here is a that shows HOW Gerald Wallace suffered his collapsed lung and rib fracture.
scary stuff.
Looking at Bynum's decision and where he hit, this should be charged as more than a flagrant foul. Furthermore, Bynum loses a lot of my respect and I will label him a stupid PUNK until further notice.
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Dude suffered a partially collpased lung (30-40%) as well as a fracture of the 5th rib …
That is unbelievable!
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I remember, as a player, what it was like to get blown out by 30-45 points. It sucked, quite frankly. For a lot of my teammates, the attitude was "oh well". Me? I hate to lose. I worked way harder on my skills in my off time because of games like this; images of the other team having fun and bragging and talking trash at my expense seared into my subconscious.
As an adult, I had the chance to play games (2) where we decimated our competition. Two games were 108-54. The beatings were so bad that one of those the men's league teams actually folded after that game. No joke.
And finally, as a coach, I had the opportunity to coach my Varisty Boys team to a 102-42 win. I watched as my bench players ran up the score til the last second. I had my 11th and 12th guys in there and all my starters were off the court and we were still scoring. I stopped pressing full court. Told them to only play Man defense – hard, but man on man D. I demanded 2 ball rotations minimum before a shot. And then I eliminated the 3 from our arsenal. And still we scored.
As an adult, I had a chance to exorcise my demons from high school when I beat those teams by 54. But both as a high school player and coach, I felt extremely guilty about exposing my teammates and those kids to that type of personal humiliation. I mean, let's not sugarcoat it – it IS humiliating to lose by ONE point, let alone 50 or as my previous post notes, 100 points!
I have never seen that before in my entire life!
With only 8 players on the team, Coach Grimes had no option but to go to his limited bench … and even those players needed to take a rest …. he says he stopped pressing and asked for no more 3s …. I can understand all that.
As a coach, every game is a chance to learn something. Even in blowouts, the points to emphasize are precision, patience and hard work. Never give up, never surrender. Those are life lessons that are learned in the battlefield of sport. They serve well when faced with advesity or a scholastic arch rival. If you take a game like this and remove the learning aspect, then you're left with nothing of worth afterwards.
I do not know what strategy Coach Grimes employed, but reading about the team and its history, I can understand why they wanted to enjoy a win of this magnitude. Why they needed to do this, for themselves. Because really, if the shoe was on the other foot, NO ONE would have the pity on them to take it easy.
In the arena of sport, we are savage. We want to win at all costs. Good or bad, it is what it is. Maybe it's that cut throat attitude that breeds the insensitive, heartless corporate animals we work with today ….. conditioning or genetics?
Regardless, I can say that I understand Coach Grimes and I sympathize with him. I truly feel badly that he lost his job. I'm sure he loved his job and his players very much.
I am not sure that the solution is to request a forfeit, as one of the articles reported that the school is doing. Nor is the solution to implement a 25 point cut off a good one either. Things like this temper the spirit. They toughen us. And though I am sure it was discouraging at first, if the opponents of that team look at it, they can find SOMETHING of worth to get out of it ….
I'm not saying that winning 100-0 was a good thing – For what it's worth, I think they should have GIVEN up a free basket, if for no other reason than for pity. But what I AM saying is that once the game is finished, it is not good for either team to go back and visit it. I think whatever valuable lesson could have been gleamed by EITHER team is now lost in a sea of news articles, interviews and assumptions. And in the end, no one will learn ANYTHING of worth … that is the real shame of it all.
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But not for the typical reason you would imagine. This coach was fired from a high school girl's team after recording a 100-0 VICTORY over a rival team.
Says the coach …. "We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity."
I've been on the receiving end of games like this AND I've been on the giving end. I can say that it really IS better to give than it is to receive …… but it's one thing for grown ass men to do this to each other and something COMPLETELY different for high school kids to have to go through this ….
Coach Grimes speaks out about the game in question.
Video News Article on this story
Watch and judge for yourself …..
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In case the video embedding doesn't work, here is the link to the video …
Jason Thompson gets hazed by the Kings. This is actually funny … and tasty ….. your car would smell like the Movies for MONTHS!
Looking it from a different angle …. maybe the Kings should concentrate more on playing the game and less on hazing and planning the pranks ….
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So okay, I H-A-T-E Kobe Bryant. Hate. With my spleen.
But this commercial is actually really funny.
BROKEN ANKLES!
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This story is just so friggin insane I had to post it here!
I don't know whether or not it is true …. both sides seem rather crooked. But the allegations against Curry are so incredibly extreme ….
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I was thinking back to my coaching days not too long ago and was thinking of the lessons learned in moments where there appears to be nothing learned.
I was coaching my Varsity Team a few years ago. Came in and tried top refresh some bad vibes going on as a favour to two of the kids I knew from church. I trained those kids HARD. And they were very dedicated and always gave their best.
