second half - things invisible to see
There were two particular intangibles, not noticed in the first half, that made these individual and team contests so memorable. And as with everything else in my knucklehead life, they run counter to what I perceive others are getting out of them. Or at least counter to what I hear on the news or read in the paper.
What seems to be reported on most in terms of college basketball is the office betting pool. Maybe this year that will go away as all the #1 seeds advanced to the Final Four, but probably not because I think this was a dodge story anyway. It’s not the presence of the illicit water cooler pool that’s important — that’s just the March Madness version of a fantasy fan league compressed into three weeks time.
Instead it seems the real story is the occasional David knocking off a Goliath. And “Foul!” cries the hardcore hardcourt zealot who picked G’town all the way, “What real fan could have seen that upset coming.” he laments as he tears up his picks, “except unbelievably lucky Betty down in accounting who picked her teams based on whether her cat blinked when she read the brackets aloud.”
And flipping to sport #2 - what’s most reported in ballet? Nuttin’. Ballet never gets reported on, at least not in the mainstream media. Pas de deux and plies never garner many inches in the daily fish wrap or snag any minutes on the air. And if I have to renounce my membership in the manly-man club after seeing these versatile and talented and tenacious performers, so be it, because that’s just as wrong as the lip service given to the women’s basketball. It seems most games during the season are played in relatively empty gyms, with most of the fans in attendance being relatives or dorm roommates. The women’s college tournament is their three weeks in the sun and they couldn’t be more deserving.
So what are the instrinsic qualities that make both the basketball games and the ballet so compelling? It wasn’t, frankly, the final scores for the former, nor the tony setting for the latter. Thankfully, there wasn’t any sense of celebrity being attached to either; heaven knows we’ve all suffered enough of that blather.
Instead, what was so remarkable in these performances, at least to this observer, was the precision of the movements, the clean lines and clear sweeps of legs and arms and bodies being flung through space in an exact arc from point A to point B, uninterrupted by any opposing physics.
Not being of the shiny shoe social set, I could sit there in the dark and just be astounded by the moves. Reminiscent of ice skating and gymnastics, the performers even seemed to be the same body type. Think tiny ectomorph — little lithe thin people with incredibly strong toes. But I have no doubt they’d whup butt in virtually any pick-up contest where there was a premium on dexterity and stamina.
Without a horse in the race, I was the perfect spectator - watching in wonder. Here’s where my twin moments of illumination came in… But, there’s the buzzer, folks - we’re out of time in regulation.
Stay tuned–there’s lots more action to come in this one.
Tags: ballet, college basketball, sport, training