Many Hands

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

The 2004 NBA Finals happened a long time ago.  Twenty years to be exact.  A generation by some measure.  The world was different then - better in some ways, worse in others.  Such is history.  The NBA was a very different league too.  Big men still retained a respected role, defenders actually had a chance (and tried), and less three-point shots were taken - a lot less. 

The Detroit Pistons represented the Eastern Conference in those 2004 Finals, but hardly anyone outside of Michigan, or absent a personal connection, cared.  Detroit was a massive underdog to a Los Angeles Lakers team that featured Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone, Gary Payton and head coach Phil Jackson – all future members of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

The Pistons had some guys too – Chauncy Billups, Ben Wallace, Tayshaun Prince and Richard Hamilton.  Billups and Wallace snuck in to the Hall of Fame themselves, but neither was a player near that of Kobe, Shaq or Malone.  Coaching was probably a wash; Jackson has a bunch of rings but the Pistons were coached by Larry Brown, a Hall of Famer as well and one of the best X’s and O’s coaches ever.

All that said, the Pistons had no shot to win the series.  The Lakers were more fun, more famous and had better overall talent.  Further, the Pistons seemed like just the next Eastern Conference team to get mopped up by the west’s champion.  Entering the 2004 Finals, the Western Conference had won five-straight championships and were in the middle of the stretch where it would win 10 of 13 Finals. 

The Pistons missed the memo.  They didn’t read the storyline.  They stuffed the Lakers’ fairytale manuscript in the shredder…with a smile.  In one of the biggest upsets in Finals history, the Pistons destroyed the Lakers, winning the series four games to one.  The loss was an inflection point for the Lakers, who shipped Shaq to the Heat in the offseason and began a multi-year reorganization with Bryant as leading man.

Halfway in to this “View”, you’re rightfully wondering why I’m writing about a 20-year-old memory.  Fair.  My brain works in ways I’m still deciphering.  The short is after watching Game 1 of the 2024 Finals, I thought about those 2004 Pistons.  This year’s Finals pit the Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving led Dallas Mavericks against the Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum led Boston Celtics.  Doncic and Irving, in total, are better than Brown and Tatum.  The former duo is more decorated and more clutch; Doncic alone is one of the league’s top five players (easily).  But it’s a comparison of the teams, not the stars, that had me time traveling.

The 2004 Lakers lacked championship chemistry; they were a superteam before it was cool and were way too over spiced – too many leading men, not enough supporting actors…a flawed team.  Conversely, the Pistons ran like a perfectly tuned V-8 engine of key (if not elite) and complimentary components. 

In Game 1 of this year’s Finals, the supporting casts appear to distinguish the Celtics from the Mavericks.  The Mavs have been on an incredible run behind their two megastars, but the rest of the roster leaves much to be desired.  The Mavs need (underlined and bolded) Irving and Doncic to dominate – another flawed team.  The Celtics need Brown and Tatum to play well, but the team is loaded with really good NBA players – Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Derek White and the venerable Al Horford.  They have margin - a Plan A, B and C.  It’s a complete team. 

That’s the trait these Celtics share with those Pistons.  They are young and classically aged.  They are big and small.  They have elite talent, depth and versatility.  Whatever the question, they appear to have an answer.  Doncic and Irving enter every game needing to dominate.  Brown and Tatum, while capable of taking games over, don’t carry the same burden.  In Dallas, a couple heavy lifters bear concentrated responsibility.  In Boston, many hands make light work.  That’s usually a winning formula in sports or for any organization, no matter the professional pursuit. 

An Unfair Hand

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

Caitlin Clark played her last game for the University of Iowa on April 5, 2024.  Ten days later, she was drafted first overall in the NBA draft by the Indiana Fever.  On May 14^th, she played her first WNBA game. 

Hold that thought.

Between all of this, and in the few weeks that have followed, all fire and brimstone from the biblical place down below has broken loose.  The figurative first punch to Clark’s nose came from WNBA legend Diana Taurasi, who spitefully predicted that Clark was about to get served a helping of humble pie from the WNBA’s elite talent.  Angel Reese, a college rival of Clark and never one to bite her tongue, has trolled Clark on social media – the sport within the sport.

