G and Greece: The Desire to Compete
Hey e’rybody,
USA lost. Again. In hoops…and it makes me pine for the ‘92 team.
Honestly, it’s not even a question if I would’ve put up more of a fight…and I don’t know if it’s the money they make, or maybe they simply underestimate their opponent(s), but it seems like they don’t understand that EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE IN THE WORLD guns for the U.S., in athletics or academics.
Now, I don’t wish to imply that the U.S. is the greatest at everything; you know, exude that pride that gets us into trouble sometimes as a country (see Bush, George W.). I don’t even want our success in international competition to create some sort of domineering ‘best in the world‘ attitude, even though that concept is certainly idealistic. But for the sake of competition, I would like to see us fight a little harder when international status is at stake.
That brings me to G.
G is my co-worker, who I talked about in a previous post. Much like myself, G is a competitive guy; in fact, we play basketball against each other 3-4 times a week, and the matchups are always pretty good. I mean, I’ll win some, he’ll win some, but the desire to win is always there, and it transcends being tired or other distractions.
In fact, it’s pretty much like that with everything between us…not saying we aren’t friends, in fact, G's one of the coolest cats I’ve met. Big Steelers fan, nice guy, really loyal person. But the friendly rivalry began with fantasy basketball…
Yeah, I see you guys laughing. At any rate, we battled through the regular season, and winded up in the finals…and yeah, he won. It kinda ticked me off, because he declares that he prefers football fantasy, and even though fantasy sports require almost as much luck as skill, I just wanted to win.
Fantasy baseball…we tied last week, and well, I’m pretty sure we’ll meet in the finals again (I’ll let you know how that goes…), we also have a local prognosticating challenge that we’re both in (so the whole city knows who’s the best), and fantasy football is coming up.
On Thursday, though, we played a classic game of hoops.
I won the first two (heh heh), and we played a third and final contest.
We play to 11, all by ones, so long-range shots count as much as lay-ups. He got off to an early start, and was up 6-2. Yeah, looking bleak for the home team…but then I went on a 6-2 run to tie things up at 8, which set up the big finale.
So, I come down and drain two jumpers, no problem, to make it 10-8. Now, I’m thinking I’m just going to go ahead and make this last J to send him home…
Not a chance. That’s the thing I like about Adrian; you can never count him out. He made two shots to tie it, and then made a third for what should’ve been the game winner…
But we play deuces, meaning that if there’s a tie at game point (which was 10), you have to make two shots for victory (kind of a tennis concept). So he had the advantage, and well, that’s when I went off.
He had the shot to win, and it just rimmed out… “Awwww, come on…” he said as I played like life depended on it.
The miss caromed to the right, and I grabbed the ball and darted across the baseline. He knew what I was going to do, so he came over to defend, and I flipped over a nice little shot.
Then I made a jumper, and got the advantage.
Finally, I went left for the win, and of course *smirk* made it…and I must say, it felt pretty good to come back for the win.
I wish I could say the same about the basketball team that the U.S. sent to the FIBA World Championships.
I went to ESPN.com today, and in horror, read the ‘World of Hurt’ headline as I saw that the Americans lost to Greece 101-95.
I mean, I’m not going to go over with you guys what mistakes the team might have made during the game or either during the development of the team, because I really thought they were going to prove the doubters wrong.
All I know is, this trend of losing is continuing in international play, whether it be the Ryder Cup (golf) or the Olympics, and all I’m saying is it’s about time those teams step it up and have the pride of say, two guys who don’t compete for a dime, just for the sake of saying they were the best at that moment…even if that desire to win is nigh-compulsive.
Hey, it worked for Jordan, and it works for Tiger.
Catch you guys later,
The Good Doctor
USA lost. Again. In hoops…and it makes me pine for the ‘92 team.
Honestly, it’s not even a question if I would’ve put up more of a fight…and I don’t know if it’s the money they make, or maybe they simply underestimate their opponent(s), but it seems like they don’t understand that EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE IN THE WORLD guns for the U.S., in athletics or academics.
Now, I don’t wish to imply that the U.S. is the greatest at everything; you know, exude that pride that gets us into trouble sometimes as a country (see Bush, George W.). I don’t even want our success in international competition to create some sort of domineering ‘best in the world‘ attitude, even though that concept is certainly idealistic. But for the sake of competition, I would like to see us fight a little harder when international status is at stake.
That brings me to G.
G is my co-worker, who I talked about in a previous post. Much like myself, G is a competitive guy; in fact, we play basketball against each other 3-4 times a week, and the matchups are always pretty good. I mean, I’ll win some, he’ll win some, but the desire to win is always there, and it transcends being tired or other distractions.
In fact, it’s pretty much like that with everything between us…not saying we aren’t friends, in fact, G's one of the coolest cats I’ve met. Big Steelers fan, nice guy, really loyal person. But the friendly rivalry began with fantasy basketball…
Yeah, I see you guys laughing. At any rate, we battled through the regular season, and winded up in the finals…and yeah, he won. It kinda ticked me off, because he declares that he prefers football fantasy, and even though fantasy sports require almost as much luck as skill, I just wanted to win.
Fantasy baseball…we tied last week, and well, I’m pretty sure we’ll meet in the finals again (I’ll let you know how that goes…), we also have a local prognosticating challenge that we’re both in (so the whole city knows who’s the best), and fantasy football is coming up.
On Thursday, though, we played a classic game of hoops.
I won the first two (heh heh), and we played a third and final contest.
We play to 11, all by ones, so long-range shots count as much as lay-ups. He got off to an early start, and was up 6-2. Yeah, looking bleak for the home team…but then I went on a 6-2 run to tie things up at 8, which set up the big finale.
So, I come down and drain two jumpers, no problem, to make it 10-8. Now, I’m thinking I’m just going to go ahead and make this last J to send him home…
Not a chance. That’s the thing I like about Adrian; you can never count him out. He made two shots to tie it, and then made a third for what should’ve been the game winner…
But we play deuces, meaning that if there’s a tie at game point (which was 10), you have to make two shots for victory (kind of a tennis concept). So he had the advantage, and well, that’s when I went off.
He had the shot to win, and it just rimmed out… “Awwww, come on…” he said as I played like life depended on it.
The miss caromed to the right, and I grabbed the ball and darted across the baseline. He knew what I was going to do, so he came over to defend, and I flipped over a nice little shot.
Then I made a jumper, and got the advantage.
Finally, I went left for the win, and of course *smirk* made it…and I must say, it felt pretty good to come back for the win.
I wish I could say the same about the basketball team that the U.S. sent to the FIBA World Championships.
I went to ESPN.com today, and in horror, read the ‘World of Hurt’ headline as I saw that the Americans lost to Greece 101-95.
I mean, I’m not going to go over with you guys what mistakes the team might have made during the game or either during the development of the team, because I really thought they were going to prove the doubters wrong.
All I know is, this trend of losing is continuing in international play, whether it be the Ryder Cup (golf) or the Olympics, and all I’m saying is it’s about time those teams step it up and have the pride of say, two guys who don’t compete for a dime, just for the sake of saying they were the best at that moment…even if that desire to win is nigh-compulsive.
Hey, it worked for Jordan, and it works for Tiger.
Catch you guys later,
The Good Doctor
posted by The Good Doctor at 11:34 AM
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