| U13G Div B Winter 1 2011 (October, 2011) |
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| U13G Div B Winter 1 2011 Standings |
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Monday, October 31, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
October 29, Indoor game against BASC
Force U12 Girls open indoor season tonite at Ultimate against BASC elite (New Baltimore/Chesterfield Township -- that is in northern Macomb County for life long Oakland County residents!). 7PM Field 3. Good luck girls! Will need a guest to do the game write up!!
Friday, October 28, 2011
Friday Nights in the Mini-Dome, Nov. 4,11,18 -6-730pm
Additional Training at the Silverdome facilities:
Friday Night in the Mini-Dome
Friday, November 4
Friday, November 11
Friday, November 18
Coaches will run training sessions for:
Boys and girls u15 and older from 4:30pm – 6pm.
Boys and girls u14 and younger 6pm – 7:30pm.
Monday Night in the Fieldhouse
7pm-8:30pm
Monday, November 7
Monday, November 14
Monday, November 21
Coaches will run training sessions from 7-8:30pm for all teams playing Friday night games.
Winter schedule - quick click here!!!
| U13G Div B Winter 1 2011 |
| U13G Div B Winter 1 2011 Standings | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Hope Solo, DWTS, soccer officiating, part four -- "Girly"
It is no coincidence that Hope's coach got into it with a judge over favoritism towards Chaz Bono. And it is no surprise or coincidence that DWTS staged this battle in full last night when both competitors were in the bottom two. See link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVBF9SJT4io
On the surface, Hope and Chaz may look world's apart. The stunning and physically gifted soccer goalie versus the less than attractive trans-gendered son of celebrities (Sonny and Cher themselves oddities in their day). Pretty popular girl versus oppressed victim, a girl who became a boy. The narrative seems a bit extreme, but standard enough.
But Hope and Chaz have more in common than one would think.
This wasn't simply a case of Hope being a better dancer and losing out to a sympathy vote. Both are paired off against each other because of what they represent in the current cultural moment. Neither fit an identifiable gender role in our standard conversations.
Chaz? Well, his lack of fit is pretty obvious. How to account for a transgendered individual? DWTS producers decided to pair him (rather conspicuously) with Lacey. Lacey is easily the most traditional female looking of the dancers. She is not the super (human?) sleek Karina. She has curves and looks, well, in the language of 11 year old girls these days -- "girly". Similarly, there is a place for Rikki Lake and Grace the lawyer. Most viewers identify quickly with the overweight middle aged professional women. The hope, in short, in pairing Lacey with Chaz was to offset Chaz's rather distinctive lack of traditional masculinity with this distinctive pairing. Chaz just doesn't fit easily. Even the flamboyantly gay Carson has an established role (albeit comedic).
Hope Solo? She doesn't quite fit the bill either. And nobody is quite sure what to make of her. There is no Broadway musical to describe a girl who is quite attractive to men -- but distinctly not "girly" (the latter a favorite expression of my daughter's ).
This is still a new sort of "feminine." Hope is stunning; indeed, she is physically imposing. But certainly not a classical feminine type. Carrie Anne the judge, again, annoyingly "girly" herself, couldn't stop telling Hope to be "sexy" (that Hope isn't, of course, is a matter of opinion). What she meant, I think, was "you don't move or act like Carrie Anne -- or Lacey." Yet, confusingly, for Carrie Anne and probably Lacey, Hope is still very attractive to men and probably to lots of women.
The judges didn't quite know what to do with this. Neither do the clever DWTS producers. They know what to do with Emmitt Smith or Jerry Rice. Kristi Yamaguchi? Easy breezy. What could be more feminine than an elegant figure skater? They know gay, for sure. They even know trans-gendered better than most.
But they don't know Hope.
Is it any surprise that Len called attention to Hope's "boots" (like in soccer cleats) as the partial cause of her unprofessional "heal leads"? Where, he seemed to be saying, are your high heels like the other girls? Where are your real boots -- like the moms in the Birmingham elementary school parking lot wear? (Watch the ice ladies@)
Hope is stunningly attractive -- but distinctly not "girly". Carrie Anne just didn't get it. What fired up Max so much? The culture doesn't quite yet have a sense of what to do with Hope Solos. And the show was struggling to figure out how to respond and how to judge. And so they struggled to judge, not perfectly, but fairly.
