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Who is the bigger dick? | Jul 03, 2008 10:49

GUEST Hadyn Green surveys the field

Every week the Dropkicks do a segment called "Dick of the Week" where we select an athlete or someone involved in sports who has done something really stupid or harmful to themselves or others and "boo" them. If they're really bad we add them to the Willie Mason Hall of Fame. (We also do an "Athlete" of the Week for those who were wondering.)

Usually choosing a DotW is pretty simple. For example previous "winners" include awful referees (not Wayne Barnes though), racist fans, and Wendell Sailor. But this week was different; this week we had an argument, and it was a real humdinger.

On one side was Jimmy Cowan (gentleman about town) and on the other was Justin Gimelstob (defender of feminine grace).

The argument for Jimmy Cowan runs like this:

Cowan is currently the third-string All Black halfback who has been promoted to second-string by an injury to Brendon Leonard. So instead of trying to secure his position in the squad he goes out and causes a drunken incident on the beautiful streets of Invercargill.

The incident was an altercation with a bouncer who wouldn't let a very drunk Cowan into a club (they have nightclubs in Invercargill?) at 4am. The police were called, and Cowan was arrested.

The real kick in the nuts came afterwards though, when he was cleared to play by the All Black judiciary (albeit fined $3,000). The cynical amongst you might notice that Cowan is our last good option at halfback. The question has been asked: "Who would they call up if we dropped Cowan?" Piri Weepu? Danny Lee? Jamie Nutbrown? The options get pretty thin pretty quickly (note to South Africa, you may want to cause injuries at that particular position).

Now we can't say that Cowan intentionally used this situation to leverage his way into the team, but Graham Henry looked pretty annoyed by the whole thing. Also, like it or not, kids still look up to the All Blacks as role models and what's the message here? Cause trouble and as long as you're important enough to make the team you'll get off? That's not cool.

The argument for Gimelstob runs like this:

Gimelstob is a player representative for the ATP. In a recent interview he said that certain female tennis players were "sexpots" and gave commentary on their bottoms. He then called Anna Kournikova a "bitch" and he would like his "stud" brother to date her and "reap the benefits".

Beyond the clear fact that this is the kind of guy who gets turned down in a bar and then calls the girl a slut for doing it; this sexualisation of sportswomen has to stop. As Megan points out on her blog (yes she was part of this argument) a Google News search about Maria Sharapova's exit from Wimbledon contains too many headlines that make mention of her fashion rather than her tennis. Meanwhile the equally whored-out Andy Roddick and Raphael Nadal don't get the same treatment.

Dan Carter gets as much attention for his good looks as he does for his rugby, however unlike Sharapova and Daniela Hantuchova, when Carter steps onto the field no one (except maybe the opposition) are making comments about his prettiness, nobody suggests a poor performance is anything to do with his clothes.

Gimelstob's comments are more of the same kind of bullshit from a no-name (see Don Imus and his "nappy-headed hoes" comment) trying to generate self-publicity and we should not tolerate it.

The argument against Gimelstob:

He is just a no-name who will most likely lose his job and be forced to make a public apology before he heads down to some nightclub with a bag of coke to "hit up the bitches"

The argument against Cowan:

He is just a no-name who will most likely lose his job and be forced to make a public apology before he heads down to some nightclub with a bag of coke to "hit up the bitches"

So my question to you is this: who is the bigger dick?

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Play by Discretion | Jun 27, 2008 11:50

GUEST Hadyn Green surveys the field

Rules are rules, except when they're not. What are supposed absolutes in sports are more often ill-defined vagaries and referee discretionary calls.

During the rugby last week Jonathan Kaplan made a number of strange calls including a forward pass (note this is not going to be a discussion about that forward pass). The Dropkicks have had lengthy discussions about forward passes ever since the very flat pass from Ma'a Nonu to Mils Muliaina to score the All Blacks' third try against England in the first test.

Law 12 of the Laws of Rugby (PDF document, 1.7MB) covers the forward pass. Under the law it is called a "throw forward":

DEFINITION: THROW FORWARD

A throw forward occurs when a player throws or passes the ball forward. "Forward" means towards the opposing team's dead ball line.

EXCEPTION

Bounce forward. If the ball is not thrown forward but it hits a player or the ground and bounces forward, this is not a throw forward.

After arguing for a while, both on- and off-line we decided that the referee's relative frame of reference was the main decider in determining whether or not a pass is thrown forward. This training video found by Sideline Mike encourages referees in Australia to ignore the official idea of the rule and instead go with their relative observation. This goes against rulings, such as the one that reversed Sitiveni Sivivatu's try in last Saturday's game, called by the stationary touch judge. The touch judge's frame of reference was static (i.e. the motion of the ball relative to the ground) while the referee was running with the players (i.e. the motion of the ball relative to the position of the players). What is forward to one is flat or even backwards to the other.

Talking about this at length can alter your perceptions of reality and cause a serious headache (luckily I did physics, infinite set theory and sub-structural logic). Thank goodness the rest of the rules of rugby are clear-cut and simple to interpret.

