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Sportsocratic

Thoughts, ideas, opinions and postulations on sport and adventuring

  • Sport & society
    • Ethics & Values
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      • Sartorialism and style
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  • The things that made me
  • Stories
    • General sporting stories
    • Waves of Pain
      • No Respect!
      • Death Wish at Fairy Bower
      • Fried nuts
      • The ocean is a trickster… especially Hawaii’s North Shore – Gas chambers bites the unwary!
      • Titus Kinimaka’s nightmare Christmas
      • Dix dumped – the trials of a self-confessed elite body surfer
      • Rabbit killer – a master takes a caning at pipeline!
  • What does it mean?
    • What is a snake?
    • What does “shag” mean?
    • What does “Freddy Jones” mean?
    • What does “hook and ladder” mean?
    • What does back walk-over mean?
  • Philosophers Sport Bar
    • Socrates and Aristotle debate football defence
    • Michel de Montaigne on coaching sports
    • Ancient philosophers discuss what makes the beautiful game beautiful! Laozi and Socrates get technical.

Battle of Palm Beach – the day the surfers stood their ground

October 30, 2019 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment Filed Under: Waves of Pain

These days surf life savers and surf board riders happily co-exist on Australia's beaches. In fact, many surfers are now serving members of their local surf life saving clubs. It wasn't always so. There was a time when the two tribes hated each other... and occasionally even came to blows. This fictitious yarn about a bad day at the beach is based on real events that happened … [Read more...]

The Sporting Life of Albo

August 15, 2019 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment Filed Under: Cultural and social issues

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. I had had one of those weeks. In between supervising burial duty for my favourite pet and negotiating several familial and automotive calamities I had the chance to talk to the bloke who might end up Australia’s next Prime Minister (about his love of sport) and, of course, something just had to go wrong. Coming from a lecturing … [Read more...]

Swimmer smashes recent times…

August 13, 2019 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment Filed Under: Silly stuff

After a week of recording pitifully slow freestyle times over 1500 m, swimmer and sports philosopher, Socrates, knew he had to change something. "I was swimming like a bloody soccer player, all week," lamented the ancient Greek athlete and thinker, "...so I had to come up with a solution!" Miraculously, Socrates shaved five minutes off his recent times while swimming at … [Read more...]

Nothing ruins a good surf like a couple of blokes with automatic assault rifles…

August 1, 2019 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment Filed Under: Waves of Pain

A bad day in the surf normally means a nasty wipeout, a broken board, an argument with a thug, an injury (like a cut or a broken bone) or a selfish drop-in. In all your worst nightmares could you imagine a bad day in the surf involving blokes with automatic weapons turning up, just when the waves are good, to drag you away or worse? In this addition to the WAVES OF PAIN series … [Read more...]

Ante… I’ve got no problems with the “high line”…. but….

June 12, 2019 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment Filed Under: News and comment

In comparison to Ante Milicic, I know sweet bugger all about the technical aspects of football. I am way too ignorant of the intricacies of his sport to offer a learned opinion on his choices of players or to critically analyse his decision to play “a high line of defence” and a “4-1-4-1” positional structure. Oh, I do have opinions on these matters, but as a rank amateur … [Read more...]

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Outstanding achievement

Outstanding (but not well-known) sporting achievement

September 19, 2019 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

Everyone has heard of Kelly Slater and his bucket load of world surfing titles. Michael Jordan and his multitude of NBA titles are pretty common knowledge too. Michael Schumacher’s six world driver’s championships are pretty well known as well. Here is a sporting achievement all three would be jealous of. Manly surfer Greg Mossop has a sporting achievement that these three champions could only dream of and Mossop believes that, with a bit of luck, he could have done even better!

SOCRATES’ RECENT TWEETS

Tweets by Sportsocratic

professionalism

Expectations on professional athletes – is it fair to expect pros to uphold certain values?