As girls who want to be girls -- not boys -- but not girly -- Hope is an interesting person to watch. Hope she stays at least one more week now that Chaz is out of the picture.
On the surface, Hope and Chaz may look world's apart. The stunning and physically gifted soccer goalie versus the less than attractive trans-gendered son of celebrities (Sonny and Cher themselves oddities in their day). Pretty popular girl versus oppressed victim, a girl who became a boy. The narrative seems a bit extreme, but standard enough.
But Hope and Chaz have more in common than one would think.
This wasn't simply a case of Hope being a better dancer and losing out to a sympathy vote. Both are paired off against each other because of what they represent in the current cultural moment. Neither fit an identifiable gender role in our standard conversations.
Chaz? Well, his lack of fit is pretty obvious. How to account for a transgendered individual? DWTS producers decided to pair him (rather conspicuously) with Lacey. Lacey is easily the most traditional female looking of the dancers. She is not the super (human?) sleek Karina. She has curves and looks, well, in the language of 11 year old girls these days -- "girly". Similarly, there is a place for Rikki Lake and Grace the lawyer. Most viewers identify quickly with the overweight middle aged professional women. The hope, in short, in pairing Lacey with Chaz was to offset Chaz's rather distinctive lack of traditional masculinity with this distinctive pairing. Chaz just doesn't fit easily. Even the flamboyantly gay Carson has an established role (albeit comedic).
Hope Solo? She doesn't quite fit the bill either. And nobody is quite sure what to make of her. There is no Broadway musical to describe a girl who is quite attractive to men -- but distinctly not "girly" (the latter a favorite expression of my daughter's ).
This is still a new sort of "feminine." Hope is stunning; indeed, she is physically imposing. But certainly not a classical feminine type. Carrie Anne the judge, again, annoyingly "girly" herself, couldn't stop telling Hope to be "sexy" (that Hope isn't, of course, is a matter of opinion). What she meant, I think, was "you don't move or act like Carrie Anne -- or Lacey." Yet, confusingly, for Carrie Anne and probably Lacey, Hope is still very attractive to men and probably to lots of women.
The judges didn't quite know what to do with this. Neither do the clever DWTS producers. They know what to do with Emmitt Smith or Jerry Rice. Kristi Yamaguchi? Easy breezy. What could be more feminine than an elegant figure skater? They know gay, for sure. They even know trans-gendered better than most.
But they don't know Hope.
Is it any surprise that Len called attention to Hope's "boots" (like in soccer cleats) as the partial cause of her unprofessional "heal leads"? Where, he seemed to be saying, are your high heels like the other girls? Where are your real boots -- like the moms in the Birmingham elementary school parking lot wear? (Watch the ice ladies@)
Hope is stunningly attractive -- but distinctly not "girly". Carrie Anne just didn't get it. What fired up Max so much? The culture doesn't quite yet have a sense of what to do with Hope Solos. And the show was struggling to figure out how to respond and how to judge. And so they struggled to judge, not perfectly, but fairly.
As girls who want to be girls -- not boys -- but not girly -- Hope is an interesting person to watch. Hope she stays at least one more week now that Chaz is out of the picture.
Hope Solo, DWTS, and soccer officiating, part three
Arguing or fighting, from the point of view of the ancient rhetoricians or sophists, is all we do. Here is Gorgias, perhaps the greatest of the Sophists.
The philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, who suggest we find truth have it all wrong according to the sophists. There is no truth. There is no big Daddy. There is only argument. There is only competition -- often with a mask of "objective" truth.
All this academic stuff is actually what made Max's response so exciting (in a visceral way) for so many viewers.
Female viewers tend to like Max -- a lot. Monday's exchange only heightened his appeal. My wife, who has never particularly noticed Max before (like many female viewers she spends as much time looking at the female dancers as the men), responded quite positively to his defense of Hope.
I think the words were, "She [Hope] has got to feel something with a guy like that." And, in fact, even the striking and powerfully impressive Hope Solo seemed a bit more girly after this (something the judges intriguingly and disturbingly had been calling for! not sexy enough Carrie Anne keeps saying). "Max is my teammate," she crooned on last night's results show. Hope seemed downright submissive, something -- accustomed as she is to being the most dominant animal in the room -- she probably has never been in her life.
