Tank McNamara by Bill Hinds for December 31, 2024

I’m guessing it was pure jealousy over her publicity is why the powers that be kept her off the team.

I’m old enough to remember when Americans whined that we were sending amateurs while the lousy Commies were using professionals who didn’t have real jobs.

(And I suspect the powers that be – for both the Olympics and women’s basketball – love every ounce of ratings they can get, so I’m less likely to there was no jealousy involved.)

I’m old enough to remember when the NBA actually had good ratings.

So ratings are more important than the dignity of the games? Obviously so.

I remember when I used to watch the Olympics…hey, it was when the athletes were still amateurs!

I’m still pretty young.

Sad but true.

When Shawon Barkley enters Giants Stadium next Sunday, he will be carried in a litter by six well-muscled Nubian slaves—-with Live Elephants on either side of him

THIS JUST IN——

Six former basketball players at Florida State University are suing coach Leonard Hamilton for failing to pay up to $250,00.00 per player for “name,image,and likeness compensation”. Evidence is supposedly multiple text messages where thecoach promises to get the money from his “business partners”.(College coaches have business partners??)/.

Not mentioned is whether or not these payments would have been illegal in any respect

Clark isn’t the best player in the league. But she’s the most important. (Not the only important one, though.)

No rookies were selected to the WNBA All-Star team. They didn’t snub her; they went with more experienced talent.

Yeah, I lived in the Amateur Era. It was a sham. In the West, athletes were forced to take money under the table. In the East, Soviet Bloc countries put their athletes in the armed forces so they could be paid. Shamateurs.

The feeling of pure athletics was always a false one perpetrated by the IOC. At least now the hypocrisy of Shamateurism is gone. Replaced by crass commercialism? No, that’s always been there. But now the athletes benefit from it, too.

actually, rating shot up when they started actually showing the games on tv throughout the day instead of just primetime – and back then it was only a few partial games interspersed with a lot of talk and stories (and God help you if it was up against gymnastics).