Tough News for a Tough Woman: Pat Summitt

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting at my desk when my chair began to shake and so did my computer. Only went on for about 10-15 seconds, by which time I realized I was experiencing my first earthquake. Dave didn't feel a thing in the shop; perhaps because he was standing on the concrete floor.

Later on the evening news there was a different kind of jolt but no less earth-shaking for me. Pat Summitt, the legendary coach of women's basketball for the Tennessee Volunteers, announced that she has been diagnosed with early onset dementia. I also learned for the first time that she has rheumatoid arthritis and at first she thought her symptoms were side effects of her medication for that disease.

I've never been lucky enough to see the Vols play in person but I've been watching them on TV and admiring Summitt's coaching for years. She is a no-nonsense coach who gets the best out of her players, and yet she has such a rapport with them that they love her. Her assistant coaches have said they will help in any way possible. You can't buy that kind of devotion; you earn it by year after year of doing the right thing.

I don't know why I love basketball so much. After all, I only played in prep school and there we were forced to play girls' rules. Stupid game. Maybe it's because I understand the game and I've played just enough to know how hard it is to play well. Of course, it's a much more aggressive game now than I ever thought it would turn into but it takes tons of practice on top of talent. Not just anyone can play well.

As a Rutgers alumna, of course I admire Vivian Stringer, the women's coach there. But Pat Summitt has always struck me as the epitome of women's coaching, a person to strive to be like, a person who has found the exact place for her passionate approach to the game.

My father had Alzheimer's so I know too much about dementia, and I am deeply saddened by this news. Her approach to it echoes her life's approach to everything: toughness and determination to live every day to the limit of her ability. Best to you, Pat Summitt.

March Madness and Spring Fever

This sounds like a medical post, and feels like one too since I'm just recovering from bronchitis. (Thought Dave would throw me out of the house the way I was coughing.) Seems like I've been sick a lot this winter so I'm very happy to see spring come in with the grass getting greener, crocuses popping up, turtles and frogs around our pond, and swelling buds on the lilac and forsythia bushes.

Yesterday felt like Christmas. I've been tossing old magazines, not renewing subscriptions, and getting books ready to donate to sales. Really felt virtuous. Then yesterday a friend brought two boxes of books he and his wife had finished, and another friend is bringing yet another bundle. Oh my! I'm so excited and anxious to read the books, but time is at a premium. My to-be-read pile just morphed into boxes of TBR.

Meanwhile, my reading time is greatly lessened by March Madness. Can't help it - I grew up in basketball country you know. Even President Obama's brackets have been shredded by the upsets this year. It's really exciting; if you like basketball at all, you should be watching. Small schools like St. Mary's and Northern Iowa are just racing up and down the floor leaving big guys in their wake.

The only problem with watching basketball on TV, or any other sport for that matter, is that the broadcasters and color commentators don't listen to what they're saying. They are so determined not to call things by their actual names that we hear about touchdowns in basketball and field goals in skiing for Pete's sake. Now they keep talking about players leaving their feet! Where do they leave them? Mine go with me wherever I go. :)

They tell us individual stories about players, and that can be interesting or heartwarming or whatever. But then they remind us every time that player touches the ball. Give it a rest already, would you? I almost threw something at the TV set during a Syracuse game, I think it was the conference championship game but I'm getting a little foggy about details at this point. At any rate, one of their star players had lost his mother a few days before the game. His father bravely sat in the stands watching his son play, and of course his face was on TV more than the game. The media just couldn't wait for him to cry. Finally after the game, he did cry and the camera stayed on him for waaaay toooooo looong. Don't television people have any humanity?

Despite my yelling at the TV, things are looking good around here. The deer are back every morning and evening and rabbits are wallowing in all that grass. Life is good.

Out of Control Athletes

My husband and I are season ticket holders for both men's and women's basketball at Binghamton University 20 miles north of us in NY. It's a Division I team that last season got as far as the NCAA tournament. Very exciting, even though our first game there was against Duke so it was also our last game in the tournament.

Our only problem with the team has been disciplinary issues with some of the stars of the team, young men recruited and given a second chance by our coach to show their talents and try to straighten out their lives. We were concerned about the behavior of some of them, and now the chickens have come home to roost. Six of the best players and upcoming players of the men's team have been booted out for criminal problems, attitude, and just plain troublemaking.

Lois DeFleur, president of the university and #1 basketball fan, finally put her foot down and rightly so. She called in the AD and told him she would not tolerate any more problems from the men's team. I guess the AD and the head coach were sick and tired of babysitting too, because the axe fell almost immediately.

You know, this isn't just a problem at BU. What is it with college and professional athletes across the country? Their enormous egos and belief that they don't have to live by the same rules as the rest of us poor schmucks is threatening to make me a FORMER sports fan. I've loved sports all my life (not participating since I grew up in the 40s and 50s when young ladies didn't do those things) but watching others. My mother and mother-in-law were also sports fans but the men in the families weren't so much. Strange I guess, but that's the way it is.

I'm already not watching baseball much because I'm tired of the steroids scandals and tantrums. I never watch professional basketball because they just don't play as a team anymore. Everything is me, me, me! College sports are my favorite and I still have hope, but I believe every college and university needs to clean house like BU is doing. We don't need any more athletes with mouths bigger than their talents, and with complete disregard for the law. Michael Vick is surprised he isn't coming back as a starting QB? Plaxico Burress is upset because his fellow inmates in prison aren't suitably impressed with him? T.O. has bounced from team to team because he can't keep his mouth shut? These are all football because it's football season, but basketball is soon to follow with its own examples.

I think the answer is to stop treating high school and college athletes like they are so special that they don't have to live by the rules. We baby them and help them get by with things, and then we wonder why they still act like babies when they are grown men making millions. The athlete who lives his life as a good person is so rare as to be newsworthy, on the rare occasion when the media isn't busy reporting on the foibles and crimes of the rest. This must change. Actually fan behavior needs to change too but that's a topic for another day.

In short, congratulations to Lois DeFleur for standing up for what's right. We will support her through this necessarily "building" year and in the future. Although last year was fun, we prefer to have a team we can really be proud of.