The judging, in other words, broke down to the most basic form of competition, a mano e mano dispute between two alpha males: Len and Max.
This is "my" show said Max at the end of the clip. For some this was arrogant. But what it revealed was the basic nature of singular combat laying hidden behind all the goofiness and silliness of reality TV. And it was from this "primitive" exchange that everyone quickly retreated: hosts, contestants, producers, etc. Len's co-hosts, "Carrie Anne" and the little guy, most of all. The recoil from authentic emotion -- mainly Max's -- was palpable. So was the feminine attraction -- at least for some.
Structures of refereeing, officiating, judging -- in sports and in other areas -- are set up to minimize or mask this root at all competition. Any competition can threaten to degenerate into its most basic form -- man on man battle -- at any point. And that is why respecting officials to a certain degree is important.
So: It is not that the referee or judge is perfect. Far from it. But having a referee or judge manage or limit violence is better than pure unfettered violence. Is it possible to explain all this to 11 year olds? Sure. They get it.
The philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, who suggest we find truth have it all wrong according to the sophists. There is no truth. There is no big Daddy. There is only argument. There is only competition -- often with a mask of "objective" truth.
All this academic stuff is actually what made Max's response so exciting (in a visceral way) for so many viewers.
Female viewers tend to like Max -- a lot. Monday's exchange only heightened his appeal. My wife, who has never particularly noticed Max before (like many female viewers she spends as much time looking at the female dancers as the men), responded quite positively to his defense of Hope.
I think the words were, "She [Hope] has got to feel something with a guy like that." And, in fact, even the striking and powerfully impressive Hope Solo seemed a bit more girly after this (something the judges intriguingly and disturbingly had been calling for! not sexy enough Carrie Anne keeps saying). "Max is my teammate," she crooned on last night's results show. Hope seemed downright submissive, something -- accustomed as she is to being the most dominant animal in the room -- she probably has never been in her life.
The judging, in other words, broke down to the most basic form of competition, a mano e mano dispute between two alpha males: Len and Max.
This is "my" show said Max at the end of the clip. For some this was arrogant. But what it revealed was the basic nature of singular combat laying hidden behind all the goofiness and silliness of reality TV. And it was from this "primitive" exchange that everyone quickly retreated: hosts, contestants, producers, etc. Len's co-hosts, "Carrie Anne" and the little guy, most of all. The recoil from authentic emotion -- mainly Max's -- was palpable. So was the feminine attraction -- at least for some.
Structures of refereeing, officiating, judging -- in sports and in other areas -- are set up to minimize or mask this root at all competition. Any competition can threaten to degenerate into its most basic form -- man on man battle -- at any point. And that is why respecting officials to a certain degree is important.
So: It is not that the referee or judge is perfect. Far from it. But having a referee or judge manage or limit violence is better than pure unfettered violence. Is it possible to explain all this to 11 year olds? Sure. They get it.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Hope Solo, DWTS, and officiating, part two
Is officiating or judging always to be respected?? Is Hope getting treated unfairly -- as Max argued -- in relation to Chaz? When, like Max, do you call an official (or officials) on acting out of bounds?
By official I don't mean just a soccer referee. I mean any person charged with being objective and fair and rendering decisions.
Let's start with the obvious. No one is perfectly objective or fair. Life, as Uncle Scar says at the outset in The Lion King, is not fair. And neither are people.
My wife, as a pre-school director, comes as close as anyone I have ever seen.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bomv-6CJSfM Or she works harder at it than anyone have ever seen because she is charged with such a critical responsibility: the introduction of families and children to schooling. If kids and families don't feel they are being treated fairly in their first moments of schooling then, well, all can be lost. You can never given up on seeking the ideal.
But nobody is perfectly objective and fair.
Still, we tend, particularly with kids and sports, to suggest there is a perfect and fair judge out there somewhere, a big Daddy, in quasi-psychoanalytic terms, that will set things right. Our culture constantly reinforces this for kids. Things turn out well enough for the little lion prince in the end, for example, nasty Uncle or no. Daddy, Mustapha, even turns up after his death, to help out little Simba. Julie Taymor, the director of The Lion King, is a terrific Shakespearean director, too. She is shrewd Freudian critic of a play like Hamlet where the hero looks to Dad for guidance.
