A friend asked me to comment on this article, which was published by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker. First of all, Vivek Ranadivé is incredibly self-centered and should reevaluate why he wants to coach twelve-year-old girls. This statement does not absolve his counterparts of their boorish, loutish, and short-tempered behaviour but he is coaching at the wrong level. Usually, that particular age group restricts full-court pressure because of the destructive effects on skill development. If he had limited practice time, Randivé should have focused on fundamental skills. Obviously full-court pressure would work; most teenagers make horrendous decisions under any …
On Snooker
I was positively uncertain about the content of this tiny tome when I purchased it at the used book store. Reading the synopsis on the reverse, I gathered that Mordecair Richler was an avid fan of the game who would include anecdotes from throughout his life. Perhaps the author would delve into the kinship between the literati and elite athletes or outline the importance of competition in a young man’s life. Perhaps he admired a professional athlete from afar or found similarities between creativity on paper and canvas and creativity on felt (and by extension grass or hardwood since certain …
ESPN: The Uncensored Story
Michael Freeman’s book about the birth of ESPN offers many lessons about entrepreneurship and marketing, largely focused on persistence and the benefits of competition. Many people turned down the concept of a 24/7 sports network yet the founder Bill Rasmussen kept pushing because he believed that he had a good idea. The networks at the time were extremely myopic in their vision for the future of television which permitted cable networks like ESPN, CNN, and HBO to steal countless viewers, talent, and advertising revenue. Whilst the new blue-chip brand’s humble beginnings were fascinating, the amount of alcoholism, sexual harassment, gambling, …
Paradigm Shifts
Recently I read War as They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a Time of Unrest and Coach: The Life of Paul “Bear” Bryant. The books chronicled three iconic college football coaches during a time when their profession and the world around them were evolving at breakneck speed. The first book is about the Hundred Yard War and how the coaches reacted to each other and unrest on their respective campuses; the second book focuses on Bear Bryant’s life, especially his time in Tuscaloosa. Thomas Kuhn, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions talks about how …
“This Is Russia”
Dave King wrote King of Russia during the 2004-05 season when he coached Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the Russian Super League. The diary contrasts the professional hockey systems in Russia and North America and records observations about daily life in Russia. In post-Communist Russia, the country is modernizing from Moscow outwards but it is not quite there. Despite all best intentions, transportation and distributions quandaries occasionally arise and corruption remains a problem. King encounters some bizarre situations where it is best not to ask questions because “this is Russia.” Unfortunately, King is also able to chronicle how the Russian economy is …
Outliers
Like Blink and The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell weaves a number of seemingly unrelated pieces of anecdotal evidence to create his latest work Outliers. The fundamental premise of the book is that conventional wisdom about success is flawed: factors publically praised are irrelevant and success or failure can be determined by a few core factors. Gladwell raises a salient point that many of athletic and academic cut-off dates favour those born early in the year. Basketball Ontario and other organizations have realized this and have implemented strategies to provide more coaching for those born late in the year and recognize …
The Best and Brightest
“Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it,” according to George Santayana. According to David Halberstam’s book, The Best and the Brightest – which exposes how the Kennedy and Johnson cabinets of the 1960s handled Vietnam – it may not be so simple. John F. Kennedy’s administration had lofty goals: some of the most educated men in the country sought to redefine the role of the United States on the world stage. Some sought to curtail the arms race, others sought to establish a new, modern “Great Society” back home. Despite their best intentions and their amazingly …
Best Seat in the House
Spike Lee’s “basketball memoir”, Best Seat in the House, provides a unique perspective on the sport and frank commentary. Despite his film background, Lee is tremendously knowledgeable about basketball and how it is intertwined with New York City’s culture. He has attended hundreds of games, from Game 7 of the 1970 Finals when Willis Reed emerged from the locker room to deflate and defeat the Lakers to Game 7 of the 1994 Eastern Finals when the Knicks returned to the Finals for the first time in twenty years, and he describes the city’s euphoric reaction to these moments. Thousands of …
