Tag Archives: basketball

We’re all Tiger Woods Now

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Remember how the 1992 “Dream Team” waltzed through the Olympic basketball competition on their way to their gold medal? Fast forward to 2004 when the US lost three times and settled for bronze. Fast forward some more to today. A Sports Illustrated mock NBA draft shows five of the first eight teams taking international players.

What about golf? There are four U.S. players among the top ten, and with Woods dropping fast, that will probably be three soon.

Tennis? The top U.S. player, Mardy Fish, is ranked #10, Roddick is #11, and then you have to scroll down to #26 before finding another American.

Soccer? FIFA has the U.S. ranked 22nd in the world.

The marathon? The first 14 are East African and 65 of the top 100 are Kenyan.

Long distance triathlon? Linsey Corbin, from Montana, is ranked 7th, the only American woman in the top 10. Timothy O’Donnell is tied for tenth among the men.

The most recent international test scores (NAEP) were recently published. In math and reading, U.S. students are in the middle of the pack among students from OECD countries. In science, back of the pack.

People suffering from acute “greatestcountryintheworldhysteria” will look hard to find different competitions we’re winning (personal debt, football by default since hardly anyone else plays it, health care inflation, gun ownership, fossil fuel usage, military spending). While their parochial heads are buried in the sand, more and more of the world supersedes us in classrooms and on athletic fields.

We’re all Tiger Woods now. The rest of the world isn’t the least bit intimidated. All young international students and athletes want is the opportunity to go toe-to-toe with us.

Sports Report

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• USC is reportedly paying Kiffin $4m/year. Not sure whether that’s $750k a win or $1m.

• Another brilliant essay by the best sportswriter at work today. I’d like to think I coulda’ been a decent sportswriter, but I would hate to have to go mano y mano with this guy.

• Ran a half marathon Domingo with Dano, Katie, and Annie. Another beautiful morning in Paradise. I ran well and I’m supposed to credit Lance with an assist. I left the house on the mountain bike without any gel (liquid carbos). Lance and cutest daughter in the world rode by on mountain bikes, got comfortably ahead, and handed off one of their gels. Shortly afterwards, I started mowing down people. But since Lance said “Thank you though for showing me that I have at least 8 years of physical fitness left” as if I’m about to keel over, I don’t think I’ll give him the credit he otherwise deserves. He is going to tear up the mountain bike course on the Sky to Sea race in B’ham in a week and a half.

• A few questions which will only make sense if you read Simmon’s essay. What’s your “one word”, not as a baller, but as a person? Is that the word you’d use to describe yourself, the word others would use to describe you, or would the one word be the same for both? In other words, is their congruence between your self perception and other’s perceptions of you? For myself, I’m undecided between “deluded” and “balanced”.

• 1,095 peeps ran the Capital City Half Marathon. 391 M’s (36%) and 704 F’s (64%). Hypotheses?

Nearing the Finish, Pretty Dog Tired

Right After Finishing

Friday’s Fitness Footnote 09.2

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Turns out I jinxed myself with my “injury free” reference in my 2008 fitness wrap up. PC and I weren’t even out of the hood last week when I pulled up with an invisible knife in my right calf. I’m guessing soleus micro tear. Didn’t run for five todays until W morn when I didn’t even make it 50 yards. That was depressing. I didn’t think cycling was having any effect because I couldn’t feel anything while riding, but even though I haven’t been going hard, it must have been making matters worse. I’ve been stretching the heck out of it all to no avail. 

In the meantime I’ve been enjoying cycling and swimming. I got invited to swim with the Masters regulars M morn and enjoyed being the slowest person in my lane. Brian and Geraldine swam in college, I on the other hand, played pick up basketball. One day in 1983, the college player of the year walked into the gym. He was in town to receive the Wooden award as the best player in college. MJ up close. Despite my obvious availability, I wasn’t invited into his game. No surprise I guess that he didn’t want any piece of me.

Tangent. In my fifth year, while working on my MA, I got a job tutoring athletes. After my first session, bossman asked if Reggie Miller showed. I said no so he told me to call him up in the dorms and ask him where he was. “Reggie, this is Ron. . .” “Oh man,” he interrupted, “I thought you were a woman!” I told him there wasn’t much I could do about that and he never showed. Not sure if he passed Western Civ, but he’s done okay for himself.

Normally I’m running during Masters swimming which is too bad because I enjoy it. I swim a bit harder and the time flies. I talked to a friend in the locker room who said they did 30 100’s (short course yards) in Masters the day before in honor of a 30 year old teammate. They did them on 1:45, every third IM. I decided to try a revised version, 18 on 1:40, and really liked it. I do the free in 1:21-1:23 which provides a lot of rest, but I do the IM in 1:32-1:36 which obviously doesn’t allow for hardly any recovery.

Cycling has been a mix of spinning indoors and chilly outdoor riding. Travis and I got in a very nice 33 miler last Sunday with temps in the high 30’s. I recently read a blog written by a Hawaiian triathlete and she bagged a ride because it was 64 out. 

Ready for the product recommendation? I can’t wait for the CEO to write and offer free product!

The endurance crowd must be particularly gullible because there are about as many recovery drinks on the market as there are endurance athletes. 

Call me old school, but this recovery drink will change your life. Drive straight to Costco and buy one, two, or twelve half gallons. Don’t forget to dilute it with equal parts skim milk otherwise, no matter how hard you work out, you’ll end up looking more like Oprah than you probably want.

Sorry O, that was uncalled for.