A few outside words about soccer

Ok, about football.  Irredeemably American, I suppose.

The Gulf Cup just took place, and the lead-up to it was the fear that there would be attacks from AQAP or the Southern Movement in an attempt the discredit the government or just to sew chaos.  Security was very tight- this is something that I regret not talking about, but I couldn't find an angle other than "FEAR THIS" and so for once wanted to avoid it.   Anyway, it went off smashingly, as this Robert Worth article shows.

We also have comments from reader Dozival, on the ground in Aden, printed in full.

Not really about your latest post but - 'Aden Felix' - hardly a bean from anyone about how brilliant the 20th Gulf Cup has been for Aden/ Abyan - and Yemen's reputation in general! The atmosphere's been brilliant, the security immense (I've never been helped across the road with a buggy by a Kalashnikov-wielding soldier before), the participation by families and women particularly noteworthy. Football crowds and no alcohol - would be a dream for British police! They were just so enthusiastic and I get the impression people from the other (much richer) Gulf states that they were really impressed, have made new friends, experienced Yemeni hospitality and have gone away with a different view of Yemen (which was, let's face it, frankly despised by wealthier Arab states). I just got home from Aden tonight. The final fireworks were something else! Buildings have been painted, railings and lamp-posts ditto, there are illuminated artificial trees on all the roundabouts, all the fountains are working and all the people I've met with have been really positive. Which doesn't mean they are ardent Saleh supporters - just that they've really appreciated this opportunity to be the focus of an important Arab nation football competition.

In an email, Dozival also mentioned how the painting projects were spearheaded by females, which lead to possibly unusual and bright color choices.   This is great, because after the civil war, Aden was plagued by a spate of what I irritatingly would call "northern realism"- the concrete-drab repetition of urban expansion.   


The question, of course, is whether this success is a respite or a new start.  Sports can bring people together, as much as tear them apart, and the major source of discontent in Yemen is the feeling that the regime is as unable to get things done as it is corrupt and authoritarian.   I don't think a successful tournament can chance all of that, but I think it also proves what we've been saying all along- there is national pride in Yemen; the idea of the nation isn't an invented one.   If this, in and of itself, is fleeting, it does go some ways into disproving the idea that anarchy is the natural state of being.  

On Butler

Don't worry, I will be back to all-Yemen all the time, tomorrow.  Just give me a few.

Ahh...

Well, I can't be too disappointed.  They gave us a hell of a run.  They played their hearts out, and made it level with that All-American team of giants.  Almost won, too.  What did Hayword miss by on that fadeaway with 3 seconds left- an inch?  And the desperation three nearly, nearly clanged in.  Basketball, man.  But for the cruel and inarguable physics of the bounce, the tiniest movement of the finger, the imperceptible difference between the net swishing perfectly and the hideous season-ending sound of a miss...

Yes.  I know that there where other reasons they lost.  I can analyze basketball and point to the difference.  But not tonight. 

I'm proud of those guys.  I really am.  That should have been a heart-breaking loss- and, at the moment, I am fairly gutted- but for some reason it wasn't, entirely.   Not every sports story ends up with a sepia-toned fadeout, with the shot falling, the impossible dream coming true and the legend-makers rushing the court, hugging and screaming.  Some sports stories fall short.  Some by the most agonizing inch.  These guys will live over their mistakes for the next few months, maybe for the rest of their lives.  But they shouldn't.  Sports talk and writing is full of hyperbole, but they did something no one thought they could, they made it further than imagined, and pushed a great team to the limit.   Nice work, guys.  Hold your heads high. 

Go Bulldogs.

Sports Rant/Composed Look At How to Write a Contrarian Piece

First a brief version of the rant: Paul Daugherty, of Sports Illustrated, is a fucking moron.

Scaling it back.  I think every writer, anyone who wants to be published, wants to be read, has at the very least a gigantic inner narcissist.  You have to think to yourself- my opinions are worthwhile.  I am someone who is worth reading.  And you get to believe that about yourself as soon as people start reading your work.  It can go to your head.   And, if you are someone with an opinion about things, you almost instinctively want to move away from the herd.

That is a good instinct to have.  Conventional wisdom isn't always wrong, but believing that is is makes a good starting point.  However, the contrarian impulse, combined with the arrogance of a writer, the idea that your opinion is always a good thing, can lead to down a dark path.  Anything that most people believe is wrong.  Even when it is right.

Additionally, the internet age, the need for hits, has generated tons of authors and bloggers who rely on this ginned-up controversy to get hits. Talk radio and the political blogosphere are obviously prime examples of this mentality, but it is just as bad, if not worse, in sports. I blame a lot of this on ESPN, who decided that attitude equaled excellent and provocative coverage.  Also they are soulless bastards who, with their Disney overlords, have conspired to ruin sports. 

Bring on K-State!

Let's go Butler!

Really Quick Sports Thought

So Charles Pierce had a piece in Slate the other day about how Kentucky's John Calipari is the sleaziest coach in college basketball, which is a really high and sleazy bar.  I don't care much for Calipari- he always leaves schools mired in scandal, with whole season wiped from the record book.  To me he epitomizes the hypocrisy on the NCAA- grown-up coaches can leave their programs without a problem, but if kids want to transfer they can lose a year of eligibility.   But Calipari is probably no more guilty of these sins than many others- that isn't exactly an exoneration, mind you.

But whatever quibbles one might have with Pierce's article, the whole thesis is incorrect.  How can anyone be named the sleaziest coach in college hoops in a world where Bob Huggins exists?  A string of DUIs, no control over players, and, worst of all, shockingly low graduation rates.

As for academics, 27 of 95 Huggins' players graduated from Cincinnati or another university in his 16 years.  That’s a 28% graduation rate overall, including those students who transferred.  Huggins also had four seasons where the NCAA reported the Cincinnati men’s basketball graduation rate to be zero.  Even at the time Huggins was forced to resign, again according to university officials, one of his players had been maintaining a 0.0 GPA, and another would have had a 0.0 if not for two incompletes.

Huggins has a long track record of picking kids up and spitting them out when the season is over.  They are ballplayers, and that is it- winning is the only thing.  Of course the kids are complicit in this- but they are kids.  Huggins takes no responsibility.  Contrast him with the often (and often justifiably) reviled Bobby Knight, who, for all his temper, made goddamn sure his kids went to class. 

All college sports has this level.  Even in the pristine small schools that sportswriters love the jocks get a lot of breaks.  But Huggins takes it to another level, with no regard for the young men put in his charge.  It is hoops at its worst.

Also, with his track suits and hair, the guy gives the air of a low-level Eastern-European gangster thug.


Huggins.  

By the way, this blog is pulling for Butler.  I went there, and follow them with more enthusiasm than I think it appropriate. 

Hitchens on Sports

Christopher Hitchens has a really, really aggravating, snide and condescending article on why sports are dumb.  I know- who knew he would ever be condescending.   I've been angry at it all weekend, and have been stewing.  It is fisked in its entirety below the jump.   It is very, very long, but don't let that intimidate you.  Anger can be a good thing.