It’s easy to shout down Taurasi and Reese and scoff at the shallow mistreatment of Clark, a magic bean whose skills and broad appeal offer the WNBA an unprecedented chance to grow women’s basketball to unforeseen - perhaps even unimaginable, for some - levels.  Taurasi’s prediction wreaks of an aging star who is unwilling to yield the stage to Clark.  For Reese, jealousy is the apparent psychological quirk she can’t quite suppress, not that she’s inclined to do so.

Hang on, I need a sip of this truth serum.  Mmm…delicious.  So here it is: I love Taurasi’s and Reese’s reactions to Clark mania.  I love the pettiness, the competitiveness, the disregard for hurt feelings or public chastising.  This is professional basketball - competition at the highest level.  The chummy nature of the modern NBA - and the NFL and MLB while I’m at it – is irritating.  Defeats are often casually accepted.  There are too many bro-hugs immediately after tough games for my liking.  I yearn for the old rivals from years ago – Lakers v. Celtics, Bulls v. Bad Boy Pistons, ‘Skins v. Cowboys.  Professionalism and mutual respect can co-exist with genuine disdain for an opponent.  Animosity also makes for better theater.  It gives fans an option to identify their good and their evil and watch those forces collide on the field, the court, the diamond or the ice. 

Tip of the cap to Taurasi and Reese.

Back to that thought I asked to you hold.  Do you see an issue with Clark’s transition to the WNBA?  Imagine your college season ending, getting drafted and playing your first game with a new team, in a new city, with a professional organization in 40 days.  Teammates are strangers.  The competition has been turned up several notches.  Nothing is familiar.  The pressure is palatable.  Good luck.

Does this seem sane?  WNBA players have been doing this for years.  Is any men’s sport like this?  None of the majors are.  NFL draftees report to minicamp in May, then training camp in July.  Several pre-season games follow.  Their first real games occur five months after being drafted.  MLB and NHL draftees typically spend years in the minors.  The NBA draft happens in June, select draftees participate in the summer league and the season doesn’t start until November.  These are rational approaches for young players to adapt to the biggest athletic, professional and perhaps psychological challenge of their lives.  Clark, Reese and darn near every other WNBA player, get about a month to go from college student to pro.

I get it to a certain extent.  The sports calendar is full; to maximize eyes on television screens and butts in seats – i.e. revenue - seasons are strategically scheduled.  If player wellness was part of the equation, the suggestion of starting a season a month after the college season ends would get laughed out of the C-suite conference room.  But it’s routine for the WNBA.  So, it’s no wonder Clark’s WNBA transition has been choppy.  She’ll be fine.  Reese will be fine.  Not all women have been or will be, though.  So how about we give them all a break – for choppy play, for early struggles, for moments of pride or jealousy – even if they don’t go easy on each other.  The reality is they’ve been dealt an unfair hand, which is, unfortunately, nothing new for female athletes.       

Ultra-processed

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

Picture a quiet section in a stadium’s upper deck.  There’s a ball game being played far below but it’s the late innings and the lopsided score has minds drifting.  Is the beer guy ever coming back?  If he does, has my buzz faded too much?  Will another $15 beer just put me to sleep?  The t-shirt launcher stands no chance of blasting one this high – very unfortunate.  There hasn’t been foul ball hit up here since the Obama administration – even more unfortunate.

You ponder all this while gazing at the illuminated diamond below and admiring the mustard stain on your shirt.  It’s been a long day and the beer haze has taken hold.  Conscious thought begins to fade; eyes droop to half-mast.  Then a booming voice, from a slightly inebriated fellow fan, echoes across the section, “I can’t stand the Phoenix Suns.” 

It’s an odd introduction.  Different sport.  Team located across the country.  Still, the fan’s volume and conviction demand attention.  Where this conversation is about to meander is uncertain, but your spider senses indicate it will be polarizing.  And sure enough, the opinions that follow leave those under 40 appalled at the talking fossil, and those well into middle age muttering “preach” and “facts”.

