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.