The Titans win no matter the racist officials; so does the Hickory team in Hoosiers -- the hometown referee ultimately a mere blip on the road to American sports' purity.Whose your Daddy? says Denzel, Mustapha, and Gene Hackman.
Does this mean that we teach our kids to be perpetually suspicious or cynical about judging and refereeing? Of course not. This would cripple them, too, every bit as much as suggesting there is a Mustapha out there to solve Simba's problems in the end. In the words of former UK prime minister Tony Blair (another kind of Brit altogether), there has to be a "third way."
We are ready to teach them that talking or yelling at a ref may hurt their own cause. That's a step, I think, in the right direction.
There is a distinction in classics between the Greek philosophers and the Greek sophists or rhetoricians. The word rhetoric has fallen on hard times. We use it to mean empty sayings, but it actually refers to the art of persuasion.
Kids need to think more "rhetorically" -- that is, they need to think not so much about what is true or not true (philosophy) but what is persuasive and what is not persuasive (rhetoric). We are teaching them to be persuasive with referees. Can't we, then, to borrow Cookie's interrogatory cadence, push up a bit further? Girls are way better at this boys in the way that women are way better at it then men. Affect, the simple, visceral, but powerful feeling you get from someone, matters every bit as much as what is true or not.
Let's go back to Max and Len.
From one perspective, Max is the bad guy here who loses his temper and yells at the ref, this after trying to whip up the crowd to turn against the ref!! And in the last moments of the clip he ends up defending the stunning and physically gifted Hope Solo while drumming down poor Chaz who has overcome so, so much -- including being placed in the wrong body -- in life (talk about not fair! particularly in comparison with Hope whose physicality wows a world in all sorts of ways). Along the way Max also insults Len for being old. When Len says, "I have been doing this for 50 years" Max quickly responds "Maybe it is time for you to go" (Max is much sharper and quicker than he looks -- wish I could say the same for Karina). Carrie Anne, the girly girl judge, gets very upset: "you are being disrespectful."
From another perspective, Len was especially sharp in his remarks. He was rather obviously trying not just to assign a point total but to tell an audience that Hope really blew it. That is, Len was trying to persuade an audience rather than just judge. When Max starting whipping up the crowd, then, it was because Len "lost it" or forgot himself, not Max. Len was stepping outside his role as a technical judge. Max is perfectly entitled to get fan support in this competition. It is all, as they used to say in The Wire, in the game. When Len appealed to his own authority --" I have been doing this for fifty years" -- he was confronting the seemingly frustrating (for him) fact that he is not the sole judge in this competition. There is the voting audience (and, of course, the insufferable Carrie Anne and the weird little dude who fakes an Italian accent).
In brief, Len is not the sole authority -- although I suspect he does know a lot more about dance and dance competitions than anyone on the show. There is no big Daddy and Len is not it. And this clearly bugs Len. Old white men really, really hate to have their authority challenged. It may be particularly true that an old white man who started dancing relatively late (age 19) to recover from -- guess what? -- a soccer injury-- might have a particularly hard time with a girl soccer player and her coach talking back!!
Max was challenging his authority by whipping up the crowd and also reminding Len he is not considered sufficient to be the judge. Democratic procedures -- that is where lots of people vote and have a say -- is really, really hard. It challenges all our notions of expertise. If Len knows that much about dancing shouldn't he have the final say? Not in this country and not in this interactive century. Nobody would watch. Game over.
The game itself -- DWTS -- was threatened in a flash.
In calling out Len by so visibly whipping up the crowd Max reminded all of the limits of this game, its imperfection, its imperfect judging. All involved showed authentic, rather than TV, emotion for a second. This includes Hope, who was indignant at Len's judgement as she was at World Cup referee's who called her for moving prematurely on a penalty kick.
If the game is not fair it is not a game. It is an argument. It is a fight. And it is good for kids to know this.
By official I don't mean just a soccer referee. I mean any person charged with being objective and fair and rendering decisions.
My wife, as a pre-school director, comes as close as anyone I have ever seen.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bomv-6CJSfM Or she works harder at it than anyone have ever seen because she is charged with such a critical responsibility: the introduction of families and children to schooling. If kids and families don't feel they are being treated fairly in their first moments of schooling then, well, all can be lost. You can never given up on seeking the ideal.
But nobody is perfectly objective and fair.
