Tag: sports

On Thursday night a diminutive 16 year old took the gold medal in Individual Gymnastics and accomplished something unique, not once but twice with the same performance. Gabrielle Christina Victoria “Gabby” Douglas, a member of the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics teama member of the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team, became first African-American and first woman of color in Olympic history to become the individual all-around champion and the first American gymnast to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competitions at the same Olympics. She did it with support and encouragement from her family in Virginia Beach and her adopted family in Des Moines, Iowa where she trained under Liang Chow, the former coach of 2008 Summer Olympics gold medal-winner Shawn Johnson.

She’s not done yet. Gabby is scheduled to compete in the finals of uneven bars on August 6 and balance beam on August 7.

Fly, Gabby, fly.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

You may think I’m sports obsessed, but I look at it as a cultural metaphor.

We should never forget the Blues v. Greens.  Losing Theodora was the real end of the Roman Empire.

This guy can command an hour of primetime.

The thing about professional athletes is that they get eyeballs and eyeballs are money.  And as rich as you think these communistic unionists are, they don’t overcharge quite as much as the banksters.

My anarcho-syndicalist side says the players should own the teams and collectively self organize and what else are you going to call the Heat next year under guru Pat Riley?

The best team money can buy?  They have salary caps, why do you think the Knicks suck (other than they just do)?

Drew Carey says goodbye to Cleveland for a chance to do really good improv with his buddies?  What could be a more all-American success story?  You might even say goal directed- a ring for the thing (do you have Prince Albert in a can?)

Most of the planet has been tuned in to the World Cup since June 11, 2010, and will continue to watch and argue about it until the last whistle is blown on July 11. It’s expected that the audience for the final game will draw a tenth of the people on the planet. An audience of about 600 million people. It doesn’t matter very much to these people that their own countries didn’t qualify, or got eliminated. No. They’re watching, glued to the Tube, because that game is the World Game. And they love it. And they know great Futbol when they see it.

Unfortunately, in the US relatively few people care about futbol. Or soccer as most call it. They don’t reflect on the fact that the barefoot kids kicking a ball made of duct tape and rags in a vacant lot in Port au Prince or Kabul or in a favela in Rio are playing the same game that well scrubbed kids wearing uniforms and $100 shoes are trying to play in this country. So they don’t reflect on how democratic the game is. How anybody can play. And does. And how all you need is some ground and something to make a ball with. Shoes are optional. Goal posts are optional. Uniforms, optional. Only getting the ball into a goal counts.