Via Stever, from the Cincy Post, Lonnie Wheeler has an excellent column on male practice players.
With all due respect to the great TV, nonspecific (and possibly second-hand) anecdotes that there are some schools abusing the practice isn't enough. It's not enough to convince me that there's a significant problem with practice players generally, and it's certainly not enough to convince me that there should be a broad ban or limitation that would apply to every team, even those that have never "abused" the system. I'm not terribly comfortable with coaches telling other coaches how they should run their practices.
On a lighter note, quoth Geno: "I hope they come up with a rule that they limit how many days I can go to practice. Since I'm a male, maybe I can get a couple extra days off."
On a less light note, columnist Scott Soshnick called CWA chair Janet Kittell to hear more of their rationale. She refused to speak. "If this is about the CWA," she said, "I haven't spoken to anybody about it, and I'm not going to comment."
Scott did talk to Cheryl Miller. Her view: "Once again, the NCAA is getting it wrong."
There is no other sport on the landscape - not even soccer, which makes a good case - that celebrates Title IX with all the soul and vigor of basketball. It has achieved a lasting professional league. It has, at least in some places, attracted capacity crowds. It has won over television.But the CWA cares less about good basketball than it does about greater "participation." Steve made a related point several weeks ago.
And all because it keeps getting better.
If you read Shattering the Glass you'll remember the conflict between competitive-basketball people (men and women and girls from many backgrounds who wanted women's basketball teams to be as good and as competitive as possible) and "physical educators" (academically-trained middle- and upper-class women who thought women's athletics should be different, noncompetitive, egalitarian). The CWA is "physical educators."But Tara VanDerveer, not a silly person, is expressing more support for some regulation. Recently, on the Pac-10 media call, she "spoke of unnamed schools where as many as six or seven men per day participate in practices, and said that 'there are women that are unhappy about that.'"
Silly people.
With all due respect to the great TV, nonspecific (and possibly second-hand) anecdotes that there are some schools abusing the practice isn't enough. It's not enough to convince me that there's a significant problem with practice players generally, and it's certainly not enough to convince me that there should be a broad ban or limitation that would apply to every team, even those that have never "abused" the system. I'm not terribly comfortable with coaches telling other coaches how they should run their practices.
On a lighter note, quoth Geno: "I hope they come up with a rule that they limit how many days I can go to practice. Since I'm a male, maybe I can get a couple extra days off."
On a less light note, columnist Scott Soshnick called CWA chair Janet Kittell to hear more of their rationale. She refused to speak. "If this is about the CWA," she said, "I haven't spoken to anybody about it, and I'm not going to comment."
Scott did talk to Cheryl Miller. Her view: "Once again, the NCAA is getting it wrong."
posted by Ted at 1:30 PM