April 30, 2019 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

Can professional sportspeople be expected to uphold values above and beyond their obligation to play? How far should those obligations to uphold values extend? Is it okay for the Australian Rugby Union to expect players like Isael Folou to honour their stated value of “inclusiveness”? Socrates ponders these delecate issues and sets out his position.

wisdom

Its just a job. Grass grows. Birds fly. Waves pound the sand. I beat people up. – Muhammad Ali

sport at mardi gras

Athletes in the LGBTQI Mardi Gras

March 12, 2019 By SOCRATES 2 Comments

Twenty-one different sports teams marched in this years Sydney Mardi Gras. That’s twenty-one groups of out and proud queer athletes. The LGBTQI community need to be “fearless” and queer athletes are no exception. Check out these fearless sporting clubs living it up on their night of night!

A life with horses

A life with horses – or Lulu in wonderland

August 8, 2018 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment

It’s well known that playing sport can be a life-changing experience. For one mum, adventurer and businessperson, having a sporty pastime was more than life-changing. Lulu’s friendship with her horses has touched her and her daughter’s lives in a million ways and created a whole new life in an ever-changing wonderland for them both. But don’t think for a moment that their horses are the purpose built catalysts for their ideal lives! Its way more complex than that… and more respectful. Read on! It’s worth it!

wisdom

“Pressure? Pressure is a Messerschmidt up your arse. Playing cricket is not!”

Keith Miller

One of the greatest cricket “all-rounders” of all time, Keith Miller was not only an exceptional performer in multiple elements of test cricketing (batting, bowling and fielding) but he was also gifted in numerous other aspects of his life. Witty, entertaining, handsome, a renowned war time pilot and gifted Australian Rules Footballer, Miller was famed for calling a spade a spade and acknowledging that there was much more to life than elite sports. Having flown fighter bombers in the Second World War under life threatening circumstances he was not one to take the “pressure” of high level sport too seriously!

sartorialism and style

Seven deadly sins of sports sartorialism and style.

April 17, 2019 By SOCRATES 2 Comments

There are hundreds of fashion choices that look ridiculous, foolish, horrible and offensive in a sporting context but seven particular style choices brand the “sinner” almost beyond redemption. Socrates smugly sticks his massive nose in the air and points the finger of sartorial disgrace at the “sins” he finds most hideous.

trivia

Here is a cracker of a trivia question.

Who was the college recruiting scout talking about when he said the following to his head coach.

“I’ve just seen a fat guy… who can play like the wind!”

Yup. The same guy who told people that just because they had shoes like his, it didn’t make them like him in any other way. Charles Wade Barkley.

Etymology

Where did the word canter come from?

August 8, 2018 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

A bit more horsey stuff for people who liked the story next door. Here is a cracker bit of etymology for all you word lovers (and horse lovers) out there. Where does the word canter come from? You’ll never guess in a million years! Click here to find out. It’s a beauty!

What does it mean?

What is Elvis leg?

Admit it. You’ve never heard of “Elvis leg,” have you? What the blazes is “Elvis leg?” As is the case with every other “What does it mean…” story we have ever posted, the answer is not directly related to the name itself. It is indirectly related to Elvis, though. Have a guess what the relationship is… then click here and check out whether your were correct. Find out for certain which sport uses this term and what it means.

What is a liberator?

Of course most you aviation buffs will think that a liberator is an American WW2 heavy bomber. Fair enough. But in a sporting context does it have a completely different meaning? Indeed it does. You are going to have to click here to find out what a liberator is and does in the world of sport.

Aphorisms, insights and wisdom

“The thing that’s depressing about tennis is that no matter how good I get I will never be as good as a wall.”

More perceptive sporting analysis from Mitch Hedberg, comic genius.

 

ebook

Phillip has returned to the south of India after eighteen years. But who is the young girl staying in his hotel? And what will he learn about his estranged brother through Inez, the Spanish backpacker?

To buy The Bangalore Test, John Campbell’s new ebook novella, just click the link.

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