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Posts Tagged ‘only a game’

Older Dancers Charm Pro Basketball

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2019| 6 Comments »

wizdom-1

Photo: Stephen Gosling/NBAE
The Wizdom is a dance team made up of exuberant and talented woman, no longer kids, who are good enough to dance at pro-basketball games.

I have listened to WBUR’s sports show Only a Game for years and was worried when host Bill Littlefield left. There was no need to worry. The program still excels at human-interest sports stories that draw in people like me as well as genuine sports fanatics.

Gary Waleik filed this one on some high-energy, over-50, pro-basketball dancers.

“Last year, Anna Cruse began to experience dread,” he writes. It was around the time her youngest was leaving for college, and she wondered what she would do with an empty nest. What was she good at? …

“To answer those questions, Anna Cruse had to look back at something she was good at four decades ago. In 1978, Anna Cruse was 21 years old. …

” ‘I was driving home from work one day and heard an ad on the radio for tryouts,’ Anna says. The NBA champion Washington Bullets were holding auditions for their dance team. ‘And I thought, “Hmmm … I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna go and try out.” ‘ …

“She made the 1978–1979 Washington Bullettes dance team.

” ‘All of it — the friendships and the performances, even the practice — it was all exciting,’ Anna says.

” ‘[But] in the fall of ’79, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.’ After a year of fighting, Anna beat the cancer and returned to her job as a word processing specialist, but not to the Bullettes. … Sometimes, when Anna watched dancers at an event or on TV, she’d remember how much she loved being one. …

“The years flew by, and Anna’s two oldest kids left their home in Greenville, South Carolina. Then, in March of 2018, the Washington Wizards held a 40th-anniversary celebration of the franchise’s only NBA title — from back in the days when they were still the Bullets.

” ‘And so they invited all the players back, and the coaches,’ Anna says. ‘And then any of the dancers through the years — I think there were about 60 of us — and we got to perform at this event. It sure reminded me of how enjoyable it was.’ …

“In early September, about a month after her daughter left home, Anna got an email. The Wizards were holding tryouts for a new dance team — or perhaps a new older dance team. It was for dancers 50 and older and was sponsored by the AARP. It would be called ‘The Wizdom.’ …

“In late September of 2018, undeterred by the eight-hour drive from her home in Greenville, she tried out for The Wizdom. … Anna had hardly danced over the previous 40 years. She says there were more than 80 dancers at the tryout, ranging in age from 50 to 76.

‘Absolute characters,’ Anna says. ‘Totally uninhibited. Comfortable in their own skin, and just entertaining folks.’ …

“Late one night, she got an email. … Anna Cruse had been chosen as one of the 20 members of the Wizdom over-50 dance team. …

“The Wizdom got just four practices in before their debut on Nov. 24, 2018.

” ‘The fans … so gracious. And the affirmation from them, and the excitement of the fans to this over-50, like, “What are these women out there doing?” Anna remembers. ‘When we came off the court that first game, I mean, these ladies were screaming and hugging.’ ”

More at Only a Game, here.

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Soccer Tournament in a War Zone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 12, 2018| 3 Comments »

Photo: AP
Before the Australian men’s soccer team’s first World Cup appearance in 1974 (pictured above), the team competed in war-torn Saigon.

Young, ambitious Australians, playing for their country for free in 1967, didn’t know any better when they accepted an invitation to a soccer tournament — in Saigon. I heard this story on WBUR radio’s Only a Game. It is beyond amazing.

James Parkinson reported, ” ‘It was one of these stories that you heard at a bar with colleagues and ex-players, and you thought, “Is this really true? Could this really be a thing? Surely this didn’t actually happen,” ‘ sports journalist Davidde Corran says. ‘Except that it really did actually happen. It really was the way that they told it.’

“It was November 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, when an international football tournament was held in Saigon. Eight nations would compete: New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, then South Vietnam and Australia. …

” ‘We were the pawns in the game to win over the South Vietnamese people, so it was a PR exercise,’ says Ray Baartz, a former Australian national team player, from 1967 to 1974. …

“There was little time for the players to think about the potential dangers of sending civilians into a war zone.

” ‘I think it was about a matter of weeks. We’re on the plane off to Vietnam. We didn’t have too many discussions about it,’ says Stan Ackerley, who represented Australia from 1965 to 1969. ‘These days, you would think twice about going.’ …

” ‘Well, the first, biggest shock we got was the amount of armed people we saw — soldiers, sentry points all over the place,”‘ Stan says.