The Game
Put in uniform at six or seven, by the time a boy reaches the NHL, he is a veteran of close to 1,000 games-30-minute games, later 32-, then 45, finally 60-minute games, played more than : twice a week, more than seventy times a year between late September and late March. It is more games from a younger age, over a longer season than ever before. But it is less hockey than ever before. For, every time a twelve-year-old boy plays a 30-minute game, sharing the ice with teammates, he plays only about ten minutes. And ten minutes a game, …
The Reason Why
The Charge of the Light BrigadeLord Alfred Tennyson Cecil Woodham-Smith wrote The Reason Why to document the circumstances that led to one of the most disastrous military ventures in history: the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. I read it on the recommendation of David Halberstam, who said it made history come alive for him, and found it to be an excellent metaphor for leadership – in any field. 1. Half a league, half a league,Half a league onward,All in the valley of DeathRode the six hundred.“Forward, the Light Brigade!“Charge for the guns!” he said:Into the valley …
Crashing the Borders
Harvey Araton, sports columnist at The New York Times argues a two-fold thesis in his latest basketball work, Crashing the Borders: How Basketball Won the World and Lost Its Soul at Home. On one hand, basketball has reached incredible heights of popularity world-wide, becoming second to soccer as international players take up the sport and professional leagues thrive across the glove. Meanwhile, basketball in the United States is deeply troubled. Television ratings barely reach a third of the highs recorded by Michael Jordan in 1998 and less than a half of what “Magic” Johnson attained in 1980. Fundamental skills are …
The Breaks of the Game
During his career, David Halberstam wrote two books about the National Basketball Association: The Breaks of the Game and Playing for Keeps (concerning the break-up of the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers and the construction of the 1990s Chicago Bulls respectively). Halberstam’s two works – written roughly seventeen years apart – cover a dramatic shift in the game of basketball, a change from a marginal sport without a full television contract to the second most popular sport in the world. The 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers may have been the last true team (greater than the sum of its parts) to win …
Game of Shadows
Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, authors of Game of Shadows, make a compelling case concerning the use of performance enhancing substances in sport. Designer steroids (such as the Clear and the Cream) or Human Growth Hormone have powered numerous athletic achievements, from baseball’s home run chases to the 2000 Olympics. After reading the book, it is difficult to take any sporting record seriously. Where is the line? Where do vitamins or natural products like flaxseed oil end and controlled substances like steroids or H.G.H. begin? Lance Armstrong’s decision to devote his entire career to train for the Tour de France …
Meditations & More Than Meets the Eye
Morpheus proves a pseudo-philosopher in the Matrix Trilogy, much like Marcus Aurelius in his collection of musings, Meditations, and Optimus Prime in the summer blockbuster flick, Transformers. The latter two offer interesting ideas but fall short of anything truly significant, like Tony Soprano quoting Sun-Tzu or mentioning Machiavelli to Dr. Melfi. Marcus Aurelius repeats themes regarding man’s control over his own destiny and how the world and universe will carry on irrespective of one’s actions. One memorable point: “even if you burst with indignation they will still carry on regardless.” Another: the potential of the directing mind to speak loudly …
The Blind Side
Michael Lewis’ latest novel, The Blind Side, is part-sport, part-economics, part-psychology, and part-sociology. While writing an article about his high school baseball coach that was published as the novella Coach, he re-connected with teammate Sean Tuohy, who was adopting a 6-5, 350 pound offensive lineman who played left guard for the Briarcrest Christian School football team that Tuohy coached. That student-athlete, Michael Oher, became a living example of how sport and money have become intertwined while the rich and poor and black and white have grown apart. At the beginning of the book, Oher is a marginal student and physical …
Basketball Is My Life
Reading books by Red Holzman or Bob Cousy describe playground basketball before World War II and the early days of the Association with enough detail to provide one with an excellent appreciation of the game’s history. Basketball Is My Life: Quaintly narrated in a conversational tone, Bob Cousy’s first literary effort was written after the Boston Celtics’ first Association title in 1957. The book lacks meaningful insight into basketball but the key theme is work ethic: in basketball, business, or life. Obviously, Cousy devoted significant time to the sport but basketball is not his life. Nevertheless, given the obstacles that …