The Timeout

I enjoy writing this personal blog, but it's mostly just a chance to express some things on my mind regarding sports and sports broadcasting.  It also takes a lot of time to complete an entire blog, for me upwards of three hours overall, and that takes away time from other aspects of my life. 

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In athletics, a coach who falls behind early faces a choice: do you use your timeouts early and try to turn things around, or do you save your timeouts hoping the team can rally on its own and using the timeouts later in a closer game.

Timeouts are tools.  And like any tool, it takes an artist to use them well.  A choice must be made.

Two stories, mostly for entertainment:

My friend and co-broadcaster this year, coach Larry Holley of William Jewell College has more wins than any other four-year college coach in Missouri, and is the 10th most winning coach at all levels of college basketball.  He's seen a lot of games and called a lot of timeouts.  A practiced storyteller, he tells of the time early in his career coaching at Northwest Missouri State University.  

Late in a close home game, Larry needed a timeout but wasn't exactly sure how many he had remaining, so he quickly went to the scorekeeper.

"How many timeouts do I have?" he asked.

"How many do you want?" replied the scorekeeper.

And, former volleyball coach Terry Pettit, who put the Nebraska Cornhusker volleyball program on the map as a head coach, used to say this about what goes on in a timeout:

"During a timeout, you either say 'Woah!' or 'Go!'."

I think in life, as in sports, you have several timeouts to use as you see fit.

And I see fit to take a timeout right now.  I'm behind and I need to say Woah.

I still have a lot to say, and it will come, but right now my focus is on producing and broadcasting basketball, whether it's the current Holiday Hoops basketball tournament at North Central Missouri College, or NCMC games which resume next week.  And the upcoming baseball and softball schedules for this spring. As well as teaching responsibilities.

So, it's Woah for this blog, probably until late spring.

Not to say there won't be an occasional rant that makes a cameo appearance; but not weekly.  Until later.

So until later, 

Cheers!

Women's Basketball is a Separate Sport

Problogue:  I have to admit it, this blog has slid down my priority list with the onset of the college basketball broadcast season at North Central Missouri College and my other duties for NCMC.  Designed as a weekly commentary, I've fallen short in the last month, but certainly plan to become more of a regular writer.

A happy holiday to you all!  My holiday season will be wrapped into coverage of the Holiday Hoops basketball tournament in Trenton, Missouri, hosted by the NCMC Foundation.  Hope you can join us!

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I was having a discussion with a coach recently--a female who coaches women's basketball, but that's not really important--and I was doing an impromptu speech about the differences between men's basketball and women's basketball.

The two are different sports, in my mind.  Different in popularity, to be sure; the men's game is more popular to the general population, according to the statistics, than the women's game, there is no disputing that.  Men's basketball is also:

• Different in speed of play.
• Played by athletes above the rim at times.
• Influenced heavily by what is shown on sports TV.

OK?  It's different.  

I like men's basketball.  But I like women's basketball also.  It's just a different game.  Accept that, and enjoy it for what it is:

It is a game where skill and talent rule, but fundamentals and systems still matter.

Red Auerbach's Book

When I was 11, I found a copy of Red Auerbach's book, Basketball: For the Player, Fan, and Coach from 1953...paperback edition, no actual pictures but drawings of players to illustrate the concepts.  Even a

section on shooting the set shot.  The foul lanes in the drawings still have the narrow lanes of the bygone era...it teaches you to never leave your feet on defense...don't throw fancy passes... and extreme fastbreak "racehorse basketball" ( I'm sure Red never anticipated a Paul Westhead).

I treasured that book as an introduction to the game.  I didn't understand all of it...I had to ask my non-sports mom what a "pivot" was, and really didn't learn anything from that discussion.  But I digress...

This was a book on basic fundamental basketball.  Most of it is still used in some form today at all levels of basketball.

And the women use the fundaments, even those fundamentals spelled out some 70 years ago, which is refreshing to me.  

And what's wrong with that?

It is a game in which women practice hard, play hard, and and play the game hard.  Then they let it go, win or lose.

I'm going to generalize here, I admit: the final score of a basketball game often is not as important to females--again, generally speaking--as it is to males.  Of course there are exceptions...and there are important games that mean more than other games.  My experience in coaching female teams and being around them for many years as a broadcaster, is that females forget the outcome fairly quickly, consider it another life experience, and embrace winning as a very nice feeling in the moment.

As a coach, that used to bug me.  I was a true believer in the silent bus ride home after a loss, the Billy Martin and Bobby Knight (warning: explicit language) method.  I used to believe in making myself and everyone around me miserable for a long time after losses.  But I'm older now and have seen and experienced a few more things than I had as a 30 year old.

I was wrong to make those feelings the centerpoint of my life.

Women's basketball is a game in which players don't look to the next level as much as their male counterparts.

I've had lots of conversations and lots of interviews with college players in the last 20 years; the men, almost invariably, say playing professionally is a goal. The women I talk to rarely mention playing for pay later in their life.

Women tend to list continuing in school, developing a career, and looking forward to family life.  And I think that shows in the women's game, which is without a lot of ESPN-inspired demonstrative behavior and trash talk before, during or after a good play.

Chess and Boxing?Who knew?

Just my thoughts.  For the record, I also enjoy dance teams, scholastic bowls, livestock judging and a good chess boxing match (#7 on this list) now and again.

And, of course, Monty Python's Upper Class Twit of the Year.

If you're interested, there's a great YouTube video on a study made four or five years ago about the competitive behaviors in female athletes.  Take four minutes and enjoy it.