“Bombers here, and fighter planes here, there and everywhere,” Ray says. “You thought, ‘Hello, we are in the middle of a war zone,’ you know? And we got through the airport, and then into the bus to take us to the hotel and had a police escort all the way.” …

” ‘They went to this briefing at the embassy, and one of the things they were told was, “Be careful of people riding on bikes because it might be someone who’s a threat, and they could mistake you for an American or a soldier and attack you and shoot you,” ‘ Davidde says. ‘[These] players, in this completely new surrounding, walk out of the Australian Embassy, and what do they see? Just a city filled with people riding around on bikes.’ …

“The players discovered the proprietor of their hotel had stolen their food vouchers, leaving them with nothing but substitute ham. And Stan received an electric shock, thanks to exposed wires in his room. Even the training pitch was questionable.

” ‘The training field was a real quagmire at the best of times, so you couldn’t train there all the time because of the conditions and that,’ Ray says. ‘It was really a cow paddock. You know, quite often we’d train on the roof of the hotel, just to keep the body moving a little bit. We weren’t allowed to train on the main stadium.’

” ‘There would have been this surreal sight during this short period of the Vietnam War, where footballs were just falling off the top of this building, this hotel, every day during training,’ Davidde says. …

“The tournament began with a group stage. Australia was drawn into Group A alongside New Zealand, Singapore and hosts South Vietnam.

” ‘The army was going around the stadium with mine detectors and so forth, and then you think, “Oh, hello,” ‘ Ray says. …

” ‘You gotta bear in mind that these players — a lot of these players were playing for the national team unpaid,’ Davidde says. ‘You’re taking annual leave to go and play for the national team — you’re sacrificing to play for the national team.’ …

“The Australian team’s PR mission had, in some ways, managed to work. The Vietnamese people had just seen their own team eliminated in the other semifinal. They also loathed the South Korean soldiers. So they began cheering for the Australians. …

” ‘To be part of the first tournament that we ever won was fantastic,’ Ray says. ‘You know, we were all so thrilled and so proud to be a part of it.’

“The magnitude of Australia’s performance in the Friendship Tournament cannot be overstated. Not only did they perform on the pitch, but they did it in remarkable circumstances, and all for the honor of representing their country.

” ‘To play for your country, you have to sacrifice a lot,’ Stan says. ‘So we sacrificed a lot, you know?’ ”

Wow. More at Only a Game, here.

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Iranian Chess Wizard

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 17, 2017| 3 Comments »


Photo: David Llada
Dorsa Derakhshani could read before the age of 2 and grew up to be a chess champion. She was banned from Iran’s chess association for not wearing a headscarf.

After you read this article on an Iranian chess prodigy, you are sure to be surprised by her current career goal. Not that there’s anything wrong with it; it’s just surprising.

Mika Klein interviewed Dorsa Derakhshani at WBUR radio’s Only a Game, first watching an old video of Dorsa to get some background.

“The year was 2000. Dorsa was 2, and appearing on a children’s television show. Dorsa wears a red velvet dress with puffy sleeves and dark tights. She’s tightly clutching a stuffed puppy, so the interviewer holds the microphone for her. Dorsa breaks into song, with the poise of seasoned performer, and the studio audience applauds.

“The camera cuts to the audience. Most of the girls are sitting in the back, many are wearing headscarves. Dorsa’s head is uncovered.

“Dorsa was born in Tehran in 1998. And this is just one of many times she appeared on Iranian TV. This time, she reads a story from a children’s book. …

” ‘Are you saying you could read at the age of 2?’

“ ‘No,’ Dorsa says. ‘I could read when I was 1 1/2. But I finished first grade when I was 2.’

“Dorsa’s television career as a child prodigy was never going to last forever, but it ended abruptly when she was 6.

“ ‘They made me wear a scarf against my will,’ says Dorsa … ‘I never went back for the TV.

“ ‘I finished fourth grade when I was 4 1/2. Math, science, everything. … My parents tried to fill my time with other things like music, swimming, ballet, gymnastics, painting.”

“Right next door to her painting class was a chess class. Dorsa decided to join. …

” ‘Chess was really different, because you are actually playing with a live human being,” Dorsa says. … ‘You can’t be 100 percent ready and sure that you play good when you go to a tournament.’

“Dorsa’s first big success came in the Iranian national youth under-8 tournament.