The guy – let’s call him Paul - just keeps talking.  No one engages, not even his buddy, who offers just the occasional polite nod or “uh-huh”, but everyone in the section is listening; this is far more interesting than the blowout on the field below.  Paul is D.C. local and a Wizards fan.  He admitted that he has no legitimate reason to dislike the Suns, Kevin Durant or former Wizard/current Sun Bradley Beal.  Durant is from P.G. County and Beal toiled for years as the best player on bad Wizards teams.  Neither deserve his angst.  But they are getting it tonight. 

It isn’t personal.  The Suns are just the latest manufactured “super-team” to get Paul’s goat.  And Durant and Beal, stars traded to Phoenix from other NBA locales, are just the latest names in the sinister “buy success” game.  The Yankees and Dodgers are annual offenders.  The Miami Heat started it in the NBA.  The Rams pretty much bought themselves a Super Bowl a couple years ago.  The NHL hasn’t quite caught on yet, bless hockey’s heart.

Turns out Paul’s kind of a deep thinker, especially with two or six beers in his belly.  He travels beyond sports.  He can’t stand all the fake music being made now and longs for experiences where humans play actual instruments live.  He says he enjoys his kid’s band concerts more than anything that AI creates and corporations push on the radio.  He buys more vinyl records than downloads these days.  Paul is also irritated by filtered photos and perfectly manufactured social media lives.  He’s 100% sure that sports offer the only true reality shows and seems prepared to fight above his weight class if necessary to defend his position. 

Paul’s late-inning screed got me thinking about the recent championships won by the Capitals and Nats and those won so long ago by the D.C. football team.  Those teams all went through a mostly organic construction – drafted, home-gown talent – and a long, sometimes painful process of developing a championship mettle.  That grind, the gradual build and bumps along the way, made the victories all the sweeter.  Everything about those titles felt right. 

Paul’s internal conflict with hating on the Suns was not apparent during the team’s underwhelming season that ended in a four-game sweep in the first round of the playoffs to the Minnesota Timberwolves, a team largely built around drafted talent.  Paul reveled in the Suns’ defeat and lack general lack of fight.  This is what happens when individuals meet a team.  The Suns are a frozen dinner; the Timberwolves are scratch made, he mused.

Paul’s opinions seemed to split the section as clean as a presidential election – 50% on his side, 50% on the other.  Is he a man who is gladly watching the world pass him by, or an astute being who properly rejects an increasingly ultra-processed world?  Flip a coin.  For me, I’m Team Paul. 

Magicians And Sports

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

Life is an interesting scroll.  As a child, you observe people around you adulting to a phenomenal level.  How food appears on the table, clothes get washed and garbage doesn’t pile up so high as to create some disgusting ecosystem of micro-organisms and hatching insects is beyond your comprehension.  Then you have the really exciting things like mortgages, insurance and taxes; such things are just words in a child’s world, annoyances for another day, if the obvious mood drain they cause your parents is any guide.

Quick story: a dear friend of mine was fielding complaints from his daughters about being out of a critical snack.  He reminded them of the grocery list on the refrigerator.  All they had to do was write down what they wanted and it would appear – bought, transported and stocked – days later.  It is like magic, he asserted.   

Magic.  Say it with me, kids: Adults are magicians!  Goodness knows I had many such magicians during my childhood.  I hope you can count a few from yours as well. 

As time and years and decades have flown by, I evolved from clueless child into an independent human, a parent and then, a rather adept magician myself, if you don’t mind me saying.  One day you’re barely capable of making lunch and the next you’re running a household and facilitating the life of other humans.  What once seemed impossible becomes routine tasking for some older, wiser version of you, one apparently adorned with a bottomless magic hat. 

Parenthood…how to even describe it?  The hardest and greatest thing ever.  A source of worry and incomprehensible joy to equal extremes.  The greatest purpose a person may ever have.  The answer to “what’s this life on earth all about?”  Something that taps in to the depth of unconditional human love like nothing else.  And it comes with a life-long membership to the parental fraternity. 