Still, we tend, particularly with kids and sports, to suggest there is a perfect and fair judge out there somewhere, a big Daddy, in quasi-psychoanalytic terms, that will set things right. Our culture constantly reinforces this for kids. Things turn out well enough for the little lion prince in the end, for example, nasty Uncle or no. Daddy, Mustapha, even turns up after his death, to help out little Simba. Julie Taymor, the director of The Lion King, is a terrific Shakespearean director, too. She is shrewd Freudian critic of a play like Hamlet where the hero looks to Dad for guidance.
The Titans win no matter the racist officials; so does the Hickory team in Hoosiers -- the hometown referee ultimately a mere blip on the road to American sports' purity.Whose your Daddy? says Denzel, Mustapha, and Gene Hackman.
Does this mean that we teach our kids to be perpetually suspicious or cynical about judging and refereeing? Of course not. This would cripple them, too, every bit as much as suggesting there is a Mustapha out there to solve Simba's problems in the end. In the words of former UK prime minister Tony Blair (another kind of Brit altogether), there has to be a "third way."
We are ready to teach them that talking or yelling at a ref may hurt their own cause. That's a step, I think, in the right direction.
There is a distinction in classics between the Greek philosophers and the Greek sophists or rhetoricians. The word rhetoric has fallen on hard times. We use it to mean empty sayings, but it actually refers to the art of persuasion.
Kids need to think more "rhetorically" -- that is, they need to think not so much about what is true or not true (philosophy) but what is persuasive and what is not persuasive (rhetoric). We are teaching them to be persuasive with referees. Can't we, then, to borrow Cookie's interrogatory cadence, push up a bit further? Girls are way better at this boys in the way that women are way better at it then men. Affect, the simple, visceral, but powerful feeling you get from someone, matters every bit as much as what is true or not.
Let's go back to Max and Len.
From one perspective, Max is the bad guy here who loses his temper and yells at the ref, this after trying to whip up the crowd to turn against the ref!! And in the last moments of the clip he ends up defending the stunning and physically gifted Hope Solo while drumming down poor Chaz who has overcome so, so much -- including being placed in the wrong body -- in life (talk about not fair! particularly in comparison with Hope whose physicality wows a world in all sorts of ways). Along the way Max also insults Len for being old. When Len says, "I have been doing this for 50 years" Max quickly responds "Maybe it is time for you to go" (Max is much sharper and quicker than he looks -- wish I could say the same for Karina). Carrie Anne, the girly girl judge, gets very upset: "you are being disrespectful."
From another perspective, Len was especially sharp in his remarks. He was rather obviously trying not just to assign a point total but to tell an audience that Hope really blew it. That is, Len was trying to persuade an audience rather than just judge. When Max starting whipping up the crowd, then, it was because Len "lost it" or forgot himself, not Max. Len was stepping outside his role as a technical judge. Max is perfectly entitled to get fan support in this competition. It is all, as they used to say in The Wire, in the game. When Len appealed to his own authority --" I have been doing this for fifty years" -- he was confronting the seemingly frustrating (for him) fact that he is not the sole judge in this competition. There is the voting audience (and, of course, the insufferable Carrie Anne and the weird little dude who fakes an Italian accent).
In brief, Len is not the sole authority -- although I suspect he does know a lot more about dance and dance competitions than anyone on the show. There is no big Daddy and Len is not it. And this clearly bugs Len. Old white men really, really hate to have their authority challenged. It may be particularly true that an old white man who started dancing relatively late (age 19) to recover from -- guess what? -- a soccer injury-- might have a particularly hard time with a girl soccer player and her coach talking back!!
Max was challenging his authority by whipping up the crowd and also reminding Len he is not considered sufficient to be the judge. Democratic procedures -- that is where lots of people vote and have a say -- is really, really hard. It challenges all our notions of expertise. If Len knows that much about dancing shouldn't he have the final say? Not in this country and not in this interactive century. Nobody would watch. Game over.
The game itself -- DWTS -- was threatened in a flash.
In calling out Len by so visibly whipping up the crowd Max reminded all of the limits of this game, its imperfection, its imperfect judging. All involved showed authentic, rather than TV, emotion for a second. This includes Hope, who was indignant at Len's judgement as she was at World Cup referee's who called her for moving prematurely on a penalty kick.