“ ‘It was a big surprise for everyone, because there were players who already had private coaches and they came to win,’ Dorsa says. ‘I came out of nowhere, and I won the tournament. I remember that everybody else was wearing a scarf, even under 8. But I wore a princess dress and a tiara. And it was really cute. …

“Dorsa went on to win three straight gold medals at the 2012, 2013 and 2014 Asian Junior Championships. In the numerical chess ratings lists, Dorsa was at the top for all girls in Asia. …

“I first met Dorsa at the Chess Olympiad in September 2016. She was attending as a journalist, not a player. The tournament was in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, a country that is 98 percent Muslim. She did not wear a headscarf at the tournament or on the street. I’ve never seen her wear one.”

Klein continues with a story of the time when Dorsa was traveling and saw that her Instagram account was going crazy. She went to bed and forgot about it. In the morning friends explained that ” ‘they saw on newspaper that my federation banned me — my brother and I, actually, both of us. It was just very out of the blue.’ ”

Dorsa’s brother, Borna, was banned for competing against someone from Israel, Dorsa for not wearing a headscarf.

“She believes the action against her and her brother was a tactic to divert from other news. The announcement came in the middle of the Women’s World Chess Championship, which was being held in Tehran. Several notable players, including the reigning U.S. women’s champion, boycotted the event because players were required to wear a headscarf. All three Iranian women competing had just been eliminated in the opening round. …

“This July, she moved to the U.S. after being accepted to the chess team at St. Louis University. She said there were no problems when she landed in New York and cleared immigration.

” ‘I’m hoping to become a dentist,’ Dorsa says. ‘I’m looking forward to finally having a stable trainer and a team, and I really wish to become grandmaster.’ ”

More at WBUR, here.

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Golf Gives Afghan Girl a Better Life

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 20, 2017| 6 Comments »


Photo: Only a Game
Golf was the entree to a freer world for this Afghan girl.

We hear a lot of stories about disadvantaged kids who rise above their circumstances by becoming stars — at sports, say, or ballet.

But sometimes the reason those pursuits mark a turning point is simply that they open up a different world. They show the kid that there are different worlds. The kids don’t have to become stars to benefit.

Here is a story about an Afghan girl whose path to breaking free involved golf. Martin Kessler tells the story at the radio show Only a Game.

“Before it was her turn to take the shot that could change her life, Shagufa Habibi remembers being uncomfortably warm.

“Shagufa and 11 of her teammates were standing on a soccer pitch in Herat, Afghanistan. Herat doesn’t have a golf course, so this soccer pitch was the best her team could do. It was a summer afternoon — the hottest part of the day in a city where temperatures can exceed 100 degrees. It was the only time locals would let the women have the field.

“Shagufa wore a long black dress and a head scarf. She carried a wooden club.

“Each of the women had one chance to hit a ball at a target at the other end of the field. Whoever got closest would get to attend a golf tournament in Bangladesh.”

Shagufa amazed herself. Her shot was the best.

“Shagufa Habibi was born in 1995, the youngest child in a large family. Her parents are illiterate. Her dad made his living selling dried fruit — until his hand was mangled in a terrorist attack at a local mosque. …

“When Shagufa was a young girl, the Taliban controlled Afghanistan. Girls couldn’t go to school, so Shagufa and her seven sisters stayed home. Shagufa was allowed outside just once a day, to help her mom buy food. …

“In 2001, the Taliban lost control of the government, and schools opened for girls. Shagufa’s friends started attending. But Shagufa’s father wouldn’t have it – he believed women belonged at home.

“So Shagufa and her sisters devised a plan. After their father left the house in the morning, they would sneak off to school.”

Over the next few years, there were conflicts with Shagufa’s conservative father, an unwanted marriage to an older man, separation, depression, and a decision to embrace sports at school. Sports were so freeing.

” ‘I was forgetting everything,’ Shagufa says. ‘I’m just free. And this ball was giving me more motivation for my future to be so optimistic.’

When Shagufa went to that golf tournament, she was “amazed by what she saw in Bangladesh. Girls weren’t wearing long dresses or scarves. She says women looked so free.

“On the final day of the trip, the Afghan embassy hosted their players for a lunch. The conversation turned to education. Shagufa had a question – but she wasn’t sure she should speak up.

” ‘Should I ask them or not, should I ask them or not?’ Shagufa remembers thinking. ‘Then I said, “Would you tell me, please: how is the education in Bangladesh? And is it possible for me, somehow, I come and do my education?” ‘ ”

Read what happened next at WBUR’s Only a Game, here.

