Will Bobby Bradley be the power hitter the Indians desperately need?
January 28, 2016Adrian Wojnarowski discusses David Blatt’s firing on Garbage Time With Katie Nolan (Video)
January 29, 2016Taking sportsmanship to a ridiculous level…
Sportsmanship is one of the most important lessons we can teach our kids with athletics. There’s teamwork and working toward goals and many other lessons as well, but sportsmanship is pretty high on the list. In life you find yourself competing and it’s good to know how to be gracious in winning or losing. According to this Washington Post article about the high school athletic association in charge in Wisconsin, it might have just gone a step or two over the line as they’ve banned some of the most innocuous competitive chants I can remember from my days in high school. They’ve banned “Air-Ball!” for example. Here are some more banned phrases.
Other phrases on the do-not-chant list include:
- “Scoreboard”
- “You can’t do that”
- “Fundamentals”
- “There’s a net there”
- “Sieve”
- “We can’t hear you”
- “Season’s over”
I really don’t want to stand in the way of progress on something like this. I know the word “bullying” makes people cringe now, and I think there’s an over-emphasis or even an obsession with the concept at times. My own toddlers started coming home and accusing me of “bullying” when I would discipline them because they’d heard the concept in day care. That’s alright because it gave me a moment to teach my kid and I have no problem doing that. I want progress in this regard, especially with the advent of the Internet and social media where kids need new boundaries in a world where you never do get to escape even after the school day is finished.
That doesn’t mean that you need to Nerf every sharp corner of the universe, however. Sports and competition is a place for athletes and kids watching in the stands to band together and blow off some steam. Cheering for your team and against a rival is about as natural as anything we have in society. I’ve taught my kids that the worst team in the world is Pittsburgh football. It’s fun. He smiles when he says it. Given proper context and guidance, it’s perfectly normal to razz and be razzed as a part of competitive athletics. Obviously we need to have a line for profanity and epithets that we have deemed inappropriate as a culture. Still, I don’t believe “Air-Ball!” fits that mold.
Am I just a crusty old man or has the pendulum swung too far out?
Feeling the crush of age via kids movies and System of a Down…
On February 16 of the year 2000 I saw System of a Down play Avalon in Boston with Incubus1 on a tour called Sno-Core. I was six days into being 21-years-old as a student at Boston University. I absolutely loved System of a Down and on that night they were in the headliner’s position with Incubus playing before them. I tell this story frequently because I also like Incubus, but I was taken by how the cute girl quotient dropped precipitously after Brandon Boyd and his buddies finished playing. Apparently ethnic sounding hardcore music isn’t as appealing to girls as alternative pop songs from an Adonis-looking lead vocalist with a penchant for sticking his tongue out while he sings. It was so very long ago, but as I sat down to write this I wanted desperately to listen to System of a Down because I saw it in a movie for a trailer that I will likely take my kids to and they can’t stop laughing at it.
It’s just strange because back when I saw them play in 2000, it was something of a badge of honor that I liked such a hardcore band as System of a Down. Now, as a hardcore and metal fan who is raising kids, it’s all so strange. My kids love the radio edit of System of a Down’s “Sugar” as well. We rock out to all kinds of things like that. They’ve been washed over by the brutal vocals and guitars of Deafheaven. It’s just interesting because I found my way to that kind of music by myself. It felt like rebellion a lot of the time as I read the lyrics to Acid Bath songs in a CD liner note booklet. But what do the kids gravitate toward and embrace when their dad presents them with things that were once known as subversive and even brutal? Is this just a further extension of the Beatles and their mop-top haircuts? Is this the same verse as Elvis’ swinging hips on television? I guess we’ll find out.
Your weekly moment of soccer zen…
Do the advertisements normally flash like this, or did someone set it off when this goal from distance was about to go in?
“I don’t do covers,” I lied
By this point some of you may know that I’m a musician. I had (have?) a band called The Company Line and we did a demo, an album, and then I recorded an acoustic album under that name as well. So I’ve played around a bit, but I always tell people I don’t do covers, except that I started thinking about it and I actually have quite a few by this point. The reason I say I don’t do covers is because I’m such a lackluster guitar player. I’ve gotten good enough that I can memorize my own songs on guitar and sing along, but I don’t play guitar well enough to master anyone else’s stuff. So even the covers I have done are all pretty bastardized into my own style. Anyway, this is one of my favorites, “I Was Born in Omaha,” by The Gloria Record. You’ll be thankful to know I’m posting the real version from The Gloria Record.
And here’s a list of the songs I figured out at various points in time just for fun.
Lucky – Radiohead
Disarm – Smashing Pumpkins
The Sea and The Rhythm – Iron and Wine
Ballroom – Jeremy Enigk
What’s Up? – Four Non Blondes
Falling Slowly – The Swell Season
Hourglass – At the Drive-In
Creep – Radiohead
I Was Born in Omaha – The Gloria Record
If I Could – Mineral
Realize – Colbie Caillat
Nobody would ever book me anywhere based on that setlist. Anyway, that’s it from me this week. Have a great weekend. Enjoy the Pro Bowl and we’ll be back next week to tell you what our bet will be for the Super Bowl coin toss. (Not really.)
