls off the rim and hits the player! Stupid city.
DON'T tell him to get up if he can't, or ask him to keep playing if he should obviously stop.
DON'T huddle around him and choke off all the air/light.
DON'T shout conflicting health suggestions at him. If you don't know what to do, you don't know. So not only did the person get hurt, now they get to be cajoled by idiots.
DO figure out who should call security/staff/911 if someone really does get hurt.
DO talk to the person without making them feel stupid for getting hurt. Unless they got hurt while trying to showboat or got hit in the nuts; then all such comments are perfectly deserved.
DO wipe off the sweat after they get up, or else someone else will fall in the exact same place.
All right, a little Emily Post there for you, but I'm getting tired of players who don't know how to act when there's an injury. Oh, in amusing coincidences, our point guard from last night just walked by and waved.