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Recent Grad Hones Coaching Skills with Team Uganda

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 13, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Evan Petty
Kids enjoying the baseball field at the Allen VR Stanley Secondary School of Math and Science for the Athletically Talented near Kampala, Uganda. 

The inimitable Karen Given at WBUR radio’s Only a Game has found another inspiring story to share with listeners. This one is about a Syracuse University grad who found his calling thanks to a youth baseball team in Uganda.

“Back in the spring of 2014, Evan Petty was a senior at Syracuse University. And he was feeling a little anxious.

” ‘Um … the pressure’s starting to kick in at that point,’ Evan says. “I didn’t really know what it is that I was really going to do. I had always really liked sports. I got a journalism degree, but I didn’t work hard enough to turn it into anything.’ …

“After graduation, Evan flew to Fairbanks to write game reports for the Goldpanners — a collegiate summer team. …

” ‘I guess it bought me time. That’s pretty much all it did,’ he says.

“Evan spent that summer thinking about baseball — he’d always loved the game. He thought he’d like to be a coach. But he didn’t have any training or experience. He figured he’d never find a paid job in this country, so he started looking elsewhere.

” ‘So I think that I looked in places like Japan, even, and places in Europe. Spain, they play some baseball. I took some Spanish in high school, maybe I could make something work with that,’ Evan says. ‘But then Uganda came up.’

“Yep. Uganda. A school was looking for an English teacher/assistant baseball coach.

“The Allen VR Stanley International School of Math and Science for the Athletically Talented was founded by an American businessman who wants to bring baseball to Uganda. Besides teaching kids math and science and English, the school had another well-publicized goal: to send a team to Williamsport.

“Evan had been watching the Little League World Series on TV since he was 13. He loves it.

“The quality of the play is so high, and everything about it is so emotional and real. It’s raw. Like, it’s so raw. It’s just the best,” he says. …

“Evan hopped on an airplane and flew to Kampala. …

“When Evan saw the baseball team he’d be coaching, he was even more excited. It’s not that the players had a lot of experience. In fact, many of them had none at all.

” ‘Put it this way: Balls were being thrown very fast, and bats were being swung very hard, and players were running very fast,’ Evan says. ‘There was a lot of raw talent everywhere.’ …

“In 2011, the team won the qualifying tournament in Poland, but the players were denied visas to come to the United States. Many of the players don’t have birth certificates. ‘Paperwork is hard in Uganda,’ Evan told me. …

” ‘We had to do a whole lot of stuff and satisfy a whole lot of people and pay a whole lot of money [in 2015 to attend the qualifying games in Poland],’ Evan says. ‘And then we had to win the games, and that was the easy part.’ …

“Uganda was headed back to Williamsport, and they had one simple goal.

” ‘Shock the world,’ Evan says.”

That is what they did. Read more.

Interestingly, the Disney flic Queen of Katwe — about a young female chess prodigy from the Katwe, Uganda, slums — also demonstrates that committed adults and international competitions offer Ugandan children one of their best hopes for rising above challenging circumstances.

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Squash-Playing Girl in Pakistan

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 17, 2017| 4 Comments »

Maria Toorpakai is the top-ranked female squash player in Pakistan. Toorpakai is coached by retired Canadian squash star Jonathon Power, pictured here.

WBUR’s Only a Game is great at searching out fascinating sports stories that few media channels cover. Here is one about a female squash player bucking the odds in a conservative part of Pakistan, where girls just don’t do this kind of thing.

Karen Given reports, “There are places in this world where games aren’t just games and where sports heroes have the power to be more than just pixels on a television screen.

“One of those places is Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s tribal region. That’s where Maria Toorpakai grew up. Her sport was squash, and her hero was Jonathan Power — a Canadian who, in 1999, became the first North American squash player to become No. 1 in the world.

“From an early age, Toorpakai wasn’t like the other girls.

” ‘When I was two years old, I could see the happiness in boys’ faces and more glow. But most of the women are just no one, you know? …

” ‘I thought maybe it’s the differences because boys have different clothes than girls. So then I took all my girly dresses and I took it to the backyard and I burnt them, and I was four-and-a-half. I saw my father and he didn’t say anything but when I looked at him he just smiled and said, “Well, I guess I have a fifth son now.” ‘

“Toorpakai’s father allowed her to masquerade as a boy and play sports. But when she discovered squash at the age of 12, the family’s secret began to unravel.