- Mr. Bungle, too. They opened with a note for note version of “What the World Needs Now” while Mike Patton wore a sailor outfit for no apparent reason. [↩]
31 Comments
I’d book you to play my party with that setlist, Craig. We might be the only ones there, but I’d still book you, haha.
LaCanfora is STILL butthurt about his buddy Banner…
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/jason-la-canfora/25465277/new-bosses-in-cleveland-philly-are-a-lot-like-the-old-boss-joe-banner
Watch out for that “sieve” chant. It ruins childhoods…..
….I am sad for this planet.
Re sportsmanship: Possibly more than any other institution, schools go way overboard in trying to control harmless behavior, from zero-tolerance no-touching policies in grade school to the current microaggression lunacy in colleges. This silly ban on chanting is just another. I wouldn’t expect it to catch on.
But I can see their point, as futile as it is. Sportsmanship has already ceased to exist in big-time college and pro sports. It’s not enough to win (fairly or unfairly doesn’t matter), you also have to rub your opponent’s face in it. Pity.
c’mon Craig we all know you had posters of Chad Kroeger and Scott Stapp on your walls. It’s ok. Let it out. We support you
http://www.quicknewsnow.com/sites/default/files/field/image/goodtry.jpg
wow, he was really trying hard to make that over-wrought story work. Saying that because Hue Jackson and Norv Turner were from the same coaching tree is essentially swapping out the coaches, thus, this has Banner’s fingerprints all over it? Framing Banner’s time in Philly in such a way that it made it seem he had anything to do with personnel before Andy Reid left?
Even for a hack, that was just awful.
I kind of agree that it’s doubling back to some of Banner’s concepts and philosophies. I don’t know that anyone doubted anything about Banner other than him as a personality and a boss. It was the execution piece and the constant rubbing of people the wrong way in the coaching search that ends up standing in Joe Banner’s way.
That’s a great Gloria Record song! It’s on one of the few records from that era and style that I still find myself revisiting,especially in the winter, which is when I first heard it upon release.
Dug up his HS yearbook photo!
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110910035311/beavisandbutthead/images/7/7a/Stewart.jpeg
until Reid left, Banner was a capologist, and thats about it. Or at least, that was my understanding. I think his role in PHI has been oversold as time has passed. I could be wrong.
hi Craig … just remember , don’t try to “master” anyone else’s material … make it original & make it your own … besides , not many can play like the originals , so why try.
for example : in “Creep” , unless you can sings the high parts , why try ?? it is better to have it sound good & in-tune than try to sing it like Radiohead. you can usually find unique / original versions on You Tube. in fact , there’s a version of a heavy-set kid doing this song & he knocks it out of the park.
i am currently working on an acoustic version of “dream on” … and there is no way in hell i could hit the high parts near the end of that song the way steven tyler did.
good luck with your music.
good post MrC … if you look hard enough , sportsmanship does indeed exist.
you should be proud of “i was born in Omaha” … long song. is that you singing the lead vocal ?
I don’t need no instructions to know how to rock.
http://i.imgur.com/5Ttvhf6.gif
I think this mostly comes from schools having legitimate concerns about everything they do in our overly litigious and reactionary society. So many decide to go the detailed policies route to make sure that their collective asses are covered if any issue ever arises.
In my experience, this practice has seeped into most institutions, both public and private. People are so afraid of the consequences that might stem from their decisions that they prefer to defer to official policy and free themselves from the burden of thinking, judgement, and decision making.
Because without that list of banned chants, some poor s.o.b. would have to decide if students are just having fun or being overly disrespectful. Can’t have that. Might get sued. Lose your job. What does the handbook say?!?!?
No way. That’s the original. 🙂
gotcha … thanks.
“Chop Suey” still on my playlist!!!
Speaking of both…Flint Water Crisis…people need to be informed!
System of a Down is one of those groups that never get old. I hope they reunite one day.
As a Spurs fan, here’s my lifetime moment of soccer zen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWlMisOtshk
DON’T DONATE WATER BOTTLES!
If only it were that easy, simple.
Here’s an even better video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciFK6smUTAg
And (my favorite Spurs player) Christian Eriksen’s assist is simply sublime.
Christian Eriksen has a name sounding like someone San Antonio would have, but I cannot find him on the Spurs roster.
I am generally confused now. Are we using sarcastic fonts?
You’re doing it wrong.
So two teams have said, “we like everything about your organization, but you” and that’s supposed to be a positive thing for Banner?
I don’t find anything remotely close to joking about that story.
Sounds like someone just needs to come up with a rhythmic clap that is either 3 or 5 syllables. Basically all of the censored chants rely on the tried and true Clap Clap Clap-Clap-Clap technique. As in “We can’t hear you” Clap Clap Clap-Clap-Clap. This could be a gamechanger. Maybe some youths out there will really get creative with their 3 or 5 syllable insults/cheers.