If the game is not fair it is not a game. It is an argument. It is a fight. And it is good for kids to know this.
Link to Pam's pix! OCt. 22 playoff against Meteors
http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=c4fe9a29da83dd6f&sid=1AZMmTdu3bsnfAgreat shots by Pam on a picture perfect fall day! in the spring I will try to get the pix inserted in to game write ups so text (as much as possible) matches picture
Hope Solo on DWTS, soccer officiating, and life lessons for kids, part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeuI5qTKOaw
For all sorts of reasons it has been really, really hard not to blog about US Women's Soccer goalkeeper Hope Solo's performance on ABC's *Dancing With the Stars*.
But after last night's exchange (see link above) between Hope's partner, Max, and judge, Len Goodman, I just couldn't resist.
For a show that is often considered superficial and silly at worst and just good fun at best the exchange between competitor/coach Max and judge/referee Len actually registers and makes visible a number of various serious and complicated concerns relative to youth sports, officiating, and the life lessons that can be taken from youth sport.
Here is what I am interested in: the standard lesson we teach our kids is that the referee is to be respected; they are human, and make mistakes but respect them; and, moreover, if you challenge a referee you only hurt yourself. This is a not a bad lesson at all.
Is this enough though? Is this what we want them to know about the modern, global world and the problems of "officiating" or "refereeing" or "judging". Kids that play sports often learn idealized lessons about winning and losing, fairness, and so on, idealized lessons that don't always correspond to the real world. Can sports do a disservice to kids by not trying to articulate what all adults know?
Even our most idealized sports films, Remember the Titans and Hoosiers, have at their center some rather disturbing renderings of officiating. It is easily forgotten, for example, that at the end of the Titans a coach has to confront a a corrupt and racist official at some sacrifice to himself. In Hoosiers, a film often discussed as the "way sports ought to be," there is nasty fight when when a coach confronts a "hometown" referee.
This is not just to say that officiating is bad or should be under constant suspicion -- but that it is more complicated for kids and parents to understand than we sometimes acknowledge.
Briefly, then, to DWTS!!! The judges have been routinely tough on Hope. She is athletic certainly, but not particularly graceful as a dancer. This is no surprise. She has no training, no performance background. But in this "competition" she has the advantage of other former athletes on DWTS (Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice, Kristi Yamaguchi -- I find it troubling that the judges often refer to Hope's lack of artistry as a lack of "sexiness" -- something they didn't do with Emmitt Smith or Yamaguchi -- but I will get to that): Hope knows how to use her body much better than other humans. She is extraordinarily well conditioned, knows how to train, and knows how to take care of daily, nagging physical pain and fatigue. She also knows how to be coached.
Correspondingly, the judges have had seemingly higher expectations for her in terms of technique. Because she already has (more than) the physical ability to dance she must meet a professional dancer's standard. She has stayed on the show mainly because the competition also involves audience support. Viewers get to send in their opinions and this counts, too. In the clip, you can see the initial exchange between Max and Len begins when Max starts -- like an American football player -- trying to whip up crowd support to counter Len's harsh judgement of hope ("your worst performance of the season"). Len's specific critique was that her boots forced her to step down first with her heels -- a no, no for real dancers. Perhaps the boots were an issue for Len? The female pros always seem to do remarkable things in high heels (although I have watched elementary school moms cross an iced school parking lot in what seem to be 14 inch heels -- rather reckless in my opinion but...). I will get to that issue, too.
Conversely, some competitors, say Chaz Bono, who have little physical co-ordination and are below average in terms of physical conditioning and ability seem to get judged -- not on technique -- but on their mere willingness to try.
Chaz Bono's situation in particular raises all sorts of issues in terms of fairness of competition. Bono began life as a female, but he has undergone a number of medical procedures to "change" his sex from female to male. Here is a link to Chaz when he was Chastity on his famous mother and father's (Sonny and Cher) show. I remember watching this as a kid.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyJvFPN5LGo&feature=related DWTS is (admirably, to my mind) including Chaz Bono in part to make a political point about everyone's ability to compete, straight, gay, trans-gendered, whatever. Good for them.