” ‘There’s a proper squash academy and he took me there. And he asked what we should do for squash, and my son wants to play squash. The director of the squash academy, he said definitely we will give membership to this kid. You have to bring the birth certificate first. My father got a little nervous.’

“Maria Toorpakai tells her story In Her Own Words. To hear the full story, click [this page] the play button below the headline at the top of the page. Toorpakai’s book is called ‘A Different Kind of Daughter.’ ”

I really recommend becoming familiar with WBUR’s Only a Game, here. It’s syndicated nationally, and non-sports fans love it as much as sports fans.

Longtime host Bill Littlefield is an unusual sports maven. An English professor, he covers football but especially how it hurts athletes, and he has instituted an approach to interviews (like Toorpakai’s) in which a talented interviewer (like Karen Givens) asks probing questions that enable interviewees to tell their own story. The interviewer’s voice doesn’t appear. I love this idea. It sounds so natural.

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Names of Horses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2016| 2 Comments »

In honor of the Kentucky Derby last month, Karen Given reported a story on Only a Game about the naming of thoroughbred horses. At the end, the radio show’s host, Bill Littlefield, did a  funny imitation of calling a race. I won’t be able to do it justice. You’ll have to listen to the clip.

“Since 2004,” Given reports, “Rick Bailey has been the registrar for the Jockey Club, and he really enjoys the creativity he gets to witness in his job. Bailey and his staff review about 40,000 names every year and approve two-thirds to three-quarters of them. The numbers add up pretty quickly.

” ‘We do have 350,000 to 400,000 names that are considered active,’ Bailey says.

“With that many names off the table, maybe owners are just running out of normal horse names to choose from? …

“The list of available names is getting bigger, Bailey says, because the horse racing industry is getting smaller.

“There will never be another Secretariat or Seabiscuit. Those names have been permanently retired. But the names of less successful horses are eventually released. Bailey publishes those names on the Jockey Club’s website every year. This year, that list included more than 45,000 names. …

“The list includes Bambi le Bleu, Fabulous Rex, and Zippity Doodah Day. …

“Most ancient horses, says [Philip Sidnell, who has written the book on ancient warhorses], are named for pretty mundane reasons. Take the horses who ran in the ancient Roman chariot races.

” ‘They had names like “Swift” or another called “Snotty” and one called “Chatterbox.” ‘ “

Listen to Littlefield showcase some unusual horse names in the clip, here. “It’s Cookie Monster, Maple Syrup and Spineless Jellyfish  … Cookie Monster is hungry on the outside …”

 Photo: Only a Game

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Cholitas Luchadores

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

In Bolivia, an indigenous woman who would have been disenfranchised before the presidency of Evo Morales has become a popular wrestler. And  she loves what she does.

Asa Merritt connects with Angela La Folklorista in La Paz to report her story at WBUR’s Only a Game.

“She calls herself, ‘Una mujer de la pollera.’ Woman of the skirt. That’s another way of saying ‘I’m a cholita.’ Cholitas are indigenous women of Bolivia, usually ethnically Quechuan or Ayamaran. You can recognize cholitas by their ankle-length puffy skirts and their tiny bowler hats, which seem like they’ll fall off any minute. …

“Until recently, cholitas were second-class citizens, boxed out from higher education and often stuck cleaning homes,” generally relegated to the kitchen.

“Where Angela works is nothing like a kitchen.

” ‘In the ring,’ Angela says in Spanish, ‘I have a technical fighter style. I’m not rough. I’m on the nice side. There are bad cholitas, as you would call them, but my style is technical.’

“Angela is a cholita luchadora — a Bolivian pro-wrestler. She fights in a league similar to Lucha Libre in Mexico or the WWE in the United States. It’s the kind of wrestling with heroes and villains, entrance songs. Angela gives me two ringside tickets for the upcoming bout in El Alto – La Paz’s sister city. She’s the headliner. …

“Angela doesn’t fight other women. She fights the men. There’s some weird sexist stuff happening, but by the end of the match Angela is always the winner. …

“ ‘I’m very happy and content to have another night of fighting,’ she says in Spanish, ‘another night of art, adrenaline and strength, another night that I’m in the center of the ring, happy, doing what I like most.’ She’s covered in sweat.

“ ‘Mi madre es luchadora,’ Angela’s middle-school aged daughter Theresa says.

“ ‘It’s a pleasure for me that she’s a wrestler,’ Theresa says in Spanish, ‘I’m very proud of her, I’m her number one fan.’

