Watched the semi-finals of the Broadway Tech Centre basketball tournament today. It was a pleasant way to spend a lunch hour, though neither of the teams were from my company, and I didn’t know any of the players. One team showed pretty poor sportsmanship: they were way more aggressive, quicker to cry foul (literally) if the other team got aggressive, and had an annoyingly loud cheering section. All in all, they seemed more interested in winning than competing and having fun. So I started thinking: does this happen more in basketball than volleyball? Because I don’t remember ever seeing it in the games I’ve played, even in tournaments (and if you’re thinking gay volleyball doesn’t get competitive, think again). True, there’s some posturing and trash-talking (gawd knows I’ve done my share), but in my experience it’s all been good clean fun. And in volleyball each team stay on its side of the net. In basketball, though, you’re up close, in your opponent’s face all the time. Hands get waved around, elbows and knees bump (intentionally or not), personal spaces get invaded… and tempers flare. Kind of like hockey, I guess. Not to say it’ll necessarily be a worse atmosphere than volleyball, but the basic setup seems to make it more likely.
(I never did like basketball in high school. All that running around back and forth, didn’t have the endurance for it. Never got the hang of getting that ball in the basket, either.)
PS: the team with the cuter (and less aggressive) guys won. Yay!