Some Other Sports
This past week, “The Grandeur” had a chance to watch some less publicized sports and realized that college kids smacking each other with wooden sticks and kids putting letters together deserves some credit.
Of course these two events were the Men’s National Lacrosse Championship and the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
After the disaster that evolved Duke Lacrosse this time last year it was good to see the Blue Devils in the national championship game despite a tough loss to Johns Hopkins. Yes, those players made some mistakes that night. They were drinking alcohol and hired strippers which are always a dangerous combinations. But the steps the Durham District Attorney’s office and the so called victim took to convict the three players accused were absolutely shameful. Both knew full well that there was no rape committed yet pushed forward looking for money and a chance to shame the university. Their actions cost Reade Seligman, Colin Finnerity and David Evans their lacrosse careers and their good name. Head coach Mike Pressler lost his job and many of the University’s faculty and administration showed little support for their trouble student athletes. It was a case of kids making a mistake and professional adults making the situation worse with their own immature mistakes.
So this past Monday, it was good to see a lot of those same players back on the field after the cancellation of their season last year. Johns Hopkins took a 10-4 lead into the locker room but the Blue Devils stormed back in the second half through goals from a handful of different players including Ned Crotty, Matt Danowski and an equalizer from Mike Quinzani. But with less than four minutes left Johns Hopkins Kevin Huntley hit the go-ahead goal. Duke then pounded two shots of the right post before Quinzani’s final shot went painfully wide at the death.
It really is an exciting sport. It takes a lot of teamwork to maintain possession and creativity to make that defense-splitting pass. Defending is definitely a combined effort and it’s not a sport of the timid. There is constant running, body checking and slapping with sticks and it seems to be the kind of sport that kids today finding enticing. In fact it is becoming one of the fastest growing sports in the nation.
And the final between Hopkins and Duke lived up to the hype. A heart pounding game with great action and plenty of drama. This columnist looks forward to watching again next year.
Alright, so the Scripps National Spelling Bee is exactly a sport that’s dripping with sweat, blood, snot bubbles and all that other yummy stuff. But it is still a fascinating competition.
It’s a rather simple competition. Any child can qualify for the Nationals finals in Washington D.C. who isn’t older than 16 or has completed the eight grade. Each speller takes a crack a spelling a word in each round and each competitor that spell their word correctly advances to the next round while those who misspelled are eliminated. And the last man standing wins.
The winner of the 80th edition of the Bee was Evan O’Dorney, a 13 year old form Danville California. The winning word was “serrefine,” which is defined as “a small forceps for clamping blood vessels.” But seriously, who doesn’t know how to spell that. Just kidding, you have never heard of that word before this and probably neither had that kid; which makes this competition all the more impressive. These kids can’t possibly remember all the words in the world so instead the study the history of languages to understand the phonetic rules of each language. That’s why they are always asking for origin, definition etc. These spellers put all that information into their high-powered minds to churn out a word that you can’t even pronounce much less spell.
The Bee, to its credit, has played up it excitement to market themselves. They found their way onto ABC and ESPN. They have overdramatic kids who spell out words on their name tag with their fingers, flap their hands after saying each letter, fall to their knees crying in defeat and faint after victory over an impossible word. These kiddo’s dramatics make NFL endzone celebrations look average. Even the guy who reads out the words has gotten into the style. He used to wear a gray suit with matching tie. Now he dons a silky black suit with a shiny red tie.
So go ahead, tell these kids what they do isn’t a sport. The athleticism to maintain their balance while attempting to spell succorance or halobiont. These words are so crazy even spell check thinks they’re wrong. The discipline to spell words correctly knowing that there are probably cookies just waiting off-stage if they misspell a word. But importantly, these kids deserve respect because of the hours of practice and passion to be a champion. And if you do give them a hard time, be careful, you’ll probably be working for them someday.
Of course these two events were the Men’s National Lacrosse Championship and the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
After the disaster that evolved Duke Lacrosse this time last year it was good to see the Blue Devils in the national championship game despite a tough loss to Johns Hopkins. Yes, those players made some mistakes that night. They were drinking alcohol and hired strippers which are always a dangerous combinations. But the steps the Durham District Attorney’s office and the so called victim took to convict the three players accused were absolutely shameful. Both knew full well that there was no rape committed yet pushed forward looking for money and a chance to shame the university. Their actions cost Reade Seligman, Colin Finnerity and David Evans their lacrosse careers and their good name. Head coach Mike Pressler lost his job and many of the University’s faculty and administration showed little support for their trouble student athletes. It was a case of kids making a mistake and professional adults making the situation worse with their own immature mistakes.
So this past Monday, it was good to see a lot of those same players back on the field after the cancellation of their season last year. Johns Hopkins took a 10-4 lead into the locker room but the Blue Devils stormed back in the second half through goals from a handful of different players including Ned Crotty, Matt Danowski and an equalizer from Mike Quinzani. But with less than four minutes left Johns Hopkins Kevin Huntley hit the go-ahead goal. Duke then pounded two shots of the right post before Quinzani’s final shot went painfully wide at the death.
It really is an exciting sport. It takes a lot of teamwork to maintain possession and creativity to make that defense-splitting pass. Defending is definitely a combined effort and it’s not a sport of the timid. There is constant running, body checking and slapping with sticks and it seems to be the kind of sport that kids today finding enticing. In fact it is becoming one of the fastest growing sports in the nation.
And the final between Hopkins and Duke lived up to the hype. A heart pounding game with great action and plenty of drama. This columnist looks forward to watching again next year.
Alright, so the Scripps National Spelling Bee is exactly a sport that’s dripping with sweat, blood, snot bubbles and all that other yummy stuff. But it is still a fascinating competition.
It’s a rather simple competition. Any child can qualify for the Nationals finals in Washington D.C. who isn’t older than 16 or has completed the eight grade. Each speller takes a crack a spelling a word in each round and each competitor that spell their word correctly advances to the next round while those who misspelled are eliminated. And the last man standing wins.
The winner of the 80th edition of the Bee was Evan O’Dorney, a 13 year old form Danville California. The winning word was “serrefine,” which is defined as “a small forceps for clamping blood vessels.” But seriously, who doesn’t know how to spell that. Just kidding, you have never heard of that word before this and probably neither had that kid; which makes this competition all the more impressive. These kids can’t possibly remember all the words in the world so instead the study the history of languages to understand the phonetic rules of each language. That’s why they are always asking for origin, definition etc. These spellers put all that information into their high-powered minds to churn out a word that you can’t even pronounce much less spell.
The Bee, to its credit, has played up it excitement to market themselves. They found their way onto ABC and ESPN. They have overdramatic kids who spell out words on their name tag with their fingers, flap their hands after saying each letter, fall to their knees crying in defeat and faint after victory over an impossible word. These kiddo’s dramatics make NFL endzone celebrations look average. Even the guy who reads out the words has gotten into the style. He used to wear a gray suit with matching tie. Now he dons a silky black suit with a shiny red tie.
So go ahead, tell these kids what they do isn’t a sport. The athleticism to maintain their balance while attempting to spell succorance or halobiont. These words are so crazy even spell check thinks they’re wrong. The discipline to spell words correctly knowing that there are probably cookies just waiting off-stage if they misspell a word. But importantly, these kids deserve respect because of the hours of practice and passion to be a champion. And if you do give them a hard time, be careful, you’ll probably be working for them someday.
posted by William Allison @ 8:09 PM
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