A little about that fraternity.  I’ve seen it over the years.  Leaned on it.  Contributed to it, I hope.  Sometimes words are spoken, sometimes it’s just two sets of tired eyes meeting in a grocery store – when you see a fellow fraternity brother or sister, you just know.  The fraternity is a source of strength, of answers to hard questions, of comfort with parental imperfections and inevitable mistakes, and, perhaps most importantly, inspiration.  The fraternity can be seen at band concerts, scouting events, birthday parties, after school pick-up lines – parents sacrificing sleep, forgoing their own interests and supporting their kids.  And then there’s youth sports…

Precisely when the life of sports families changed is unknown.  Best I can tell, purely from my own experience, it was sometime between the early 1990s and 2010s.  Youth sports used to be about a couple practices a week at a local park or school and games played less than an hour from home.  Now?  Daily practices, long trips, some consuming weekends, and travel teams.  It is…a lot, even for magicians.

After the Washington Commanders selected Jayden Daniels second overall in last week’s NFL draft, he thanked his parents for their 23 years of devotion (i.e. his entire life) in getting him to this dream-come-true moment.  It was a familiar refrain from other draftees, either in words or video clips from living rooms across the country – lots of tears, lots of mom and dad hugs.  A common quip to extraordinary moments is “I can’t imagine.”  Most parents won’t support their kids into college sports, much less the pros, but we can actually imagine the commitment of Daniels’s parents.  We can picture the tough games, the bumps and bruises, the long drives, the daily practices, equipment all over the house, and dirty jerseys in the laundry room.  They did it for the same reason we all do: simply because their kid wanted to play.    

As I type this, I’m on hour six at a track meet far from home, which, judging from the crowd, makes me exactly like a couple hundred other “fraternity” members.  Now, scale this to a state and nation and for all spring sports.  You get the point.  Magicians are at work on a grand scale. 

Sports Please

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

As this “View” gets underway, an unencumbered journey into the world of sports has been interrupted by the site of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel.  This, of course, is fresh off Israeli-Hamas hostilities and occurs while war rages on in Ukraine, tensions remain high in the South China Sea and the future of Taiwan is very much uncertain.  As always, the world is a heavy place; jarring reminders are unnecessary, but, as history shows, they are inevitable.

There will be no breakdown of any of the above in this column, and certainly no politicization of it.  The former I’ll leave to real experts and reputable media sources.  Regarding the politicization, that will inevitably occur on your favorite social media portal.  And a quick scan in the wake of the attack on Israel indicates it is very much underway.  Facebook, Twitter/X, Truth Social, etc. – pick your favorite social media cesspool, plug in your brain and prepare to be reprogramed with someone’s agenda and whipped into some sort of misinformed frenzy that will, at the very least, raise blood pressures and damn well could cause alienation from friends and family.  Because if we aren’t freaking out based on sketchy news, blindly consuming A.I. fallacies, retreating to our socially engineered tribes, raging against our fellow Americans (note: we are allies, not enemies) who have a different point of view, and generating misguided victimhood, we aren’t trying hard enough.    

Joy.  To.  The.  World.

Ah, but this sports retreat is only delayed, not deterred.  Have a seat.  The beer man and peanut vendor, brave souls dedicated to do-good-ery, just climbed the steep stairs to the upper reaches of the bleachers to deliver a fresh bag of legumes and a massive plastic cup filled with fermented grains.  No inflation here – this stuff has always defied any rational pricing curve.  The cost matters little: this is exactly what’s needed to settle the pulse and improve the mood.

Our little sports cabin in the mountains isn’t a perfect retreat, though.  It has its issues – a bad roof, drafty windows and a fridge that struggles to keep beer appropriately cold.  The transfer portal in college sports has made roster-building an annual endeavor and rendered long-term school-athlete-fan relationships a rarity.  Conference membership has the durability of a scoop of ice cream in my presence.  Too many pitchers are getting injured.  NFL mock draft overexposure syndrome is highly contagious.  Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is the latest example of sports’ recent embracement of gambling.  Can you have it both ways – benefitting from gambling’s boost to interest (and revenue) in sports while maintaining the precious integrity of the competition?  Gut instinct from a duped steroid era fan: no.