For example when Kaplan gave a short-arm penalty to the English because the scrum was "moving across the field" that was because … um …

Actually there is no rule for that. So once again the referee's discretion is what made the call.

Then in this week's cricket we saw something very strange with rules. Grant Elliot collided with (the awesomely named) Ryan Sidebottom. Elliot was injured and unable to make it back to his crease in time and was run-out. The rules were precisely interpreted by the umpires and Elliot was ruled out. However, the gentlemanly rules of cricket (Law 27) say:

8. Withdrawal of an appeal

The captain of the fielding side may withdraw an appeal only with the consent of the umpire within whose jurisdiction the appeal falls and before the outgoing batsman has left the field of play. If such consent is given the umpire concerned shall, if applicable, revoke his decision and recall the batsman.

So when English captain Paul Collingwood did not withdraw the appeal the New Zealand camp was furious. But what could they do, those were the rules. Well they got really pissed off is what they did. Daniel Vettori apologised and made peace with Collingwood but said later that his reaction would've been radically different had they lost.

Should Collingwood have instigated section 8 of Law 27? In this case the umpires could make a clear ruling (as opposed to lbws) but the captain made a discretionary call. I'll let you all discuss the demise of gentlemanly play in the comments.

Where does the TAB stand on these issues? These days there are the large amounts of money riding on these games, both from the gambling public and from the sports bodies themselves. So what do sports organisations do in reaction to these issues?

Sometimes the answer is high-tech. In rugby and cricket (and other sports) we now have the TMO (television match official) - an extra referee who can watch footage of the play to better determine what has just happened (although this is not entirely infallible). Major League Baseball debates every year about whether or not they should introduce a system like this.

Some sports, such as tennis, use technology to accurately place a ball in space and time to stop all of those "are you blind ref?" calls.

Others make their rules extremely explicit. The American National Football League (NFL) has one of the most intricate rulebooks I've ever read. But what I really like is the way the officials have to make a clear signal with their hands and tell the crowd explicitly what happened over the loud speakers. Even if that call is "giving them the business"

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What goes on tour | Jun 23, 2008 09:39

GUEST Hadyn Green surveys the field

I talked briefly to the owner of my local dairy about the recent controversy surrounding the English team. A news article on the incident had just come on came on the TV he has in his store, and I laughed when the reporter said a ban on the team bringing girls back to the hotel would be in place "sometime next year".

The dairy owner was dubious about why a young girl was out drinking without being I.D.ed (no talk of her being 18 would sway his thoughts). I imagine he would've called her a harlot if he didn't think it would offend me. He also blamed the Hilton for allowing the players to bring back women of obvious ill-repute. I began to feel a bit like I was on sports talkback so I paid for my bread and left.

I've written maybe a dozen pieces on this issue and rewritten each one before scrapping it (and this is hardly the best effort). To state the obvious, rape is a sensitive issue and cases like this one (high profile sports person accused of raping a girl, while they claim consensual sex) are not new.

Kobe Bryant, Mike Tyson, and many others. Some have been convicted, a large majority have not. During the high profile case of Kobe Bryant of 2003, USA Today had a look back and found that from 1990 to 2003 there were 168 allegations of sexual assault against athletes.

"Of those 168 allegations, involving 164 athletes, only 22 saw their cases go to trial, and only six cases resulted in convictions. In another 46 cases, a plea agreement was reached."

So what does that mean? Did they really happen? Were these high-profile sports people being extorted? The whole argument gets really messy really quickly.

The Englishmen involved in this most recent incident are not talking to the police because they don't have to. Is that a sign of guilt? The girl hasn't laid a formal complaint. Is that a sign of forgery? Does the fact that another of the girls sold her story of her experience for $12,000 mean anything?

Back in the USA, in 2006 three members of the Duke University lacrosse team were accused of the rape of a stripper hired at a team party. All three players were innocent and were eventually found to be so. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges and stated that the charged players were victims of a "tragic rush to accuse." The prosecutor was later was disbarred for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation." But it was only at the end of this case that people began to realise the players were being strung up. Prior to that emotions ran high.

Accusations went in both directions. Media commentators were angry that the players continued to be involved in matches: "I'm so glad they didn't miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape!" This all changed to "what an evil prosecutor" afterwards.

I personally have a lot of latent guilt about that case. I didn't believe Kobe was innocent, I remembered the Colorado football team that sexually assaulted the female kicker on their team (which was entirely sickening) and so when I heard of the lacrosse team my gut feeling was "guilty".

But how do the players deal with the aftermath? Being found not guilty does not mean the public and your fans have come to the same conclusion. What do you do?

If you're Kobe Bryant you have to play at MVP level for the next five years and hope that people remember you for something else. If you're Mike Tyson, you go nuts and do other horrible things so everyone forgets the first horrible thing you did. Most will fade into obscurity, which may be the best.

Just like there's no easy way to discuss this topic there's no easy way to end it, and so I'd like to mention cricket.

At the last world cup the English cricket team went on a bit of a bender (and who can blame them in the middle of the dull tournament) and what happened? They ended up drunk, looking like fools, telling tourists to take photos of them, one of them stole a pedal-boat and two of them started pashing each other. Now that is how you party!

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