And they progressed throughout the year to the point where we were sitting in second place in our division and we had a chance to go to the championship game. But due to an error in scheduling on my part, I scheduled practise instead of the game and we forfeited the semifinal. I had witnessed the birth of my first son a week before this and was going through a job transition at the time, so my mind was jumbled up. Still, I felt awful and when I realized that we had missed the game, I alm0st cried.
I had never felt so awful in my entire life before or since. These kids busted their butts all year long and in the moment where they were supposed to go and claim their destiny, their coach accidentally screws them over. So I went, the next day, to the athletic board and tried to get the game rescheduled, but school politics took over – they said the other coach had to agree to the rescheduling – and the coach of the other team refused to play us. I tried to explain to him about the mistake and get him to at least give our crew a fighting chance. But the coach was either scared or not interested in the basics of fairness in sport and declined my request. And since he was good friends with the athletic head, my kids lost out on an experience of a lifetime.
I still harbour a grudge against that man today. It's hard not to. I won't get into the ugly details but there were phone calls and e-mails that were made that got really nasty on both sides. But I tried. And to their credit, after the initial shock, my kids were great and incredibly supportive about it, seeing that I felt bad about it all and that I tried everything in my power to get them their game back.
Well, we went to the 3rd place game and won by 15 – against the team whose coach happened to be the sdcheduling director. Everyone cheered as it was the first time in like 8 years that the school had won any medal in boys basketball, so that was nice. I was loud and obnoxious afterwards, but it was to drive home the message to the opposing coaches about the meaning of fair play. I can guarantee that I would have given an opposing team the opportunity to play their game out and not run like a coward. It's what is fair.
It was truly an honour to be a part of that team, to be let in as an outsider and that was one of the proudest moments in my coaching career as well because the school we played had beaten us twice before and it was a matchup problem for our particular group. For weeks I carried a picture of the plaque and the medal that we won. But in my downtime, I kicked myself because those boys could have done at least one place better ….
So my kids COULD have won second place … maybe even first place – though the reality was that the team that won was a towering juggernaut of unfair proportions (they won their championship game by 35). So we make it to the championship game and we lose … the season ends on a rough note. We do 2nd place but are not really content with the outcome (I've seen this plenty of times). In the 2nd place team's case, they get the double whammy ofhaving gotten there under shady cuircumstances and having not ACTUALLY earned their medal, so that must have been rough …. But in winning 3rd the way we did we can always have the opportunity to think that we ended our season on a high note and that it was as good as it was going to get for the time being given situations outside of our control.
So what was learned? By the players …. I can't answer that. But myself …. It took a long time, but eventually I learned that sometimes not winning can be as good as winning and that resilience means doing your best despite the adversity one faces daily. I also learned that not everyone values honour, ethics and morals and that when you find someone who does, you better hold onto them.
I've since begun to forgive myself about the mixup. It was not done intentionally or out of spite. I seriously had a lot going on. I was so embarrassed for the longest time about it. But now I just smile when I think about the way that the season ended. Sure, it would have been nice to get a silver instead of a bronze, but I think we grew more as individuals and as a team throughout that ordeal.
One of the kids I coached on that team went on to become a member of my men's league team. Not anything special per se, but he's a good player with a great attitude and I am glad to have him aboard. Another one of the kids went on to become an Engineering Student and is currently doing Engineers Without Borders. He is a great young man with a kind heart and a killer turnaround. It brings me great joy to watch them play and to see the individuals they are becoming and to know that I was able to partake in a small part of their lives.
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So far this year I have been pretty absent.
I suppose part of it has to do with the amount of time that blogging takes and the feeling like my posting anything here isn't anything new or exclusive.
Whatever.
I need time to gear up again and I need to refocus on blogging time. And it ain't gonna be too soon. I have tons of work to do and with ball in the evenings and my sudden addiction to my PS3, I think my blogging days will be reduced for the time being.
Guess you'll just have to peruse the archives for some basketball goodness. 
Just kidding, I won't leave you to suffer for too long. Just be patient. Feels like life is swallowing me up whole right now.
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I was watching a program (basketball related, of course) about the Dynasty Celtics of the 60's about 5 days ago or something.
When I tuned in they were comparing stats between them and today's Celtics. Per Game Averages, Field Goal Percentages, Defense … the works. For the record, the Dynasty Celtics were way better.
At one point, one of the commentators says: "And they were anchored by Bill Russell, one of the greatest defenders in the game." then proceeds to show stats and per game averages ….
My son, who was playing with his Christmas toys in the dining room cranks his head over to me and says "Bill Waffles?!"
I imagine that he was amused and shocked that someone was named after one of his favourite foods.
So I turn to him and say "Yeah, Bill Waffles was a great player!" to which he replies "Bill WAFFLES?!?!"
I am still laughing about it today ……….. funny stuff.
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