Then one looks around and the skeptical nerves calm and the cynicism abates.  The view from the bleachers is rich, indeed.  Caitlin Clark is dropping threes and South Carolina is going undefeated.  Alexander Ovechkin is scoring goals again and his march toward Wayne Gretzky’s record is reenergized.  Jackson Holiday reported to Baltimore; James Wood is bound for D.C. soon.  The NBA and NHL playoffs are about to begin.  The Paris Olympics arrive this summer.  The pending selection of a new quarterback (and a new name too???) – on the heels of a new owner, general manager, coach and darn near everything else – has made it feel like spring again for D.C. football fans.

The incredible games, the fantastic competition and compelling stories can, at least temporarily, transcend the warts of the sports world and worries over existential global crises.  That is part of the magic of sports: being the tonic, the elixir, the special sauce, the spoonful of sugar that makes the real world’s medicine go down.  And as usual, in these difficult times, I am grateful for having been bitten long ago by the sports bug.  If you weren’t, or maybe not as deeply – no matter.  Indulge your favorite interests.  Maybe it is music or books.  Comedy.  Gardening.  Hiking.  Movies.  Art.  Theater.  It is a beautiful and amazing world out there – mostly, but not always.  So, when “not always” happens, hold tight to your pleasurable distractions, for sanity’s sake.    

Here…want some peanuts?

Scrolling On

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

As any parent of a high school student who is involved in a theater production will tell you, it is an intense experience.  The lines.  The choreography.  The preparation of the actors and the set.  The daily afterschool practices.  It is an intense experience.  Add in potential life variables – like a sore throat ahead of a musical (gasp!) – and you have an incubator for parental anxiety. 

Usually, like most things in life, everything works out just fine.  That is not an immediate tonic for the anxiety, though.  Watching your kid perform covers the gamut of emotions.  It is absolutely excruciating in process; there is no ability to influence, much less control, the situation, which leaves mom and dad with the worst of all strategies – hoping for the best.  But then again, is there a better bumper sticker for parenthood than “Hoping for the Best”?  Other than “Clinging to the Frayed Ends of Sanity” or “Can I Get a Drink Up in Here?”, of course.

The last show brings peace.  The mind calms and joy swells without the fear of another performance.  Not long after the final bow, curtain drop and after-show congratulations and mingling, the emotional enormity of the end sets in.  There are no more practices.  No more shows.  Months of preparation and high-intensity performances have reached a natural, if abrupt, conclusion.

It is a rough transition – for parents, yes, but particularly for the kids.  The time, the energy and the emotional investment are undeniable.  Then there’s the experience of the show – all involved performing in unison to create a magical artistic expression.  It is an incredible emotional peak.  Then it is over.  There are videos, pictures, mementos and memories, of course, but that show, with those kids, in that moment along the time continuum will never be again.  Don’t be sad it’s over, be grateful that it happened.  Sage wisdom.  If only it was only that easy.  The mind doesn’t easily bow to the words. 

This is a lame transition.  It doesn’t measure up to the thud families feel after a school play concludes an epic run.  But as a sports fan (and a non-actor and a cringy karaoke singer at best), the Super Bowl is my best comp.  It is the pinnacle of a slow and steady build of the nation’s most popular sport.  Hope abounds in August.  Real contests begin in September.  The legitimate contenders are known when the cool air of fall arrives.  Injuries happen.  Inexplicable outcomes influence playoff standings.  Some teams surprise, others underwhelm.  Thanksgiving.  Christmas.  New Years.  It gets serious, captivating, enthralling.  Hearts are broken.  Dreams get bigger.  And finally, two teams take the world’s grandest stage for a final duel. 

The clock ticks to zero.  Confetti falls.  A trophy and MVP are handed out.  The game is reviewed – on the net, the radio, at the watercooler…everywhere.  The context within NFL history – for the team and individual players – is pondered.  The rush is intense.  The immediate aftermath is consuming.  But by Wednesday the following week, save for the fanatics of the winning team, it’s over.  By Sunday of the subsequent week, the void of the NFL’s departure after its annual and incomparable crescendo is undeniable.

But life quickly moves on.  Pitchers and catcher report to spring training.  March Madness arrives.  April introduces The Masters and the NBA and NHL playoffs.  And then, in the blink of an eye, the NFL returns in September.