But encapsulated in that same gesture towards inclusivity (the generally benign and well intentioned willingness or effort to include everyone), is a paradox, a paradox all adults know from tensions surrounding affirmative action. For kids, who might not know, affirmative action is the widespread legislation that encourages institutions to promote under-represented groups (before Oakland County voters say "Yeah! affirmative action is a problem they should note how closely those laws are connected to Title IX laws that to guarantee fairness for women in sports or women's rights legislation in general).
Here is the unavoidable paradox: If we make an artificial effort to include everyone based not on merit or ability we may like the political results but we might comprise the fairness of competition. The potential damage isn't just to our sense of fairness. Ironically, our efforts to be inclusive -- judge Chaz by a lower standard than Hope -- actually magnify or amplify the differences between individuals we initially sought to minimize.
Is it still a good thing to include Chaz if everyone ends up saying, "Chaz is only there because she is trans-gendered?" -- That is, if everyone ends up saying "see how different he is" when the initial idea was to say everyone can compete -- equally.
As Max the dancer puts it, toward the end of the clip, "Look, I am just tired of some being judged on heel touches [good dancers aren't supposed to let their heels hit the floor first] and some judged on effort." That is, Hope is being judged by a difficult and sophisticated standard and Chaz is being judged for showing up.
I think Max is accurate in his assessment. But what to do?
In his frustration, Max said something he shouldn't have. That is, he articulated a difficult problem openly. In America, we prefer to handle difficult problems by obfuscation.This is particularly true when it comes to judging or evaluating merit.
American Idol was such a huge hit so many years ago -- not because of Kelly Clarkston's vocal prowess or a nostalgia for the choreography of Paula Abdul -- but because Simon Cowell was willing to say to someone directly -- "You aren't good enough; in fact, you are really, really bad." This was something Americans had forgotten how to do and they delighted in Cowell's "English" directness.
Indeed, Cowell helped fashion a new kind of "Englishness" in American popular culture. From the 1950s through the 1980s the standard American image of an Englishman was a pre-war aristocrat: stuffy, overeducated, slightly effeminate, tweedy -- an "I sayer" as they say that John Cleese delighted in mocking. In short, American culture imagined a sort of English guy that really doesn't exist in huge numbers anymore and hasn't for sometime. Cowell helped create a new role. The sharp, straight talker. Len Goodman occupies this role on DWTS.
Rather ironically, Len's "straight talking" actually masked the real issue at hand: Is Hope getting treated unfairly -- as Max argued -- in relation to Chaz? When do you call an official (or officials) on acting out of bounds?
For all sorts of reasons it has been really, really hard not to blog about US Women's Soccer goalkeeper Hope Solo's performance on ABC's *Dancing With the Stars*.
But after last night's exchange (see link above) between Hope's partner, Max, and judge, Len Goodman, I just couldn't resist.
For a show that is often considered superficial and silly at worst and just good fun at best the exchange between competitor/coach Max and judge/referee Len actually registers and makes visible a number of various serious and complicated concerns relative to youth sports, officiating, and the life lessons that can be taken from youth sport.
Here is what I am interested in: the standard lesson we teach our kids is that the referee is to be respected; they are human, and make mistakes but respect them; and, moreover, if you challenge a referee you only hurt yourself. This is a not a bad lesson at all.
Is this enough though? Is this what we want them to know about the modern, global world and the problems of "officiating" or "refereeing" or "judging". Kids that play sports often learn idealized lessons about winning and losing, fairness, and so on, idealized lessons that don't always correspond to the real world. Can sports do a disservice to kids by not trying to articulate what all adults know?
Even our most idealized sports films, Remember the Titans and Hoosiers, have at their center some rather disturbing renderings of officiating. It is easily forgotten, for example, that at the end of the Titans a coach has to confront a a corrupt and racist official at some sacrifice to himself. In Hoosiers, a film often discussed as the "way sports ought to be," there is nasty fight when when a coach confronts a "hometown" referee.
This is not just to say that officiating is bad or should be under constant suspicion -- but that it is more complicated for kids and parents to understand than we sometimes acknowledge.
Briefly, then, to DWTS!!! The judges have been routinely tough on Hope. She is athletic certainly, but not particularly graceful as a dancer. This is no surprise. She has no training, no performance background. But in this "competition" she has the advantage of other former athletes on DWTS (Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice, Kristi Yamaguchi -- I find it troubling that the judges often refer to Hope's lack of artistry as a lack of "sexiness" -- something they didn't do with Emmitt Smith or Yamaguchi -- but I will get to that): Hope knows how to use her body much better than other humans. She is extraordinarily well conditioned, knows how to train, and knows how to take care of daily, nagging physical pain and fatigue. She also knows how to be coached.
