This was a really sweet moment, to get the topic back to the team:
Peripherally, there are few sports programs I find more detestable than Baylor from a moral standpoint, and probably no women’s coaches I dislike more than Kim Mulkey…so I’m fired up for the game.
It’s crazy how busy TC has gotten. We only go to The Homestead off season, otherwise we camp at D.H. Day. We really love Leelanau County and have been going up there for 48+ years!
Since I got us off track yesterday talking about Traverse City, here’s a great piece from the NY Times about our women’s basketball team and two terrific ladies Naz Hillmon and Kim Barnes-Arico!
Of course I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t provide some editorial comment so here are my thoughts. And honestly, I don’t offer this as a means to engender debate. Thought, perhaps, but not necessarily debate. Sometimes I write just to put my thoughts and feelings on paper. If you’re not interested, please just scroll on. If you ARE interested, though, these are thoughts I have developed over my lifetime, during MY process of becoming, and I guess at 74 I still play around with these thoughts. I do, though, think they relate to basketball, specifically Michigan’s women’s team and Coach Kim and Naz Hillmon as discussed in the NY Times article, but also to life which goes on during, and for a long time, after basketball.
One of the reasons I think a college education is so important is because it expands one’s thinking. It expands one’s experiences, one’s horizons. It challenges the norms with which one has grown up. It takes one out of their comfort zone and forces them to examine their beliefs. Just as exercising our body helps it to become bigger and stronger and more flexible, exercising our brain and our heart, anywhere really, but especially in a college environment helps those vital organs to expand and to become bigger and stronger and more flexible, as well. And I think this expansion of mind and heart is soulful.
I believe a college education is much more than learning accounting, or engineering, or nursing, or management, or pediatric surgery, which is REALLY important, or teaching, or whatever skill we are there to learn. It is the process of becoming that which we are in the process of becoming, and I believe it promotes lifelong growth and development in becoming the person who we are continually becoming. I believe in college for many reasons. We learn technical skills, but just as important, we grow as a person, and we have a chance, a good chance, to become one who can be a positive force for change in the world.
I think this piece by the NY Times and what our Michigan Women’s Basketball team is doing as it relates to race relations, and frankly human relations, is beautiful. This is basketball, at a high level, and college, college basketball! I commend both Naz Hillmon and Coach Barnes-Arico for their role in helping these girls, and everyone whose life these girls touch, to grow, to expand, to become and to think in more expansive and in more inclusive ways.
Speaking of teaching, Coach Barnes-Arico is the ultimate teacher. Yes, she understands X’s and O’s and she teaches them well, but she teaches so much more than that. I’ve said before that coaching is teaching, and it is the purest form of teaching. Coach Barnes-Arico is that kind of coach, that kind of teacher. As one who dedicated his adult life to teaching and coaching I admire and commend her.
Naz Hillmon will go on to do great things in life, of that I am confident. She will touch the lives of many others in very positive and meaningful ways. She will cause people to expand their thinking…and their hearts and their souls. Naz will look back on those who have influenced her as she influences others. She will look to role models like her mom and her grandma, civil rights leaders like John Lewis, perhaps our first black woman Vice President, and a mentor and coach named Coach Kim. As those folks have touched her life, she will go on to touch the lives of others, her teammates, little girls who idolize her, black girls and white girls, the moms and dads of those little girls, some of us on this forum, this little 74 year old old silver haired gentleman, for one. And she will influence the lives of so many others she will encounter in her life as she becomes that which she is in the process of becoming as a basketball player and, more importantly, as a human. I see her being a leader in whatever she chooses to do as she continues to move forward on the path of her life. She will play basketball for a while, but she will do SO much more after basketball.
I believe in a college education, not just to learn and develop specific skills designed to help one earn money so that one can pay the bills and have nice “things.” Yes, that is important, too. Of Course it is. But I believe in a college education because of the kind of person it encourages and nurtures one to become. And in that way, maybe, just maybe, we can help others to grow. We can promote a better world, one that is more understanding, and caring, and inclusive, and one where folks are more respectful of others, more willing to see the humanity in others. Maybe we can create a world where people truly work together for the common good. What a concept! Naz Hillmon and Kim Barnes-Arico are doing that very thing, and they will continue to do so. So, I think this was a beautiful article about two beautiful, remarkable, outstanding, and wonderful women, two women who are leaders, two women who are part of the University of Michigan Women’s Basketball program. We are Blessed.
Great perspective. When you think about it, a college basketball team is one of the best places to teach about racism and societal issues because you’re putting young people of different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds together for 4 years. On the campus at large, there is still some separation of black students and white students by choice. No one is forcing anyone to confront the social issues. On a team, a coach can ask players, as Kim has done, to make the effort to understand one another as people. When you have team leaders who invest in this and become active, others will follow. Naz is clearly one of those leaders.
Down 3 at the end of 1 quarter on ABC vs Baylor. No fouls on Hillmon is a good sign as well
This game’s playing into Michigan’s hands so far. Tough, grind it out defensive affair with no room for Baylor to heat up offensively
I haven’t seen Mulkey in action for awhile. She’s the female version of Izzo
We gotta start shooting some of these wide open 3s. I know we’re not a good shooting team, but we gotta do something on offense
Made one to end the half. Started to get away from us but down 6 is still good. No one with more than 2 fouls either but 4 with 2 isn’t ideal.
Alot of good 3 looks within the flow of the offense so far. Nearly all of them were either down & out, or back rim
Not able to watch right now but the box score looks like we can’t hit the ocean from a boat other than Naz. Need some of those to fall and it will get interesting.
Shooting 23% from 3pt and with 12 TO’s at half. Very fortunate to only be down by 6. Get some of these shots to fall, and limit the turnovers…
I warned you all that Bickle is a flopper. She should bring a snorkel the way she’s always looking to take a dive.
Seems like turnovers have been a big problem all year, at least in games that I have watched.
4 straight 3s made going back to the first half and we’re only down 2!
Two dog s* charge calls on Naz.
Ursin’s drawn charge was also a terrible call. She starts moving from well off the ball as Naz starts her move. She wasn’t set and Naz in no way pushed off or lowered any sort of boom. Awful.
That was a terrible charge in Smith so we got one back
Getting away from us. Ursin taking over. What was your problem with the charge we just drew? She looked well set to me.
I thought it was generous at first but then they showed the replay and she got anchored in a way I missed live?
Bickle should get a special flop rule just for her. Massive diver.