As you've no doubt seen/heard by now, Joe Paterno was his cute little detached self last night during Penn State's NIT game. Highlights included him saying that "Everyone says" basketball is a "black man's game." Who says that, exactly, Joe?He went on to explain that it used to be a Jewish man's game.
What?
As far as we can tell, this one isn't an April Fool's Day joke. Wouldn't it be funny if the thing that winds up stopping JoePa's coaching career is a truly inappropriate comment? I'm not saying this is it, but it's a little unhinged. And remember how much time college coaches have to spend in press conferences. Could get very interesting.
Oh, also, Penn State beat another Big East powerhouse -- Notre Dame. Man, that Big East is stout.
14 comments:
Dude, it wasn't inappropriate to people with common sense. Bill Raftery knew what Joe meant, that "it's a city game."
Is Joe still crazy? Sure.
But by denying that what he said is what a lot (not most, or even many) of people think, and say, out of the public eye.
The only thing that makes what he said weird, is that people are normally too scared to speak frankly. I'm not saying it wasn't weird. I'm saying that it shouldn't have been weird to begin with.
Mike, I think you're a little too biased to be making comments on this.
Saying "I know a lot of people say it's a black man's game..." is detached, plain and simple. Nobody says that. It shows ignorance and a lack of understanding that it's 2009.
As I stated in the post, I'm not saying this was inappropriate -- just funny. But to defend it in the old, "Everybody's thinking this but only he has the balls to say it" vein is just... well... delusional.
Paterno was flat-out wrong...it's a Hispanic and Slav's game.
Mike you, my friend, are off-base on this one. Most people DO NOT think this way. I don't hear "everyone saying" it's a black's game...only because it's not.
I also never heard anyone say it used to be a Jew's game, but I'm not a century old either.
Wait a minute, to figure out how his coaching career will end you have to assume he is currently the coach. He is not. His assistants do all the coaching. He's just a figurehead.
Mike is sensitive.
Two things...
"Wouldn't it be funny if the thing that winds up stopping JoePa's coaching career is a truly **inappropriate comment**?" - per your post.
But I would like to, I guess, clarify how exactly I was defending Joe.
Let's compare what Joe said to the whole "guns and religion" thing during the election. Was the content of what Obama said wrong? No. Was the way he said it wrong? Yes, but only because he didn't say it in a politically correct fashion.
Joe didn't say "This is a black man's game." He said "I know a lot of people who say..." Like it or not, there's a big difference in what those two mean.
The goal shouldn't be political correctness. The goal should be confronting the problems and trying to fix them. The people Joe "knows" are the problem, not Joe. That's all I'm trying to say. I didn't intend to sound as simplistic or narrow as I did. Sorry.
Obama's bitter clingers comment was very wrong in both content AND style. That is where you are wrong Mike.
Ok, now it's just getting ridiculous... this is exactly why this argument can't be resolved.
The part of this that is the most outrageous is calling ND a big east powerhouse. They went 8-10 in conference. Come'on just because their football team gets things they dont deserve doesnt mean the basketball team should too
Mike,
Is it ridiculous that people in the heartland would vote Republican because they value their economic freedoms, free market capitalism, individual responsibility, the sancitiy of life, and the concept of limited government? No, you're right, it must be because they don't know what's best for themselves and because they cling to guns and religion.
No more political talk about a completely-unrelated topic or we'll start erasing comments.
Matt, I know he brought it up...but let's cut it now.
Wow, the last (and only) time I heard that basketball was a Jewish man's game was early in the 1979 movie chestnut "Fast Break" with Gabe Kaplan (of Welcome Back Kotter fame). Heaven help us if JoePa is quoting 1970's movie dialogue. On a plus note, this movie is finally available on DVD!
Isn't the important thing to try and pick out exactly what JoePa was trying to say, before we destroy his comment for being "un-PC"? For one thing, when he said "people say it's a black mans' game" I doubt he meant people say basketball is owned/played completely by black people-- instead he probably meant to illustrate the prevalence of the black athlete in the NBA (see some of the best players in the NBA for examples: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson). It seems that of late, black players seem to have become (broadly generalizing here) some of the most successful players in the NBA. This equals, in JoePa jargon, a "black man's sport" and on this point, is he wrong? It's interesting to note that back when JoePa was growing up in Brooklyn in the 30s and 40s Basketball was apparently played by many Jews. Is the expression of this fact troubling, racist or denigrating? Or is it just a representation f the truth. Finally, in some sense, we are guilty of emphasizing the importance of racial lines and distinctions by making so much of Paterno's comments-- would it be wrong to say that Latino athletes are, on the whole, becoming increasingly successful baseball players? I doubt it. Could we say baseball is becoming, to some extent, a "Latino's game?"
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