More Institutional Narcissism

Another parable for putting the institution first. (Hint: it’s not the institutional church this time.) But you’re probably right with your second guess. WaPo sports journalist Jason Reid:

(T)he initial response by (Rutgers University) also was pathetic. By merely suspending Rice for three games and fining him $50,000 in December after investigating what he viewed on the tape, Athletic Director Tim Pernetti displayed an even bigger failure of leadership. The whole Rutgers mess provides yet another sobering reminder about the warped nature of big-time college athletics.

Too often, the first instinct of some university officials is to protect their schools’ interests rather than doing what’s morally — and usually clearly — right when crises occur. When faced with potentially embarrassing situations, many decision-makers seem to first try to handle things as easily as possible for themselves. Minimize negative scrutiny, the thinking goes, in an effort to protect the brand.

This would be another example of what Pope Francis referred to as self-referentiality and narcissism. Mr Pernetti:

The most important thing I am factoring in is trying to make sure that we don’t do harm to Rutgers University, because we are a small slice of the pie here at this great place. I don’t want to put any negatively on the university when we have a lot of real good things going on.

Hard to believe. Many sports people think athletics, especially money-making ones, are at the top of the heap. This strikes me as spin.

In this light, it’s not so different from the institutional church. The Secular Religion of Sport is a powerful force in the US, especially on college campuses. Tens of thousands descend on campuses for the rituals of basketball and football. Massive feelings of support are generated that involves not only the athletic event itself, but also clothing and food and vehicles and such on game day and beyond. It warps the place of athletics on a college campus. Division III schools have the right balance, I think.

 

Teen Daughters Are Mysteries

Lately, I’ve been tapping into my assessment from forty years ago that female teens were intimidating, strange, and just a cause for worry. These days, I just can’t figure them out. Tuesday I asked the young miss, “It’s the last home volleyball match at ISU. Want to go?”

“I dunno.”

I reminded her on Thursday. Same mumbled answer.

Yesterday, my wife and I spent the afternoon picking through retail wreckage after the locusts descended on Black Friday. It was nice to spend a few hours with my wife. When I settled in at my desk at the parish a bit after 4 yesterday, I thought I’d get four, maybe five hours of Christmas planning, email catching-up, and the little stuff that didn’t happen this week. So after only a half-hour, I get a text from my daughter:

I do want to go to the game.

It’s not often I will get an offer like that from the young miss. Work can wait. It was a great match, especially for the home team.

 

Olympic Thoughts

The family and I have been following the 24/7 coverage of the Summer Games. I noticed Michael Mullins’ commentary at Eureka Street that the country-oriented aspect is a problem:

Nationalism is the scourge of the modern Olympics. We’ve become more interested in the performances of nations than those of great athletes. Our eyes are on the medal tally because it proves we are better than Great Britain or some other nation. We slide too easily from speaking of ‘how our athletes are doing’ to ‘how we are doing’.

The Australian Government is complicit. The feeling of national shame following our inability to win a single gold medal at the 1976 Montreal Games prompted the Government to establish the Australian Institute of Sport and put large amounts of public money into training athletes. It worked. We can once again count ourselves among the greatest sporting nations on earth, even if in truth we are one of the greatest per capita sports funding nations on earth.

I’m somewhat sympathetic to this, though I realize that nations are better able to fund athletes than anyone. Unfortunately, Mr Mullins’ solution might be worse than national competition. It would be more likely that only the wealthy would be able to compete internationally. Or those favored by wealthy corporations and patrons. Good for Australia and for other developed nations. Maybe not so good for Third World athletes.

When I was watching the synchronized diving last night, the commentators were discussing one Chinese woman who has been paired with a number of younger divers, all with success. Her partners, of course, were all Chinese. What if, I wondered, she paired up with a non-Chinese? What if two or more competitors from different nations decided to team up as a show of unity and friendship. If we have to have medal standings, why not permit all athletes like Guor Marial to compete, if they wish, under non-national auspices?

I’m not convinced that nationalism is good for sport. I found the American gymnastics commentators quite annoying last night. It’s impractical and imprudent to think the Olympic Games could be divested of nationalism. But for a start, there should be an easier way for athletes to compete for the Olympic ideal separate from nationalism. And let them keep their own medal tally, since those national standings aren’t likely to disappear. Or be motivation for patriotic support.

