Photo of the day

From the N&O day’s best gallery:

Scott Brash of Great Britain on Ursula XII piles through the London 2012 bus during the Longines Global Champions Tour of London on Day Four at Olympic Park on June 9, 2013 in London, England. MIKE HEWITT — Getty Images

Everyone gets a trophy

So, not really paid any attention to politics (or much of anything else) this past weekend (made it a true vacation), but there was one thing I was thinking about.  My kids love their soccer trophies and it got me thinking about the “everyone gets a trophy” era we live in.  That definitely describes participation in team sports for kids these days, but I don’t think its quite as bad as it sounds.  I think maybe there was a while there where they idea was to get every kid a trophy to boost self esteem.  But, it seems to me now that a trophy has become pretty much a standard memento of participation and not much more.  I still remember my friend’s bowling trophy from many years ago that literally said “last place.”   I assume part of this is the falling cost of trophies.  It amazes me that my kids get really nice looking soccer trophies for $7-8.  I got exactly one sport trophy (though, many a well-earned piano “trophy”) in my days and damn did I value that thing as it actually represented first place for our soccer team– the only way to get a trophy.  That said, my kids love their trophies and in no way take it as meaning that they are somehow extra special, worthy, or whatever.  To them, it just means they played on a soccer team for a season.  I think that’s fine.  Though, I will say in my second season when the Blasters went 0-7-1, I didn’t even suggest we get trophies and no one else did either.

Video of the day

Just caught this while looking up on a TV in the gym today.  Absolutely amazing goal.  It was only #3 in a top 10 countdown, but I love the way it completely freezes the goalkeeper by looking like it will surely be wide:

Quick hits

A lot of interesting stuff I’ve been reading lately that I don’t have all that much to say about:

1) Grade inflation is just nuts.  Currently at my alma mater, Duke, fully a quarter of the students have a 3.7 or above GPA.  In my day– class of 1994– that figure was about 3.4 for the top 25%.

2) In theory, I love the idea of attending a Premier League game in England some day.  In practice, sounds kids of crazy.

3) Catholic school in Columbus, OH fires beloved PE teacher after finding out via her mother’s obituary that she has a same sex partner.  Damn this stuff drives me crazy.  Love this quote:

Perhaps six colleagues met Julie over the years, though they probably weren’t the only ones aware of Carla’s sexual orientation. “I’m sure it was surmised: gym teacher, divorced, short hair, didn’t have a bow in it,” Carla said. “Come on.”

4) All of our babies slept in bed with us at some point.  It’s just so much easier and I’m pretty sure we were as safe as could be about it.  I really enjoyed this discussion of the issue, especially the sad fact that pediatricians will not even discuss how to make co-sleeping safer because they are so dead-set against it.

5) Enjoyed this George Packer post on how technology has made our lives better, but there’s not much it can do about inequality.

6) Apparently parents read more to their daughters.  One theory is that its harder to read to boys because they’re more likely to be squirmy.  That one sounds good to me.  This author’s anecdotal N of 1 family (her own) shed no light on the topic at all, but was an interesting review of the issues.  In my family David loved to be read to and so does Sarah, who actually demands it on a regular basis.   I’d like to see more research to help figure out how much of this is about the parents vs. how much is innate differences in young  boys vs young girls.

Map of the day

Via Deadspin,a map of the highest paid public employee in every state.  In most cases, it is a football coach.  Before looking, I correctly predicted it would be a basketball coach in NC (Roy Williams)

And, in those few places where it’s not coaching, it pays to be at the top of Medical higher education.

Video of the day

Very cool video of how they made the court for this year’s Final Four:

Also, a  recent NYT article about how the NCAA (and various colleges ) are now “branding” with courts goes along perfectly:

Universities and college conferences, and even theN.C.A.A., increasingly see the basketball court as one of the last untapped frontiers for image making. The goal is a steady stream of discussion and instant identification, especially by those clicking through television channels.

“There’s a lot of focus on branding,” Butterly said. “It’s so important, especially with all the recent conference realignment. Programs want to stand out and brand who they are. And the basketball court is one way to do that.” …

Until a few years ago, the N.C.A.A. used the courts already in place in arenas for its postseason championship tournament. But it found it increasingly difficult to brand itself amid the visual commotion.

So the N.C.A.A. came up with its own design — courts uniformly adorned with little more than a thick black border and a blue N.C.A.A. logo, with a splashier version for the Final Four.

In that way, the N.C.A.A. engages in a branding effort of its own, using a minimalist approach to stand out.

How in the world does this guy still have a job?!

This is just unreal:

Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice is under review by the school’s athletic director after a videotape aired showing him shoving, grabbing and throwing balls at players in practice and using gay slurs.

The videotape, broadcast Tuesday on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” prompted scores of outraged social media comments, as well as sharp criticism from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and NBA star LeBron James.

