Basketball Is Life: the Rest Are Just Details
I watched with morbid curiosity Governor Sarah Palin's (R-AK) Vice Presidential candidacy acceptance speech on Wednesday evening. Needless to say I was not terribly surprised in the content and tone of her speech. (I could say since she graduated with a BA in communications that she controlled the content of her words, but who am I kidding?) She managed to hit her opponents (Barack Obama and Joe Biden) hard, once or twice with fair criticism but mostly with hyperbole, misdirection, and exaggeration of easily researched evidence to her claims. For what she needed to do, since the role of the VP candidate should be to attack the opposition, she did it well. When I thought about how Obama and Biden should counter her efforts, I thought of basketball.
During my undergrad years at the University of Illinois in Urbana, I needed to fill two credit hours in my schedule. Since I enjoyed playing basketball, I signed up for a Kinesiology class that taught the fundamentals of basketball: an easy "A" in my opinion (which I did earn). The class consisted of exactly twenty students: seventeen men and three women. It allowed the instructor to evenly break up the class into four teams to play in a round-robin tournament once we worked on all of the fundamentals in drill-like practices. As with any group of people, all of the students possessed varying degrees of skill depending on their size and athletic ability. Since I am tall with a large frame (6'4" and 250 lbs), I became my team's center (mostly playing defense). The shorter players as expected played point and shooting guards. One young woman in the class, a 5'2" 100-pound point guard on another team, had no problems whatsoever playing with other men. She had excellent ball handling skills, quick hands on defense, and could hit three pointers with absurd ease.
She understood what it took to play on the court with larger, more powerful opponents; she gave an elbow or two to give herself some room to maneuver and fought off hand checks as well. When she played against my team, her demeanor changed. Two specific encounters remain at the fore of my memory:
One: When my team was on offense, I set a screen for my point guard for a pick and roll. The hundred-pound point guard ran into my good impression of a retaining wall and fell flat on her ass, freeing me for an easy, unguarded layup. The instructor, acting as referee, did not call a foul since I executed the pick as I should have: I remained stock still until my opponent made the contact.
Two: Several minutes later, my team was on defense. Caught in a switch, I attempted to catch up with the offensive team's power forward. The hundred-pound forward unwisely attempted to set a screen on me. She was late in setting the screen and I literally ran her over. She screamed in protest to the instructor/referee, "Where's the foul?!" The referee did not call the foul because she did not have her feet set (although no foul was called on her even though she initiated the contact). After the game, she asked me why I didn't take it easy on her since she was so much smaller than I was. I replied, "I treat anyone who steps on the court the same way. You're not a girl, you're just another player."
Palin's stagecraft, attacking her opponents repeatedly while framing it in the "I'm a regular mom from everyday America!" meme, should have no bearing on how Biden should counter. It shouldn't, but the double standard that applies to how society treats women will most likely dictate that it may. Women can go for the jugular but if men deign to respond in kind, they are viewed as mean and vicious (think of the debate between Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton) when both ran for the Senate seat she now holds. I concede that Lazio did behave in an unorthodox manner in that Buffalo debate, breaking the rules. Obama, in several one-on-one debates with Clinton this past primary season, followed the prescribed rules when engaging with Clinton with positive results for him. I can only hope that Biden goes after Palin in the same manner Obama contested Clinton because Palin effectively said on Wednesday night, "I am hitting you. I dare you to hit back. Just remember, I'm a mom!"
Governor Palin, in the context of this election cycle, is simply the Vice Presidential candidate, nothing more, nothing less and is fair game for the critical attacks she feels free to dole out. She stepped onto the court and should readily accept being bounced around and bowled over if the occasion warrants.
During my undergrad years at the University of Illinois in Urbana, I needed to fill two credit hours in my schedule. Since I enjoyed playing basketball, I signed up for a Kinesiology class that taught the fundamentals of basketball: an easy "A" in my opinion (which I did earn). The class consisted of exactly twenty students: seventeen men and three women. It allowed the instructor to evenly break up the class into four teams to play in a round-robin tournament once we worked on all of the fundamentals in drill-like practices. As with any group of people, all of the students possessed varying degrees of skill depending on their size and athletic ability. Since I am tall with a large frame (6'4" and 250 lbs), I became my team's center (mostly playing defense). The shorter players as expected played point and shooting guards. One young woman in the class, a 5'2" 100-pound point guard on another team, had no problems whatsoever playing with other men. She had excellent ball handling skills, quick hands on defense, and could hit three pointers with absurd ease.
She understood what it took to play on the court with larger, more powerful opponents; she gave an elbow or two to give herself some room to maneuver and fought off hand checks as well. When she played against my team, her demeanor changed. Two specific encounters remain at the fore of my memory:
One: When my team was on offense, I set a screen for my point guard for a pick and roll. The hundred-pound point guard ran into my good impression of a retaining wall and fell flat on her ass, freeing me for an easy, unguarded layup. The instructor, acting as referee, did not call a foul since I executed the pick as I should have: I remained stock still until my opponent made the contact.
Two: Several minutes later, my team was on defense. Caught in a switch, I attempted to catch up with the offensive team's power forward. The hundred-pound forward unwisely attempted to set a screen on me. She was late in setting the screen and I literally ran her over. She screamed in protest to the instructor/referee, "Where's the foul?!" The referee did not call the foul because she did not have her feet set (although no foul was called on her even though she initiated the contact). After the game, she asked me why I didn't take it easy on her since she was so much smaller than I was. I replied, "I treat anyone who steps on the court the same way. You're not a girl, you're just another player."
Palin's stagecraft, attacking her opponents repeatedly while framing it in the "I'm a regular mom from everyday America!" meme, should have no bearing on how Biden should counter. It shouldn't, but the double standard that applies to how society treats women will most likely dictate that it may. Women can go for the jugular but if men deign to respond in kind, they are viewed as mean and vicious (think of the debate between Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton) when both ran for the Senate seat she now holds. I concede that Lazio did behave in an unorthodox manner in that Buffalo debate, breaking the rules. Obama, in several one-on-one debates with Clinton this past primary season, followed the prescribed rules when engaging with Clinton with positive results for him. I can only hope that Biden goes after Palin in the same manner Obama contested Clinton because Palin effectively said on Wednesday night, "I am hitting you. I dare you to hit back. Just remember, I'm a mom!"
Governor Palin, in the context of this election cycle, is simply the Vice Presidential candidate, nothing more, nothing less and is fair game for the critical attacks she feels free to dole out. She stepped onto the court and should readily accept being bounced around and bowled over if the occasion warrants.
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