Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.
I went to the Alabama-Florida basketball game last Tuesday with a bunch of old friends. Two of them, in addition to all the other good things they have done for me, were responsible for one of my favorite basketball memories as a spectator. On February 7, 1970, they took a bunch of us young folks to the University of Alabama's Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to watch the Alabama-LSU basketball game. Alabama won the game 106-104. Pistol Pete Maravich scored a record 69 points for LSU in the losing effort. I was an Alabama fan, but Pistol Pete was my idol, so it just couldn't get better than that.
Pistol Pete changed the game of basketball. He was a magician with the ball. He could shoot from anywhere, from any position, seemingly with any part of his body, with accuracy. Then, just when a hapless defender thought he had Pete's shot defended, Pistol Pete would direct a no-look, one handed, back-handed, sometimes behind the back pass to a team-mate. I often imagined how difficult it would be to play with Maravich. I wonder how many times he hit an unsuspecting team-mate in the head with a no-look bullet pass. He averaged over 44 points per game in his college career.
And that was before some significant rule changes in college basketball. There was no three point shot. Had there been a three point line, Maravich would have easily averaged more than 50 points per game. And there was no shot clock. Teams could hold the ball as long as they could. The game could be slowed down almost to a halt. Alabama's Coach C.M. Newton, for example, often went to the famous "four corners" offense and would run minutes at a time off the clock without a shot being taken, often to a chorus of "boos" from opposing crowds. There just were fewer shots taken back in the days before the shot clock. It is hard to imagine what Pistol Pete would have done after the rules changed. And he played at a time when the shorts of the basketball uniform were indecently short and tight. No telling what he could have done with a little more freedom in the lower extremities.
I was a basketball purist at the time. I thought the three point shot would ruin the game. I was sure that the shot clock would make defensive basketball a thing of the past. Why would anyone want to change, want to ruin, the game I loved? (Actually I was in favor of the bigger shorts.)
Of course, I was wrong. The three point line opened up the game. The tall guys in the middle could no longer dominate. Defense became more aggressive as each team was guaranteed an equal number of opportunities with the ball. The bigger shorts were simply more comfortable, for the players, and the younger viewers. The game is better than it was before the rules changed.
Changing the way the game has always been played is hard.
Sometimes we get it wrong. We convince ourselves that change is unnatural. We believe that the way things are is the way they were meant to be, forever.
I don't know where we get that notion. Certainly not from reality.
The natural world is in a constant state of change and always has been. Climates change. The continents move. The universe expands.
Cultures change. Scientific knowledge advances. Countries rise and fall. New low calorie sweeteners are invented.
The only thing that remains the same is change.
Maybe it is time to change the way we look at our world. Instead of resisting change, perhaps we need to acknowledge it, embrace it, use it if we can, to make a better existence.
Applying old, worn out rules to new, rapidly changing circumstances is causing problems. We unnecessarily waste untold energy in offering a resistance which is ultimately futile. Clinging to institutions and methods as if they are our gods instead of tools for our benefit is an impediment to our advancement.
To use a current basketball illustration, how about that Jeremy Lin? If you have been in seclusion for the past two weeks, or just don't follow professional basketball, Jeremy Lin is a young man who graduated from Harvard, and was drafted into the National Basketball Association. A few weeks ago it looked like Lin's NBA career had little hope of panning out. Then on February 4 he got a chance to play for his team, the New York Knicks, when one of their guards was injured. Lin was due to be cut by February 10. In his first appearance he scored 25 points, five rebounds, and seven assists, and the Knicks won. In the space of two weeks Lin has done nothing but win games, score points, and raised the Lin and the Knicks into the national spotlight.
But players of Chinese descent are not supposed to be great point guards. Everybody knows that.
Things change. And if we do not change with them, we will never be as good or great as we were meant to be.
The old arguments are wearing us out and holding us back. There are a lot of points to be made, but time may be running out. We can't hold the ball any longer. It's time to open things up.
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