Basketball: Believe in Monsters

Sport introduces us to many great people with whom we share lifelong friendships.

Yet, monsters exist. But don't despair. Author Neil Gaiman teaches us in Coraline, "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

Monsters come in many forms, masquerading as bastions of society, billionaires, and wannabe heroes. 

Donald Sterling, former 'owner' of the Clippers, qualifies. In a sport dominated by Black Americans, Sterling besmirched many behind the scenes. But good came out of it, the NBA expunging Sterling from its ranks, exposing racism, and sharing the wisdom of Clipper Coach Doc Rivers' parents, "Never allow yourself to be a victim." 

The NCAA, National Collegiate Athletic A$$ociation. It's tough to be hard enough on the organization which pleads poverty to assistant coaches and "education" to athletes. "The NCAA leadership has maintained that financial commitments to its membership have created a fragile economic existence despite a $1.75 billion contract with CBS to broadcast its men's basketball tournament." The NCAA logo should be a rake, as in useful to stoke the college athletics furnace of excess. The payments are far higher now. 

We'll see whether their new President designee, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker, can dance away from that legacy, exorcising ghosts of decisions past.  

It's problematic to single out individual coaches for excess. This headline only scratches the surface. 

"We counted at least seven instances in the past 28 months where a Division I school investigated, suspended or parted ways with a women’s basketball coach following player complaints of mistreatment." 

During your recruitment, search for, as investigative reporter Bob Woodward says, "the best version of the truth." Find fits for academic and athletic ambition. When it doesn't work out because of coaching changes, misdirection, playing time, injury or others, did you choose "Weasel U" for an education or court time? When you get to the hardwood maple of Weasel only to learn that you were recruited to be the backup, what next? 

Officiating is a tough job. You can neither please everyone nor get every call right. Even in an era of instant replay, officials still get it wrong sometimes. Still worse, a few officials go off the rails. "Then, all of a sudden, the FBI was here." 

 

Players can be villains, too. Even when your coach loves you like a son, you can be wrong and wrong again and again. 

When he's 'our guy' then he's a great competitor. When he's somebody else's, he's a 'bad guy' or worse. 

As much as we love sports, it doesn't always love us back. 

Lagniappe. Coleman Ayers shares.