Whooping it up over college hoops — SDSU women and men display success through exceptional teamwork

I’m thinking sports this morning for a couple of reasons. One is, both the SDSU men and women won their first games of the Summit League (its public domain logo is seen above) tournament. There’s a good chance they can both win the tournament. 

(Editor’s note — they did! Go Jacks!)

So there’s some good basketball watching on the agenda for the next few days.

I enjoy watching college basketball. Some have mastered the craft to an amazing degree. There’s always a chance you will be shocked and surprised at a move or a basket. The teamwork is often exceptional. Assists can be spectacular, as can the three-pointers.

Pro basketball is different! My son watches the Boston Celtics and will sometimes ask if I saw their game. My usual answer is no, as I don’t quite understand the attraction to basketball where the men are so tall their head almost touches the rim of the basket and they can probably shoot the length of the court and make it.

It just seems to me the game should be more difficult for them. Who ever heard of a basketball game with a score of 186-184, even though it was triple overtime. Besides, pro basketball will never prove worthy again of the Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen Chicago Bulls era.

I’m probably also appreciative of college basketball players since I never made the grade. My high school basketball career ended after I played my sophomore year with a team called “The Bombers.” We were a group of guys who weren’t good enough to make the varsity or junior varsity, but really wanted to play competitive basketball.

Our school was good enough to create a third team. We would travel to small towns nearby and play in gyms the size of a classroom. Ten guys and two refs pretty much filled the floor. It was great fun, including the bus rides to the small towns, when guys enjoyed “bombing” the coach by passing gas and provoking his wrath.

The other reason I’m thinking sports this morning is, I’ve been having trouble with my left knee. It gives out on me if I’m not careful. I wear a cloth knee guard that helps a bit but I’m trying to avoid the brace. It’s bulky and uncomfortable. You might ask, “Why does that make you think about sports?” And the answer is, “High school football.”

Football was the one sport in high school where I had some modest talent. I was a starter at tackle. In those days you played both ways, offense and defense. The other tackle was our real bear of a player. He was bigger, heavier, more muscular and aggressive than I. He was good company for the guard on that side, a best friend, small, but tough, agile and an excellent blocker. Most of our running plays went in their direction.

One game, toward the end of the season, a running play came my way. My leg got caught in a tangle. As the pile cleared, I couldn’t put weight on it nor walk. The coach came out and helped me off the field. (You didn’t have trainers in those days.)

Young and tough and perhaps stupid, I began to put weight on it, even though it was painful. It wasn’t checked out by a doctor nor treated. I was at practice the following Monday, when the coach started practice by shaming me in front of the whole team, complaining I was the only player he had ever had to help off the field. Perhaps that made me even more stupid and macho, practicing and playing with a knee that needed some care.

Although football was my best high school sport, it also gave me two chipped front teeth. A brute of an end on our team stuck his elbow in my mouth during practice one day. Fortunately, I had a dentist who was able to provide me with gold caps on both front teeth that he then painted to look like the real thing. You wouldn’t know they were broken teeth, unless you got close enough to stick your head in my mouth. 

I guess that’s the downside of sports. People can get hurt. You always grimace when you witness a collision and a basketball player remains on the floor too long or, as happened last evening, chases a ball into the chairs and falls headfirst behind them.

Given the players sidelined by injuries, the SDSU women’s team has done amazingly well. So, we will cheer those women on, and the men’s team as well; recognizing that each player is exhibiting the kind of coordination of their body, with other bodies, that models interrelationship, the way we all can be connected.

lCarl Kline of Brookings is a United Church of Christ clergyman and adjunct faculty member at the Mt. Marty College campus in Watertown. He is a founder and on the planning committee of the Brookings Interfaith Council, co-founder of Nonviolent Alternatives, a small not-for-profit that, for 15 years, provided intercultural experiences with Lakota/Dakota people in the Northern Plains and brought conflict resolution and peer mediation programs to schools around the region. He was one of the early participants in the development of Peace Brigades International. Kline can be reached at carl@satyagrahainstitute.org. This column originally appeared in the Brookings Register.