Cleats by Bill Hinds for May 15, 2010

  1. V  9
    freeholder1  over 14 years ago

    I appreciate this week’s strip, We have the girl trying to “butch up” the game with “masculine”(Bill Laimbeer) play and the other using the “feminine” solution of subtly breaking the rules to respond. I particularly like the coach treating Abby as a cheater because she actually DID cheat. I was told I was evil for telling Abby to “arm” her ponytail, but that commenter missed the point I was awkwardly making: she was becoming her enemy.

    I sincerely appreciate Hinds raising the issues he has here, in a very comic and artful way. Soccer will get Americanized with OUR football mentality. It’s already gone the Little League route with rabid parents and must-win ideals. (All covered here.) Soccer Mom is now the stereo-type that Tiger Wodds’ dad was. The ex-jock understanding of were the game is REALLY going is nice to see. I just hope it never really gets big in this country. (Though I doubt the raging growth indicates anything else) Our young athletes need a place to PLAY.

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  2. Thrill
    fritzoid Premium Member over 14 years ago

    fbjsr, I don’t think freeholder’s comment about Earl Woods is in reference to Tiger’s marital difficulties. The knock on Earl Woods is, I think, that from childhood he pushed “golf golf golf, win win win” on his son to the exclusion of everything else. That attitude can be effective in producing top “competitors”, but it’s not everything a child needs to learn from his/her parents. There may be a connection to be made with Tiger’s off-course misdeeds and his upbringing, but it’s not really to the point.

    “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game” is a cliche, but it has value. That and “Play hard, play fair, nobody hurt” often find themselves in opposition to “Nice guys finish fifth” and “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the ONLY thing.”

    I’ve gotten in trouble before for alluding to the “all-sports, all the time” attitude that some people have towards their kids (the specific reference was someone suggesting “glue a soccer ball to the kid’s feet”), but I don’t think I made my point well. If the kid wants to excel at a sport, yeah, the parent can do some things to provide the focus that they (the parent) knows is necessary but the kid might not understand (after all, a year before the kid probably was determined to be a cowboy or something), but in sports (as in entertainment - stage mothers, pageant moms, and so on), we often see that the parent wants to see the child become a “star” to gratify his/her own ego. “My kid’s gonna play shortstop for the Yankees!” “My kid’s gonna win an Oscar!”

    There are life-lessons to be learned on the playing field, and one of them is “You win some, you lose some”. Abby’s warming the bench, but Debbiezilla got red-carded. That doesn’t strike me as unfair.

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  3. Text if you d like to meet him
    Yukoneric  over 14 years ago

    Ronaldinho Gaucho, go, man, go!!!!

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  4. Ca avatar patch
    CougarAllen  over 14 years ago

    Attttttttttttttacking? :>

    -Cougar :{)

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