 

Translating Sanctions

I was catching news of the NCAA and self-imposed sanctions against Penn State football before hitting the road today. The list includes more than $70 million in fines and lost revenue, no bowl games, removal of a statue, and reduced scholarships for four years. There’s that “vacating” of wins for fourteen years. I think that’s an appropriate measure for the coach’s record. But it’s otherwise a silly gesture, even for a scandal like this. It strikes me as akin to a rewriting of history, erasing the public memory of events for a political purpose. Joe Paterno won more games as a coach than any other. He also allowed a sex predator to continue to molest and used the almighty power of college football to have his way. Maybe that’s embarassing for the NCAA to have Coach Paterno  at the top of the heap, but that’s the culture they’ve long-encouraged in big time college athletics. I hope they don’t think there aren’t other culture-of-football challenges ahead.

If the Catholic Church ever imposed sanctions on a diocese, let’s say Philadelphia, I was wondering today what that would look like.

Removal of the JoePa statue would sort of be like removing the burial remains from the cathedral crypt and putting them in an unmarked grave.

No bowl games for four years and an extra year of probation on top of that is like a generation in college sports. For a diocese, a generation would be like the active ministry life of a priest. No red hat and no metropolitan status for thirty to forty years.

Scholarships and fines … well, I don’t think you can take seminarians, priests, and money away from a diocese. Penn State will have a hard enough time paying fines without dipping into academics or women’s sports. Losing a bishop’s burial spot and a red hat? Man, that would hurt big time and there’s no money involved with that whatsoever. I guess the courts are already mandating abuse settlements, and dioceses are doing what PSU won’t be allowed to do: take money from innocent people.

Penn State football avoided the “death penalty.” Geez, what would that look like for Philadelphia? The actual archdiocese would be chopped up and reapportioned to Allentown, Harrisburg, and maybe even Camden, Trenton, and Wilmington. I think that’s under consideration in Ireland, though, a radical reduction in the number of bishops and dioceses.

There are still people who say that Penn State got off easy in all this. And many respected sports commentators are saying these were a little too strong. I’d have to concede that the NCAA and Penn State itself were far more serious about the eradication of the culture of silence around protecting sex predators. The Church would have to do a lot of distasteful things before it approached the impact of these penalties.

 

Take Me Out To The Atheists

I saw where atheists have sponsored an independent minor league team for one night. The Saint Paul Saints have become the Mr Paul Aints. Read:

Dubbed “A Night of Unbelievable Fun,” the Aug. 10 game against the Amarillo Sox will include an auction of players’ special “Aints” jerseys, fireworks and a ceremonial first pitch by David Silverman, president of American Atheists.

The letter “S’’ in all Saints signs and logos around the stadium will be covered, and there are planned references to Big Foot, UFOs and other targets of the skeptical community, team officials said.

Interesting. The president of Minnesota Atheists, August Berkshire:

We want to show that atheists can have fun.

I think we could have some fun with this. Chicago Cubs fans would actually have to give up all hope … without prayers.

The Dodgers would be from Lost Angels. Or Lost Devils if the satanists stepped up to sponsor. Just down interstate 5, the Sandy Ego Partiers. The city by the bay? New Mexico’s state capital: that would be a hard one.

Fair play might suggest Christians could turn names around in their favor. Any suggestions for Christian night?

 

 

Sporting KC

Three weeks later, I’m still slightly abuzz with fond memories from my MLS outing with the young miss. We’ve been following Euro 2012–actually, it’s been more her, with me getting text updates at work after every goal.

As a fan venue, Livestrong Sporting Park is amazing. I’ve been to NFL games in a few different cities. Baseball in a lot more. College football. I can’t ever remember such an exquisite and chilling experience as I had in Kansas City. As a cynic about professional sports, I’m amazed I’m writing that.

Part of it is the sharing of a special experience with my daughter–the day before her 16th birthday. There are really no words that capture the whole thing. Not even my clumsy panorama of the stadium:

 

The Cup Runneth Out?

An interesting story out of Rome: the Pontifical Council for the Laity ends its support for the annual soccer tournament of Roman seminarians and religious orders. Why? According to Rev. Kevin Lixey the seminarian outreach to youth ended.

They are just organizing a soccer tournament, and they are doing a good job. But this is not what we are interested in: we want to equip seminarians for their job in the field, to help them reach youth through sport.

Is this significant? Probably not. The Clericus Cup gets patronage from the Pontifical Council for Culture. I wasn’t aware poor sportsmanship was an issue for this effort:

(I)n 2010, a bitter fight broke out among players during a match. There have also been reports in the Italian press of supporters chanting sharp-tongued songs against rival teams.

