How easy is it to be racist? Maybe it’s easier than you think! This is going back a few months, but my hasty judginess still stings. The first indication I had that the 2022-2023 NCAA Women’s basketball season had concluded, was a video-clip on Twitter showing LSU player Angel Reese mocking Iowa star player Caitlin Clark with a series of hand gestures at the conclusion … [Read more...]
Magnificent French Men’s Football Team – Or is it?
Ever seen this French television commercial from the telecommunications company Orange promoting the magnificent French men's national football team? It shows Gliezmann, Mbappe and Girout in their finest form. Or does it? Perhaps it challenges our perceptions about the supposed performance gap between elite male soccer players and their elite female equivalents. Take a look at … [Read more...]
The stoic approach to a game gone wrong – Sports tips from Seneca
Ancient philosopher, Seneca, was not much of an athlete. But he knew quite a bit about what it was like to have a bad day. His tips on how to deal with getting the rough end of the pineapple in a sporting context are well worth hearing. One might imagine that wealthy, famous and highly respected philosophers… people who have held high status roles in government and in business… … [Read more...]
Didn’t see that coming! – NRL Grand Final 2023
Socrates doesn't normally comment on common, garden variety, pro sports news... but he got his analysis so wrong, on this occasion, that he couldn't keep himself away from his keyboard. How did your prediction go? Did you predict the NRL Grand Final scenario? Over to Socrates for his description of the one he got wrong. The third scenario… the one I didn’t see coming… was … [Read more...]
To smash or be skillful? Can good defense be coached or are accidents like the Latrell Mitchell and Joey Manu incident inevitable?
My soccer playing eight-year-old daughter walked up to her (elite rugby player) seventeen-year-old cousin and asked… “Hey Haz? What do you do when you play rugby?” “I smash people,” responded Haz. While I figured that there was probably a bit more to Haz’s defensive responsibilities (at the top end of schools representative rugby) than his brief description provided, … [Read more...]