“Theresa describes the cholitas luchadoras as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. But she doesn’t want her mom’s job. It’s too dangerous for her. And unlike the cholitas who came before her, Theresa can choose her own dream.”

More here.

Photo: Trevin Spencer/Only A Game
The cholitas luchadoras of El Alto. Angela La Folklorista is on the far right.

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National Bobblehead Day Jan. 7

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 5, 2016| 2 Comments »

Get ready. National Bobblehead Day is just around the corner.

Bobbleheads? Karen Given at WBUR’s Only a Game can tell you more about the history of sports bobbleheads than you ever imagined.

She says that is 2015, the San Diego Padres were the only Major League Baseball team that didn’t offer fans a game where they handed out bobblehead figures of players. “For years, the Red Sox didn’t give away bobbleheads either.

“ ‘There was a long time actually when we felt like “maybe they’re not into bobbleheads,” ‘ says Red Sox Senior Vice President of Marketing Adam Grossman. ‘But even in Boston we know that the people love them and if they love them then we’ll provide them.’ …

“The Red Sox spend months getting the facial features and tattoos and the stance on their bobbleheads just right. …

“Bobbleheads even have, get this, their own Hall of Fame.

“ ‘We sort of thought of it this way–,’ says Phil Sklar, co-founder and CEO of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ‘if mustard deserves its own museum, bobbleheads definitely deserve their own shrine.’

“The museum doesn’t actually exist yet. Sklar and his partners are busy accumulating thousands of bobbleheads — many from private collections.”

For “the story of a business deal that would change the course of bobblehead history, [Given turns] to Todd Goldenberg of Alexander Global Promotions.  …

” ‘Malcolm Alexander, he’s our founder and former president. He’s retired now, kite skating around the world—’

“So, Alexander was trying to start a business selling promotions, and he got a meeting with the San Francisco Giants, who, you’ll remember, were trying to find a company to manufacture a promotional item that hadn’t really been made for 40 years.

“ ‘He just basically said, “What can I help you with?” and they said, “We need a bobblehead doll,” ‘ says Goldenberg. …

” ‘And Malcolm, being very cocky and very Australian said, “Yeah, sure, I’ll do it. How many do you need?” ‘ says Goldenberg. ‘And then he proceeded to leave the office and find out what a bobblehead doll was. Because even though he had just sold about a quarter of a million dollars worth of bobblehead dolls, he didn’t know what he had sold.’ ”

The rest of the story can be found at WBUR radio, here.

Photo: Karen Given/Only a Game
A Luis Tiant bobblehead doll.

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Tribal Skateboarding

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 24, 2015| 1 Comment »

Ken Shulman reports at WBUR’s Only a Game that skateboarding often means a lot to kids on reservations.

The story starts with an Apache artist, Doug Miles.

“Miles paints mainly on found objects: fuel cans, car hoods, panels from a trailer home. But there’s one outlier among the surfaces, a curious artifact that migrated from California to America’s inner cities to the suburbs and, finally, to the reservation: the skateboard. …

“Miles said. ‘My son needed a skateboard. I didn’t have enough money. So I painted him one. And then he rode it all around the rez. And I knew what was going to happen. I knew. So when he got home I said, “What did everybody say?” And he said, “Dad, Dad, everybody wants one.” ‘

“Today Miles’ skateboards hang in private collections and museums. Some of them sell for hundreds of dollars. But the former social worker is most proud of APACHE Skateboards — a skateboard team, shop and artist collaborative he founded on the San Carlos Reservation, about 90 miles east of Phoenix.

“Miles said that making skateboards helps his kids connect with their Apache heritage.

“We’ve been making things for centuries as native people,” he explained. …

“The San Carlos team has a thriving skate park — with colorful murals painted by Miles and his crew. The team also travels to compete against other tribes and against big city skaters. Miles said the travel is mind opening.

“ ‘The kids in the South Bronx and the other reservations and East LA, they’re just like our kids,’ he said. ‘These are all communities that are struggling. So when they meet our kids they’re really meeting themselves. And so I think it empowers kids to know that we’re struggling here, too, but we’re also making art and skateboarding and having a lot of fun in the process.’ ”

More here.

Photo: Ken Shulman/Only A Game
For some Native Americans living on Indian reservations in the American Southwest, skateboarding is more than just a recreational activity.

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Newly Freed River in Maine

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Casey Kelly has a story at WBUR’s Only a Game on a sport enabled by the removal of dams on the Penobscot River in Maine.

