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...]
Greatest cheats ever Contender No. 2 – 2000 Paralympic Spanish Intellectually Disabled Basketball Team
Who were the greatest… most egregious… most vile… most talented cheaters in the history of sport? Socrates announces his list of favourites. Number two, but only by a whisker, is the Sydney 2000 Paralympics Spanish Intellectually Disabled Basketball team. When it comes to singling out the world’s worst cheat one would think that Emperor Nero, discussed in our first … [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...]
Postecoglou coaching pointers
Is there are greater waste of time in the world of sport than in listening to post match player and coach interviews. Normally, very little is revealed. Cliches, complaints about officials and restating of the bleedingly obvious abound. It was refreshing to see a coach interview, earlier this week, that revealed clear insight into a prominent coach's coaching … [Read more...]
Just six words…
I met a former NBL point guard, who, for the sake of anonymity, I will call Dave. Dave told me how he remembers the day he approached Shane Heal (one of Australia’s greatest ever basketball guards), before a game, and told him that there was no way that Heal was going to drop 38 points on his head in the way that he had to other guards in recent matches. Shane and Dave had … [Read more...]