The culture of sport has far-reaching tentacles into contemporary society, including seminary training. For a “different soccer,” or a different approach to any sport to take root, the witness is going to need to maintain ties to the community, and the evangelical needs of the laity. Otherwise, it’s just another day at the beach for clergy-in-training. And that’s not to say that priests don’t need encouragement to stay fit. But I’d wonder why the department dealing with the laity is involved. Or culture. It should be the Congregation for the Clergy, right?

Losing sponsorship? Heck, Tiger Woods and Rush Limbaugh know that feeling, right?

 

NFL Bounties

My wife caught the story on NFL bounty hunting before I did. She asked me about it on Friday night. I had to admit my shock, but no, I’m not really surprised.

It does point out the hypocrisy in pro football on the part of active players who have yet to arrive at either an untimely death or residence in an assisted living center.

The coaches are even worse. But like the players, they’re only out for the cash rewards of competition. Good thing it doesn’t count against the salary cap, eh?

I’ve long thought Roger Goodell was a most unconvincing man as a commissioner. If he’s going to penalize players for illegal and dangerous hits, it will indeed be interesting to see what happens with the Saints scandal. Or any other team morally challenged.

Wins and losses are tallied mostly by players who run, pass, throw, and kick the ball. A tackle will net you two measly points–less than a field goal–only in select circumstances. In his mind former Saint coordinator Gregg Williams may think this is a Dorothy Hamill sport in which you get extra style points money for sending a player to a hospital. But in football, there shouldn’t be grace points for the simple competitiveness of it all. Six, three, two, and one. These are good, simple numbers. 1,500 is an obscenity.

This is what I would like to see happen:

- The New Orleans Saints should forfeit all 2012 draft picks.

- The team needs to cough up a seven or low eight-figure fine.

- As player contracts expire, the New Orleans salary cap should shrink until an additional $50 million is donated to players’ retirement. The team should be prevented from cutting players under contract until the penalty is paid.

- Gregg Williams needs a lifetime ban from the NFL. Maybe after five years, that ban could be reevaluated.

- Head coach Sean Payton should probably receive a one to two-year suspension.

I think that would send a message that needs to be sent. Those post-game smiles and glad-handing between players will still continue. But I’ll tell you: if I played on a clean team, and I found out those chumps on the coaching staff were out to get me and my teammates, I’d be heading straight to the locker room after the next game.

Pro sports is in an awful state. I still haven’t reassembled all my old sports bookmarks after the recent browser setback. I’m not inclined to go back to my daily and weekly haunts just yet, either.

 

Express Yourself

One of our students accompanied the 7pm Sunday Mass, and I got to spend Supe Sunday with the family for the first time in a few years. The game was entertainment enough for me, though I rather dislike both teams. When it was 17-15, I was rooting for a Giants safety to tie the score. I wanted to see unusual and strange things on the field.

The Super Bowl had its first Quidditch moment ever, with a team intentionally conceding a touchdown to give itself more than a ghost of a chance of winning the game at the very end. I can’t imagine that happening in hockey, baseball, or soccer.

When I checked some post-game commentary online, there was a lot of chatter about the middle finger gesture which we all missed (at my house, anyway).

You know, back in my day, artists protested with forbidden songs and corporate flipped the bird in response, powerless. Today, I’m not sure that corporate doesn’t approve of these activities. An artist like M.I.A. expresses herself and pumps up her sales and her big media handlers are probably pleased with the attention. It doesn’t do a whole lot for her pet causes. After all, we didn’t get an image of a starving Asian child. Whew, says corporate. We just got the same gesture shared among bullies and the victims of just about every First World school in the world that speaks the language of sex and a finger. So she doesn’t give a spit; neither do her bosses.

I don’t feel thrilled with Madonna’s final “World Peace” in lights either. Nice thought. But what does it mean, in the context? Nice songs about expressing oneself, and a nod to a prayer. But this is century21 football and Big Spectacle.

I probably shouldn’t be so hard on Madonna and her NextGen musical posse. It’s less about sheer talent, and more about entertainment. This was, after all, the high altar of American sport. If you want concern for the poor, you need real religious missioners, peace-and-justice folks, and activists. Super Bowl Sunday is about entertainment under tight corporate control, and with just enough edge to keep you coming back for more next time, rather than leave the scene entirely and set up camp among the needy.

Happy football for another year, people.

 

LSU, Win or Lose?

This would really stick in the craw of the BCS if the Associated Press football voters ignore an Alabama win in the final college football match-up next week and vote the loser number one.

Among sports entities to dislike/root against/hate, I would rank the BCS along with the Yankees and the Cowboys. That leaves me with motivation to root for the more eastern school. Even though I really don’t care one way or the other.