“The recent removal of two dams (and upgrades to others) in Maine’s Penobscot River made available over 1,000 miles of habitat for Atlantic salmon and other fish — and also made the river available to whitewater enthusiasts.

“The dam removal was the culmination of years of restoration efforts by several groups. The Penobscot Nation, for whom the river has been vital for centuries, helped lead that effort.

“ ‘The creator put us here, in the Penobscot River Valley,’ said James Eric Francis, Sr., the director of cultural and historic preservation for the Penobscot Nation. ‘We are surrounded by the sacred river.’

“Last month, paddlers from all over the country gathered for a race celebrating the removal of the dams.” More here, including a video.

Here’s how freeing the river came about. It was a major collaboration by disparate groups committed to identifying and acting on the values they held in common.

Craig Dilger for The New York Times  
The dismantling of the Veazie Dam is also giving 11 species of fish better access to 1,000 miles of spawning habitat.

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In Finland, Baseball Is Different

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Bill Littlefield, at Only a Game on WBUR radio, got a lesson in the subtleties of Finnish baseball when he interviewed the Wall Street Journal’s Brian Costa recently. Costa went to Finland to report on pesäpallo, a game whose players are sometimes scouted by US baseball teams.

“Brian Costa: The biggest difference is the pitcher, instead of throwing the ball from a mound at the batter, stands beside him and throws it up in the air and sort of gets out of the way. But there are base paths, there’s four bases, there’s home plate, players field with gloves. …

“Bill Littlefield: Critics of baseball in the U.S. say the games are too long. It’s too slow. There’s not enough action. Would such critics be happier with pesäpallo?

“Brian: Oh, they would love pesäpallo. There are very, very few strikeouts, very few swings and misses, so pretty much every ball that gets pitched gets put into play. …

“Bill: What’s it like for fans attending a game of pesäpallo? And how many are there? Is this a big popular attraction?

“Brian: This is really not a city sport, so [in] Helsinki, you won’t see that much of it. But it is the sport of the Finnish countryside. You’ll have towns where the local population may be 3,000 people, and they’ll get 3,500 at a game. …

“Bill: You note that a scout from the New York Yankees was in Finland last month for All-Star weekend there. … [But] Finnish players, I gather, do not seem very interested in playing baseball as we know it?

“Brian: No they’re not. It’s very interesting. … None of them seemed to really follow Major League Baseball. The people who I asked about their impressions of it kind of smirked or winced or just said, ‘eh.’ I mean, they feel like they’ve got a better version of it.”

More here.

Video: PattijoenUrheilijat

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Russian History and Fencing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 6, 2015| 2 Comments »

Imagine my surprise, driving along, flipping channels, to hear the unique voice of John and Suzanne’s high school history teacher, long retired. And he was on Only a Game. I know the show’s host is eclectic, but I couldn’t see how Bill Littlefield was going to work into his sports show Eliot Lilien’s expertise in World War I or Russian history.

Well, what do you know! It turns out Only a Game was focusing on the high school’s 50 years of a sport that Mr. Lilien started there: fencing.

Littlefield writes that 50 years ago, to get the program started, Mr. Lilien “found a few opponents at other secondary schools in the Northeast, and some at colleges, and some at clubs. …

“ ‘When you first began the program 50 years ago,’ I asked, ‘did you ever imagine that it would still be going strong in 50 years?’

“ ‘I didn’t think about,’ he said. ‘But I’m very grateful that it has been, and that this high school has been willing to support it.’

“Some of Lilien’s first recruits showed up hoping to bring Dungeons & Dragons to life with swords. He had to teach them that the sport required not fantasy but discipline, balance, tactics, psychology, and brains — most of the time.

“ ‘Of course, if you’re faster than anyone else, and stronger, it becomes less important,’ Lilien said.

“ ‘The mental part of it?’ I asked.

“ ‘If you can launch a gigantic attack, it doesn’t make any difference how smart the other person is. He’s gonna get hit,’ Lilien answered.”

Listen to the interview at Only a Game.

I wonder if the 50-year mark at the high school as anything to do with the local resurgence of interest in fencing. The space across from my hairdresser, where the wonderful craft shop Dabblers used to be, has morphed into a fencing studio. Fun to watch when you’re getting your hair cut.

Photo: Jesse Costa/Only a Game

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Feeding the Emperor’s Panda

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Rainy days at the shore and holidays are for many families today the only time they play board games.

