Johnson & Johnson

Elijah Johnson (white jersey) grabs the nuts of Mitch McGray.

Ladies: This is probably not for you.

Not a sports fan? Probably not for you either.

Sports fans though heavily involved with filling out your brackets at work and are still in it, probably are shaking their heads in shame by now.

Kansas Jayhawks took on Michigan Wolverines.

And at some point in the first half of the game, this disgusting act took place.

KU’s Elijah Johnson…… for reasons still unknown…. well, Johnson grabbed the johnson of Michigan player, Mitch McGray.

Disgusting!!

He was slapped with a flagrant foul which could have led to him being ejected out of the game. And that pretty much would have sucked. Especially since it happened in the first half!

What the hell was he thinking? KU head coach said that Johnson made several “bonehead” moves. And I would agree this is one of them.

Maybe they had been trading trash talk which caused this action. Maybe Elijah Johnson secretly is looking to be going into the professional field of urology. Maybe it was his way of making a  statement about marriage equality which has been in the news this week.

(spoiler alert) In the end though, Michigan came back from about 15 points behind and forced the game into overtime. And then defeated Number 1 seed Kansas.

Now Elijah Johnson has that magical moment to haunt him for the rest of his life for his very stupid and poor decisions for this game.

 

 

Supreme Sportsmanship

“A lot of young players don’t really know much about the history of the game and a lot of them are missing out on what the game is all about, especially the whole concept of sportsmanship and teamwork.”~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

This story completely moved me when I read it. Thanks to YouTube sensation, Michael Buckley. These kinds of stories are the ones that I love to share. And I believe that they should be!!

It was Senior Night at Coronado High School in El Paso, Texas. And it will be a night that senior Mitchell Marcus will remember for the rest of his life.

Mitchell had serving as the manager to the boys’ varsity basketball team and had been since his freshman year.

Coach Peter Morales kept Marcus by his side for those four long years on the bench. But for one night, Morales had Mitchell dress for the game.

Finally in the fourth quarter of the game, Coronado High had a lead over their rival Franklin by double digits. Within the last two minutes of the game, Coach Morales put Marcus in… TO PLAY!

What happened next will go down in history. Not only in El Paso, but throughout the WORLD!

After several unsuccessful attempts to get Marcus to score, Franklin had possession with 13 seconds remaining. Franklin’s Jon Montanez, in an act of great sportsmanship, passed Marcus the ball and allowed him score.

At the end of the game, Coronado High had beaten Franklin still by double digits. And the audience rushed on to the court and treated Marcus as if he had thrown in the game winning goal. They lifted him high and carried him around.

In a sense I know how it must have felt for Mitchell Marcus to get that opportunity to say that he had scored in a high school basketball game. That he had scored in sports at least once in his life.

Growing up I was a part of a wheelchair basketball team during the summer. It was mixed with wheelchair and able-bodied people. But I never got the chance to even try to shoot the ball. I would be able to deflect passes and almost cause turnovers, but never got that opportunity to actually be in possession of the ball.

Until one day at the end of the summer, playing the last game of the day. The inbounds pass was given to me.

I was thrilled to death in my young mind. .

I’m so glad that I came across the story of Mitchell Marcus and his high school basketball coach. Even that, will make memories for me.
http://nesn.com/2013/02/special-needs-student-mitchell-marcus-scores-on-senior-night-in-act-of-great-sportsmanship-video/

Silent Night: Quiet And Chaos

“Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.”~ Mason Cooley

Does anyone remember the episode of the Bill Cosby show in the mid-1980’s where Bill’s partner calls in sick and cannot play their usual Saturday night game of pinochle against Bill’s father and his father’s friend? Meanwhile, Bill is being visited by his former professor and so they team up together to beat Bill’s father and friend and LITERALLY go through the tradition of the rubbing of heads.

Then finally the father’s friend cries out that it was a stupid tradition? Yeah well, read for yourself on this blog post whether or not you believe this to be an awesome college tradition or a not so cool one. Those of you who cannot stand sports will probably not care for this post and perhaps want to skip it.

Taylor University, a school in the NAIA, has a tradition called “Silent Night” in which the crowd during that particular basketball game at home remains absolutely quiet and still, until the team scores its tenth point.

This year it just so happens to have been recorded on video and plastered all over the Internet. In just under three minutes into the game, it took Taylor University to reach that point. It was 11-0 when the silence was broken and the crowded arena erupted into chaos and cheer.

I am also given to understand that fans arrive at the game wearing (or not wearing) highly unusual costumes which makes them look like a collection of patients who just escaped the state mental hospital.

From the video that I watched, it literally was as quiet as it could get. Even with a sold out crowd. The only thing that you can hear was the high top shoes squeaking across the wooden floor of the gymnasium, and the occasional dribble of the basketball. And up until that point where a 3 point shot was made to make the score 11-0 it was so quiet to the point of being deafening.

But then again once that point had been reached, I am sure that inside it got deafening for a completely different reason.

The crowds acted like they lost their damn minds. Such insanity and chaos erupted quickly that the game actually had to be brought to a halt because fans were out of control.

This is the NAIA, folks. This is NOT your ordinary college basketball team that you may think of, such as Duke, Syracuse, Kentucky, or Kansas. I can almost bet you all the stars in the sky though that if this tradition was being held within the NCAA, there would be a lot issues and problems. And personally speaking, if I was the head official for the game I would be issuing out a technical foul or two.

And its not because I think that the actual tradition is dumb. I think it is unusual at best. You may or may not be able to verbalize the word “neat” if you caught me in a good mood. It is the fact that the crowd gets so rowdy that it literally stops the game. In any other sport or association of sports, there would be some penalizing going on.

Celebrations are great. I’m all for celebrations. But in my own opinion, the delay of the game …. isn’t cool.

My partially-negative outlook comes with a price though.

As I am watching over my niece this afternoon, she is sick and I finally got her to fall asleep for the first time today. And then I was rather idiotic to have watched that video of the crowds erupting after many seconds of silence while she was snoring away. It woke her up. And it took nearly forever to get her to fall back to sleep. And she’s reciting dialogue from “Dora the Explorer” in her sleep.

So yeah, dumb uncle move right there.

And for those of you who are wondering, Taylor University ended up winning the game.

What are the most unusual traditions that you have ever encountered? What are the ones that you most enjoy?