Individual human feelings are inconsequential to the unstoppable scroll of life - an inconvenient truth in magical moments that we wish would linger, but therapeutic after tough losses, unfortunate life events or for any experience best forgotten.  Regardless, nothing is static.  Something ends, something begins.  For good or ill.  For good and ill.  Memories, however, travel untouched across time.  Accumulate enough, though, and the joy of yesterday can become tinged with melancholy.  The trick – good advice from a friend, particularly in mid-life - is to keep moving with the scroll.  Carry the past, but don’t allow it to burden the on-going journey.  Embrace the next game, the next season and the next musical – the next chance for something special.

Go For It

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

I can’t imagine being Caleb Williams.  Or Caitlin Clark.  Or Jayden Daniels.  Or any of the hundreds of athletes who will be considered for the NFL, NBA, NHL, WNBA, MLB, or any other professional sports league draft over the next few months.  Neither does the vast, perhaps even all, of the millions of readers of this column (wink).  We have never thrown a pass in a packed stadium, set NCAA scoring records, drained threes from deep or hoisted the Heisman Trophy.  But those obvious athletic differentiations aren’t what this is about.

Close your eyes.  Breathe.  Imagine.  You’re about 20-years-old, give or take a calendar year or two.  A college student.  You likely haven’t voted in a presidential election.  If you’re a dude, you’re only a couple of years removed from selective service registration, a sobering obligation.  Renting a car or a hotel room, and buying a beer could be problematic.  To date, you’ve been mainly a student and an athlete.  Defined.  Simple.  Maybe you stayed close to home for college, or perhaps you ventured out of state, or even across the country, to a blue blood program with some serious panache.  Regardless, the choice was yours.

Now, due to eligibility limits or prodigious prowess, college has been outgrown.  The “real world” beckons.  A professional life awaits.  In preparation, you’re poked and prodded, measured, interviewed, tested, analyzed and judged…every aspect of your life is considered to the nth degree.  Such is the pre-draft experience of the best prospects, those who could convert a woe-be-gone franchise into something special, something that matters, something that will be remembered.  Or maybe you’re a marginal prospect just hoping to catch the eye of anyone – any general manager or obscure scout – who will provide an elusive opportunity to continue chasing the dream. 

Regardless, where you will work and who you will work for isn’t your choice.  An unpredictable draft process and the intentional or whimsical actions of front office personnel determine your fate.  Your name is called; the future has arrived.  Video in the immediate aftermath features hugs with family members, celebration and a few tears.  The athlete dons a team cap or slips into a uniform.  Idyllic.  Iconic.  Heart-warming.  Beautiful.

I wonder what they are really thinking.  The athletes, that is.  To have your future so uncertain, so beyond your control, and ultimately so dictated.  Are they too young to care?  Perhaps the euphoria over the culmination or continuation of a dream overrides everything.  Pizza is good anywhere, right?  Beer from darn near any microbrew from across this great country is lovely.  Perhaps the awesomeness of basketball, baseball, football…sports…transcends geography.  I’ll buy that. 

Still, to have life pivot so quickly is unique.  For most of us, employment and residency are carefully considered.  Every pro and con – salary, cost of living, location to schools, proximity to family, recreational opportunities, crime, healthcare, etc. – is thoroughly vetted in our overactive minds (analysis paralysis).  To know, that at any moment, you can be picked and sent to Seattle or Detroit or Dallas or Atlanta or New York?  I can’t imagine it – as a husband, a son and a parent. 

Every year, though, young athletes face the same personal and professional inflection point, and, to the casual eye at least, handle it with grace beyond their years.  Some certainly experience a hint of disappointment over their dictated location or team – a longing to be closer to home or in a familiar city - but there is rarely evidence of remorse in their words, deeds or performance.  Whether it is the great adaptability of youth or the steadfast power of their joy, these young athletes, these new draftees, these rookies, these kids…embrace the moment – the uncertainty, the fluidity, the opportunity - and just go for it. 

And in that annually repeated act is their gift – to the older, the more calculating, the rigid.  When faced with a pivot point in life, be it personal or professional, be there some control of the outcome or absolutely none, sometimes the best thing to do is commit completely to the process and have faith – in the universe, in the journey, in yourself.