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The Magic Goes Away
It is hard to believe that 20 years have passed, but 1998 seems like it was just yesterday. That year, I had moved to San Antonio after having lived in Montana for a while, and I was not happy. I was 23 years old and I felt my life was over, for it had no discernible direction. Thoughts of an academic career had not yet entered my mind.
Amidst all the uncertainty, I found a source of joyful escapism: the local hometown professional basketball team, the San Antonio Spurs. After a months-long delay due to a disagreement between league management and players, the 1998-99 NBA season got underway in January 1999, and questions abounded regarding who would succeed the Chicago Bulls as league champions, Michael Jordan and company having either retired or signed on with other teams.
Few gave the Spurs much of a chance of even making a championship run, much less winning one. But win they did, and many a Spurs fan can recall the moment when the Spurs went from contenders to champions: the Memorial Day Miracle.
And the winning continued. The Spurs followed their 1999 championship with a second in 2003, a third in 2005, a fourth in 2007, and then a fifth in 2014, when they avenged a loss in the previous year’s NBA Finals over the LeBron James-led Miami Heat.
But then something went wrong. The head coach of the Spurs, Gregg Popovich, not content to enjoy his now-legendary status as a winner of multiple league titles, began engaging in political punditry. As the kids say, he got woke. Popovich has referred to America as “an embarrassment” for electing Donald Trump, whom he has called a “soulless coward.” A day doesn’t seem to go by that he doesn’t make some snide remark about the President and his supporters.
Is that what he really thinks of me and others who vote as I do? Does Popovich not realize that many of the Spurs’ most ardent fans likely voted for Trump? Does Spurs Sports and Entertainment (the company which owns the franchise) endorse his remarks?
Well, as we used to say in my Cold War-era youth, it’s a free country. And America still is, despite the naked desire of the left to render it otherwise.
Long ago, one of our Founding Fathers observed that “in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.” This is one of those times. Besides, there’s always college basketball.
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Published in Sports
I’m curious if he’d have had nice things to say about the election of the biggest political criminal in US history had Hillary won?
Time to turn off the NBA until the playoffs. Lebron has lost me for good.
I haven’t watched an NBA game since the Spurs played the Warriors in the playoffs last May. And I’ve also washed my hands of the Seattle Seahawks and the NFL, for much the same reasons that I’ve disowned the Spurs. C’est la vie.
The damn progs squeeze the joy out of everything. I’ve divorced the Green Bay Packers, a life long obsession.
I don’t want politics mixed with my sports. Won’t have it.
Poppovich acts like a jackass in general. His curt condescending answers to the reporters who interview him between quarters are just douchey. I get it’s annoying but maybe the people watching the game would appreciate something a little more insightful. I think he’s become full of himself. He’s been called a genius for the last decade (and he probably is) and I think it’s gone to his head. I’m a Jazz fan so I may be biased. For all its faults I’m still addicted to the NBA. A few silly SJWs aren’t going to stop me from watching.
Here’s the positive Mike. Popovich has positioned himself as Coach Woke. But how many free agents, despite their professed verbal commitments to economic justice and equality, choose to join him when the salaries and advertising gigs are more lucrative elsewhere?
None. They choose dollars over Coach Woke every time.
Steve Kerr also opens his trap from time to time on issues beyond his expertise. You’d think he’d be content to coach four all stars and two of the five best players in the game.
Kerr, though an obnoxious twit at times, is at least playing into the black panther team brand in a metro area that voted 75% for Hillary and whose corporate elite in the luxury boxes with armed guards find his woke babble inspiring.
Coach Woke is based in a smallish market where 50% of the metro area voted for Trump and the business elite in less luxurious boxes (perhaps with their own sidearms) might be less thrilled by his leftist pronouncements.
My favorite college basketball moment was in 1983, when my NC State Wolfpack, a gazillion point underdog, made a buzzer-beating dunk to beat mighty Houston, aka Phi Slamma Jamma.
One piece of trivia:
NC State outdunked Houston 2-1. Their first bucket and last bucket were the two dunks.
This is how professional sports teams get into trouble when it comes to politics, the NFL being the poster child of what not to do. Everyday life already has enough politics, and people need an escape, whether it’s sports, vacations, cruises, camping, fishing . . . you name it.
One reason we stopped watching TV was because lots of shows are either political from the git-go, or have numerous episodes where the once-lovable characters delve into politics. For example, my wife and I used to watch Designing Women, but stopped after the Clarence Thomas episode. It wasn’t so much the arguments back and forth as it was the casting: the two “smart” women supported Hill, the two “dumb” women supported Thomas.
Sports are the same way, pro sports in particular. It’s sickening to see and hear players dis the country that allows them to earn more money in a year than the combined income of the residents of many small towns. Then again, the left has to destroy sports, because it’s one place where people of all colors, faiths, and economic levels can get together and go nuts for their team.
One way to do this is to get players, coaches, and league officials to go public with their political beliefs. It sounds as if Popovich has fallen into this trap. However, the best way to destroy sports is have politics at the game itself. As we’ve seen in the NFL, active player protests before or during the game makes fans turn off their TVs, or not come to the stadium. However, the NFL as a whole is still too dumb to accept why their ratings and attendance at games are down.
PETA hasn’t forced them to change the name?
Yeah, I have sworn off the Warriors. It was a fun run and they may win some more championships…but I don’t care. I cut Steve some slack because his dad got gunned down in Beirut but, frankly, it gets tiresome after awhile. The anti-Trump stunt just broke it for me. Yes, he’s got plenty of support locally, because…California. But not from me.
I nominate Mike as the Gore Vidal or Larry David of Ricochet: he hates everything.
No cheerleaders?
Well, here are a few things we know Mike likes:
Larry David does too.
Gore Vidal? Not so much.
I’ll never curb my enthusiasm for cheerleaders. 😎
Quake Voter to the rescue!
By the way, bonus points to whomever can spot the Larry Niven reference in the post.
Other than the title?
You got it! The title is the reference.
It wasn’t much of a leap for me. I started reading expecting it to be about Larry Niven.
It’s also part of the job description. He’s in the entertainment business, whether he admits it or not, and it’s the media who buy the rights to broadcast the games that are paying his salary. So just act like a professional and do your job with some class.
Everything before the annual Warriors vs. Cavs showdown is pretty much just meaningless exhibition games anyway.
He’s not the only one . . .
Watch out for the Rockets. They’re 26-1 when Chris Paul, James Harden and Clint Capella all play together. They shoot the 3 better and more often than Golden State.
I also don’t see the Cavs coming out of the East this year.
Ms. Rōnin and I have lived in and around the San Antonio area since 1990 and I can tell you Coach Poppovich only reflect what the down town, chamber of commerce, city hall progressive left want to hear. Besides, Poppovich may be looking to move on to a larger market, he is probably tried of working out here in the sticks.