The real college football Division I championship is being played Saturday in Frisco, Texas. There, the result will be decided on the field at the end of an honorable playoff system. Not by computers and how much cash can be thrown at a corrupt system.

 

In A Flash

My hometown hosted two playoff games in fútbol over the past weekend. The young miss and I watched the televised one. I caught the internet results of the other. One involved women. The other, men. One was, granted, a match for a playoff title with the world’s top athletes. The other a measly semi-final. Local sportswriter Bob Matthews:

After a run of losing baseball and hockey seasons, Rochester fans appreciated a winning team loaded with world-class athletes. It didn’t hurt that the Flash were an offensive-minded team that even non-soccer fans could appreciate.

…

An impressive crowd of 10,461 watched the Flash beat the Philadelphia Independence in the WPS championship game Saturday afternoon at Sahlen’s Stadium. Only 3,598 watched the Rhinos lose 2-1 to Harrisburg in the USL Pro League semifinals the night before.

Still, it’s bold that women (first-year team) would outdraw men (a 17-year franchise) by almost a three-to-one margin in the same city on the same weekend.

You know: I love this sport. It was my favorite to play as a young lad. I went to a number of pro games in the 70′s while growing up and when I was in college. In the last decade, my family and I have attended two 0-0 draws. As a fan, I’m not excited (particularly) about driving 250 miles down the road to sit in $35 seats and see a lot of nothing happen on the field.

But I’d have to ponder a road trip with the young miss to see this game. Even if it is a friendly. The obstacle isn’t a 0-0 draw. It’s the birthday of the other lady of the household. She might come along for the sport of it, but I think we’d need to visit a really nice restaurant before kickoff.

 

What Fathers Understand, and Mothers Don’t

The young miss and I have restarted our routine of last summer: simulated baseball in the backyard. A “hit” past the workshed (or not) is a double (or a single). Home run has to be hit in the air to the on the property on the opposite side of our block.

After Sunday’s game, called by Mom because of bedtime. And darkness, we were comparing the abrasions on the heels of our left hands. (Similar grip on the bat, I guess.) My wife asked Britt why she kept playing if her hand was sore.

Sheesh. Some things moms don’t know.

I was also flexing my arm, and my wife asked if a needed a pill. The more important information was the scouting report on the young miss: she is one tough batter to get out. She has a better swing than my awkwardness. Plus, she never gives up. I don’t know how many two-strike, two-out hits I gave up. Did I mention her comeback after trailing 8-0 in the second inning?

Later in the game, she was clinging to a one-run lead when I had her at two outs and 0-2. I tried to sneak something in close, and she ripped a bases-loaded double over the roof of the shed. Seven runs later, I was up to bat.

Just a few things dads understand but moms don’t.

 

Good Thing We’re Not Sports Fanatics

Mid-afternoon today my wife asks if the Super Bowl is on ESPN. No, I said, network, but I’m not sure which one.

Uh oh, she said. The basic cable tier has been off and on all week.

Huh?

I thought it would sort itself out by today, she said.

The most disappointed one in the house was the young miss–no halftime show.

I have a good friend who lives in Milwaukee and grew up in Pittsburgh. I’m sure his tv was working today.

 

What It’s All About

I don’t really follow the NBA, but I like this comment:

I think the NBA is so important to Christmas that what we really need to do is increase from five games to 10, and we need to start them at midnight on what would have been Christmas Eve and play them all through the day so there’s not a minute of Christmas Day where there’s not an NBA game on TV. Because, it’s great.

The NBA is Christmas, to me, anyway. It’s what it’s all about.

I guess Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy drew the attention of the frowny faces in league management for being too whiny about playing on Christmas Day last year. But I like the man’s approach to sarcasm. He’ll probably get fined again, but as for the blogosphere, he would fit right in.

The NBA and other sports leagues can’t fine me, so I’ll just come out and say it: I think a Christmas break of a few days would be good for even professional sports. Send the athletes home. Let them cultivate family time. Give some teams off from the 22nd to the 25th. Others the 24th through the 27th. Send a message, that is, if you really believe the malarkey about player health, family friendliness, and all. Because, really: sports is not what Christmas is all about. Not even hockey.

 

Yoga Rhinos

I’m surprised more pro teams don’t turn to yoga like my hometown soccer Rhinos. Assistant coach Bill Sedgewick:

I played a lot of minutes and I was never injured. I felt fresh. I felt it was the best way for me to be flexible, strong and focused rather than do the gym thing.

I wouldn’t expect a sometimes-hidebound traditional sport like baseball to embrace it, but given the physical and mental demands of a 162-game season, it sure couldn’t hurt. Especially this sorry team.