But for folks in Omaha, Nebraska, an unusual coffee shop provides frequent opportunities to play games — including some that, guaranteed, you never heard of.

Robyn Murray reported the story at the radio show Only a Game.

“Remember playing Monopoly and Scrabble around the dinner table? Arguing with your siblings about who gets to be the car or the Scottish Terrier? Or whether Z-A-Q could ever be a real word? Well those days are coming back — with just one variation: The arguments are getting weird. Did you feed your monster properly? Can you trust her to save the world with you? And what’s the best way to ensure your family doesn’t have to go begging — selling bread or planting beans?

“Welcome to the revamped world of board games.

“At Spielbound in Omaha, Neb. — a newly opened coffee shop and board game library with what’s believed to be the largest collection of board games in the country — the Short family recently played Takenoko, a Japanese board game.

“ ‘We are trying to please the emperor by taking care of his panda and growing a most excellent garden that feeds his panda,’ Justin Short explained.

“There’s a comfortable feeling about Spielbound. The tables are wooden and the booths leather. There are no television screens, just a cozy bar that serves beer and coffees with names like ‘Taste of Sweet Victory’ and ‘Dice Delight.’ Downstairs, four foot shelves are stocked with board games. Each box is a little work of art, with titles like ‘Arkham Horror’ and ‘The Road to Canterbury,’ with pictures of ships, dragons and submarines.

“The Shorts come here a lot on their monthly family pass. Short has a collection of 200 board games at home. But that’s nothing compared to the 1,200 available at Spielbound, at least according to the Shorts’ children:

“ ‘It’s just fun to play as a family whenever we get down here,’ Isabelle said.

“ ‘I like pretending to be something else and do something else,’ Sabrina said.

“ ‘I like beating people,’ Cameron said, laughing.”

More here.

Photo: Robyn Murray/Only A Game 
Spielbound, a coffee shop and board game library in Omaha, Neb., holds what’s believed to be the largest collection of board games in the U.S. with over 1,200 games available for patrons.

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Belt Sander Racing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Looking for an indoor sport this winter? Have you considered belt-sander racing? Bill Littlefield has been covering the unusual sport at WBUR’s  Only a Game since 2002, and as Karen Given reported recently, the sport could probably use some new blood — er, participants.

She begins by revisiting the 2002 broadcast.

” ‘Two by two, they come screaming down the 85-foot-long, waist-high wooden track, trailing rooster tails of sawdust and long, yellow extension cords that power them to the finish line.’

“That is how reporter Sean Cole began his treatise on the New England Belt Sander Racing Association,” continues Givens, “which first aired on Only A Game on April 13, 2002. But here’s the bit everyone remembers:

“NEBSRA co-founder Dave Kenyon: ‘It’s a real family event. It’s a family event with beer.’ …

“There is still beer, so there is still belt sander racing. Or is there? I went to Jamaica Plain in Boston to investigate. …

” ‘You are at the 2014 Fall Nationals Belt Sander Drag Race and Costume Ball,’ Glen Gurner tells me.

“Gurner is a woodworker and former champion of this sport. But for some reason he’s really enthusiastic about the idea that this might be the last time NEBSRA, an organization he helped found, holds a belt sander race. …

” ‘It takes a village.”

“ ‘And the village is tired?’ I ask.

“ ‘Yeah, the village is getting old.’ …

“For about 10 minutes, Kenyon fusses over the position of the crowd and a 60-pound, lithium-ion-powered sander outfitted with a motorcycle engine. It has a theoretical maximum speed of 85 miles per hour, and its name is Bruce….

“I stay long enough to watch Bruce surge to life and almost immediately slam into the spring-loaded preventer at the end of the track. It’s spectacular, but no one dies. So the crowd goes back to reminiscing about old times.

“There are other belt sander races around the country. Some even have corporate sponsors and professional crews. But NEBSRA likes to believe theirs is the first — and the best. Kenyon is proud of how far this event has come in the past quarter-century.

“ ‘It’s so much more now. It’s homecoming. This is real homecoming. People have come up to me and said, “Thank you, thank you for doing this.” That’s nice,’ Kenyon said. … ‘There’s not enough rituals in our life anymore — not enough tradition. This is what passes for tradition.’ ”

Tradition! I can almost hear Tevye singing, “Tradition!”

Photo: Jessica Coughlin/Only A Game
Two competitors get ready to race at the 2014 Fall Nationals Belt Sander Race and Costume Ball.

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