Correspondingly, the judges have had seemingly higher expectations for her in terms of technique. Because she already has (more than) the physical ability to dance she must meet a professional dancer's standard. She has stayed on the show mainly because the competition also involves audience support. Viewers get to send in their opinions and this counts, too. In the clip, you can see the initial exchange between Max and Len begins when Max starts -- like an American football player -- trying to whip up crowd support to counter Len's harsh judgement of hope ("your worst performance of the season"). Len's specific critique was that her boots forced her to step down first with her heels -- a no, no for real dancers. Perhaps the boots were an issue for Len? The female pros always seem to do remarkable things in high heels (although I have watched elementary school moms cross an iced school parking lot in what seem to be 14 inch heels -- rather reckless in my opinion but...). I will get to that issue, too.
Conversely, some competitors, say Chaz Bono, who have little physical co-ordination and are below average in terms of physical conditioning and ability seem to get judged -- not on technique -- but on their mere willingness to try.
Chaz Bono's situation in particular raises all sorts of issues in terms of fairness of competition. Bono began life as a female, but he has undergone a number of medical procedures to "change" his sex from female to male. Here is a link to Chaz when he was Chastity on his famous mother and father's (Sonny and Cher) show. I remember watching this as a kid.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyJvFPN5LGo&feature=related DWTS is (admirably, to my mind) including Chaz Bono in part to make a political point about everyone's ability to compete, straight, gay, trans-gendered, whatever. Good for them.
But encapsulated in that same gesture towards inclusivity (the generally benign and well intentioned willingness or effort to include everyone), is a paradox, a paradox all adults know from tensions surrounding affirmative action. For kids, who might not know, affirmative action is the widespread legislation that encourages institutions to promote under-represented groups (before Oakland County voters say "Yeah! affirmative action is a problem they should note how closely those laws are connected to Title IX laws that to guarantee fairness for women in sports or women's rights legislation in general).
Here is the unavoidable paradox: If we make an artificial effort to include everyone based not on merit or ability we may like the political results but we might comprise the fairness of competition. The potential damage isn't just to our sense of fairness. Ironically, our efforts to be inclusive -- judge Chaz by a lower standard than Hope -- actually magnify or amplify the differences between individuals we initially sought to minimize.
Is it still a good thing to include Chaz if everyone ends up saying, "Chaz is only there because she is trans-gendered?" -- That is, if everyone ends up saying "see how different he is" when the initial idea was to say everyone can compete -- equally.
As Max the dancer puts it, toward the end of the clip, "Look, I am just tired of some being judged on heel touches [good dancers aren't supposed to let their heels hit the floor first] and some judged on effort." That is, Hope is being judged by a difficult and sophisticated standard and Chaz is being judged for showing up.
I think Max is accurate in his assessment. But what to do?
In his frustration, Max said something he shouldn't have. That is, he articulated a difficult problem openly. In America, we prefer to handle difficult problems by obfuscation.This is particularly true when it comes to judging or evaluating merit.
American Idol was such a huge hit so many years ago -- not because of Kelly Clarkston's vocal prowess or a nostalgia for the choreography of Paula Abdul -- but because Simon Cowell was willing to say to someone directly -- "You aren't good enough; in fact, you are really, really bad." This was something Americans had forgotten how to do and they delighted in Cowell's "English" directness.
Indeed, Cowell helped fashion a new kind of "Englishness" in American popular culture. From the 1950s through the 1980s the standard American image of an Englishman was a pre-war aristocrat: stuffy, overeducated, slightly effeminate, tweedy -- an "I sayer" as they say that John Cleese delighted in mocking. In short, American culture imagined a sort of English guy that really doesn't exist in huge numbers anymore and hasn't for sometime. Cowell helped create a new role. The sharp, straight talker. Len Goodman occupies this role on DWTS.
Rather ironically, Len's "straight talking" actually masked the real issue at hand: Is Hope getting treated unfairly -- as Max argued -- in relation to Chaz? When do you call an official (or officials) on acting out of bounds?
Monday, October 24, 2011
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