“I think now that [the videotape] is out there — we knew it was going to get out there,” Tim Pernetti said during a radio interview with WFAN in New York. “The reaction — we knew what it was going to be. I need to sit here and think about what gives us the ability to be effective going forward in men’s basketball, and more importantly, what protects the university.

“There’s a lot of things on my mind right now that I’m thinking through and trying to make sure that whatever decisions I make on a going-forward basis, that we try to make the right one.”

On what planet do you watch this and not immediately fire the guy?  Honestly, I think Pernetti is just horribly embarrassed and loathe to admit his atrocious mistake in hiring this assclown.  I’m guessing there’s roughly 150-200 D1 assistant coaches sitting on benches who would do better than this guy, pathetic behavior aside.  The idea that someone with the temperament of an angry toddler should be anywhere around college students, much less trying to mold them into a basketball team and young men is just disgusting.

 

Photo of the day

I’ve been watching sports for probably about 35 years or so of my 41.  Yesterday’s injury to Kevin Ware is probably about the worst thing I’ve ever seen live in a sporting event (as a big Redskins fan, I also was watching when Lawrence Taylor snapped Joe Theisman’s leg).  Ugh.  Here’s the sanitized version:

And if you really want it (and you shouldn’t, unless you are an orthopedic surgeon), here’s the link to the version with his tibia sticking 6″ out of his leg.  My God.

For what it’s worth, I was hoping to find a photo of the reaction of Duke’s Tyler Thornton during the game.  The first idea the TV viewer had anything was wrong was as the camera focused on Thornton– who was initially joyful after a made 3– but then had a look of horror come across his face and turned away.  You can actually see it perfectly here (if this video hasn’t been pulled yet).  Also, when watching this video, it’s amazing to realize that the original CBS shot actually shows Ware’s horrific injury, but I never noticed it the first time around as– like most anybody– I was focusing on the ball as it went through the basket.

And while I’m at it, worst injury I didn’t see happen live, Capitals’ goalie Clint Malarchuk takes a skate to the jugular.

Capitalism and the rules of the game

Very nice post by Matt Yglesias on the nature of capitalism.  It’s not that long, you should read the whole thing.  That said:

 Unfettered markets are fine except for activities that might involve the transportation or production of goods, the production or transmission of electricity or scientific knowledge, or access to the financial system. So actually when you think about it, that’s basically everything. The basic economic foundations of industrial capitalism as we’ve known them for the past 150 years or so have an activist state at their core. Building political institutions capable of doing these things properly is really difficult, and one of the main things that separates more prosperous places from less prosperous ones is that the more prosperous places have done a better job of building said institutions. There’s also the minor matter of creating effective and non-corrupt law enforcement and judicial agencies that can protect people’s property rights and enforce contracts.

The point is, it takes an awful lot of politics to get an advanced capitalist economy up and running and generating wealth. A lot of active political decisions need to be made to grow that pie. So why would you want to do all that? Presumably because pie is delicious. But if you build a bunch of political institutions with the intention of creating large quantities of pie, it’s obviously important that people actually get their hands on some pie. In other words, you go through the trouble of creating advanced industrial capitalism because that’s a good way to create a lot of goods and services. But the creation of goods and services would be pointless unless it served the larger cause of human welfare. Collecting taxes and giving stuff to people is every bit as much a part of advancing that cause as creating the set of institutions that allows for the wealth-creation in the first place.

I always like my NFL analogy.  Pro football is an amazing game in which a tremendous amount of coaching, hard work, split-second decision-making, athleticism, strength, brute force, etc., all come together to create a particular outcome.  But that game so beloved by Americans would be nothing without an incredibly complex rulebook and 7(!!) officials on the field at all times enforcing the rules.  How those rules are written and how those officials perform their jobs are incredibly important.  And the truth is a modern economy no more exists in a vaccuum than an NFL game would exist if you just threw out 22 guys and no rules or officials.  The idea that you can just tell “government to get out of the way” ultimately makes as much sense as expecting a fair (and entertaining) result of a football game where you just pulled all the officials off the field.

Video of the day

Totally disappointing weekend at the ACC Tournament.  Watched Duke get beaten soundly and deservedly by Maryland on Friday night and watched NC State lose to Miami today.  Best thing I saw, this amazing acrobatic gymnastic team at half-time.  Among other things, they are “North Dakota’s official goodwill ambassadors ”  Anyway, when it’s just gymnasts flying all around like mad, it’s pretty awesome.

Photo of the day

Very, very cool collection of images from “Sports Photographer of the Year” award.  This is from one of the images of the 2nd place photographer:

Second Place
Quinn Rooney
Getty Images

Map of the day

I just love this map of NFL Sports fan-dom by county (as based on Facebook data):

Quite interesting to see just how much variation in geographic reach.  The Cowboys do seem to be “America’s team” and the Ravens seem to have about the geographically smallest fan base.  And you’ve got to be impressed with the Steelers.