Soccer, Sports and Politics - Part Deux

So you asked (okay, no one asked) about why badminton was a varsity sport where I grew up in Orange County. It's a very interesting talk of inclusion. In the late 1970s, our district and several others began receiving significant numbers of students arriving as refugees from Southeast Asia. As with an earlier comment about how sports are not part of the collegiate experience outside the US, neither are sports (or virtually any other extracurricular activity) part of many high school experiences outside the US. So school districts were faced with an influx if large populations of non-English speakers with no older students to guide them (like happened a few years later with refugees from Central America - there were people there already to help acclimatize) and with no tradition of engaging in a school.

Areas on many campuses called (in the decidedly un-PC way of the late 70s and early 80s) "Little Saigon" emerged where the newcomers would congregate.

School district officials hit on adding badminton as a varsity sport to be added as a way to integrate the SEA populations. Even if badminton was uncool, you wore the school colors, could be proud to be part of the team and the school, and participated in things like school assemblies where non-athletes cheered for you. You won awards and wore letterman jackets. You integrated.

And it worked. Oldest siblings typically played no sports, second and third kids played badminton and then tennis and some soccer, fourth siblings and/ore the second generation played football and swam and golfed and whatever they wanted just like everyone else in the school. Eventually badminton was "just" an odd duck, no longer performing the same function, and was dropped during budget cuts.

Side bonus: good lord were the girls from Korea and Vietnam and Laos beautiful, and I got to hang out with them for months on end. Of course the lack of full integration at the time meant they weren't allowed to date Americans, so it didn't go so well for me (twice broken up with at the insistence of parents).

 

A well coached, well drilled team with enough talent to compete some of the time. The downside is that the bench was not deep enough and they spend the best part of 3 matches running after the ball, so we ended up making 4 subs due to injury. If Mayra had scored the third…. Who knows…

Hopefully we will get more players for the next World Cup.

 

Your men and women keep knocking on the door. You're close.

 

Yet so far

 

The 100 M Men's final was truly insane last night. Djoko win vs Alcaraz was one for the ages as well.

I was at the SDF yesterday morning for qualifiers and had a chance to see two champions among others, Julien Alfred from St Lucia & Femke Bol of the Netherlands. Alfred is also running the 200 M and won her qualifier easily. She is the favorite, imo, on the 200 M. Superb athlete.
Bol is going to win the 400 M hurdles, she is head and shoulders above the competition.

 

Brazil's beach volleyball team defeated the Dutch r*pist.

We all love you Brazil. pic.twitter.com/BdEBiScKkK

— Troll Sports (@TroIISports) August 5, 2024

 

I wonder if he asked the Austrian swimmer if they saw a kangaroo out in the wild....

 

When I was in college, my sophomore roommate took Badminton for his PE class. He thought it would be like that backyard tap-the-birdie game from picnics, etc. He was the only white guy in the class, most of which was Malaysian. He came back two hours later with his shirt soaking wet and stuck to his skin. He initially said he was going to drop the class because it was actually hard. But he stuck with it and actually got into the game. A couple years later I was in the gymnasium checking the intramural schedule, and there was his picture with an Asian guy: doubles runner up!

Speaking of Olympic sports that Americans don't follow. I knocked off my PE requirement with the Team Handball class. An assistant football coach was a retired Army guy who spent most of his career in Europe with NATO. He got into the game and bought equipment and taught the course for the department. It was popular enough that we had an intramural league with 6-10 teams every year I was there: we'd get 10-12 games every year. Alas, my senior year was the last time that happened because, alas, the football team was terrible and they cleaned house. Not sure how long the IM league lasted after that.

 

P



Paris 1878, Claude Monet

Paris 2024, Olympic Games.

 

Long read on the differential between men's and women's performance in athletic endeavors.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240731-the-sports-where-women-outperform-men

 

I'm on the road to Morocco!

 

Never bet against Spain.

 

Intramural like indoor?
I watch women indoor handball occasionally and boy that's not a sport for p*ssies. These ladies are tough as nails. I'm pretty sure I don't last more than 5 minutes against them.

 

I'm speaking American. In American universities, there are varsity sports, in which teams representing the college/university plays other teams from other colleges. "Intramural" is for students at one particular university. So my college would have a half dozen or more teams playing in a league. My team was a bunch of guys from my dormitory. Other teams represented other dorms, fraternities, student groups (Black Students Association, Newman Center {Catholic students} and the like). Intramural sports are generally pretty informal and recreational.

 

Greatness recognizes greatness (the Simone Biles edition):

This is everything. pic.twitter.com/FrXz7wWtQg

— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) August 5, 2024

 

Simone is as amazing on and off the competition.

 

Just landed in NY and saw this result. Seems to have been a spectacular match. Will try to watch it later tonight.

Wow! Another epic comeback at the #Paris2024 Olympics 🏐 Quarterfinals! 🔥

The 2020 Olympic champions France 🇫🇷 pull off an incredible 3-2 victory over Germany 🇩🇪 after losing the first 2 sets!

3 European teams in the semifinals! 💪🇪🇺

📸 @volleyballworld #Volleyball #Olympics pic.twitter.com/0EyR6s1ojf

— European Volleyball (@CEVolleyball) August 5, 2024

 

Oh yeah....wait til my favorite Egypt finishes off France and then demolishes the guys from the Plaines where the rain mainly falls!

 

Yes, it was a great match. The Germans were extremely good. the French team is accustomed to turning around desperate situations. That makes them entertaining to watch, especially with a wizard like Earvin Ngapeth in their ranks.