I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: sports

  • and soon I’m two and seventy


    I had a very sweet Happy Birthday message today on my Columbia High Class of 1964 message board from one of my boyfriends who I noticed had sent me birthday greetings for the past 3 years on this website which I never check. Thanks so much to Tim for remembering me. I immediately went to Facebook and added him as a friend so that I can send him birthday greetings on whatever day his might be. I confess I have been remiss in wishing others a Happy Birthday unless I am prompted to do so by the Big Brother of Facebook who is forever watching over me.

    I am struck by how soon my 72nd. birthday will be…April 21, one week from today. Sweet Lady Gaga, as The Red Man famously said, how did this happen. My first birthday card came from my personal Medicine Man Dr. Martin and his entire staff. These are the people who see me most frequently, and I appreciated the Life is Meant to Live and be Celebrated sentiments. I figure if they’re hopeful for my future, I should be, too.

    I’ve received not one, but two, birthday cards from former President Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center, both of which were quite lovely and one signed by the President himself. Why two, you might ask, as I did. And then, of course, my bank ATM machines have been unusually prompt on good wishes whenever I’ve made withdrawals in April which I assume has something to do with their corporate guilt for the outrageous service charges they favor me with every month.

    The message board for the 1964 Columbia High School graduating class in West Columbia, Texas took me back 54 years to that senior year when I was about to graduate from high school and leave my little town of Brazoria, Texas that was 15 miles from the Gulf Coast for summer school at the University of Texas in Austin 90 miles away. Big changes were on the way for me, but take a look at the images of my senior year when I was voted by my 90+ person class as the Best All Round favorite, or as my dad invariably teased me by saying, she was the best all the way around.

    Return with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear when my mother was always so happy for me to be dating a boy.

    Note particularly the hands and feet

    (Poor photographer – he must have spent hours on that pose)

    (our mascot was the Roughneck)

    I am the one on the far left with fist pumped

    Senior prom

    my mother rolled my hair until I left for college

    Senior Follies – and they were

    I sang an unremarkable rendition of the St. Louis Blues

    my lifelong love of tennis began here…

    …and basketball, too

    and of course, the political

    The photos today are courtesy of me with my cell phone and my yearbook so quality leaves much to be desired, but you get the general idea of this 18-year-old baby dyke trying her best to be straight but  unknowingly about to add complexity to her sexual awareness through life in a women’s dormitory at the state’s largest university where the population of the dorm was greater than the population of the town where she grew up. Talk about trouble.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • good luck to A’ja Wilson in WNBA draft!


    Coach Dawn Staley is ready to erect a statue honoring Gamecock women’s basketball All-Everything and All-That Wizard of the Hoops A’ja Wilson, and I say let’s put that marble statue smack dab in the front of the Colonial Life Arena asap. Coach Staley has offered to contribute the first $100,000, and Pretty and I would love to also contribute $100,000 toward any project that commemorates the fun we’ve shared with #22 over the past 4 years of her basketball career at the University of South Carolina.

    We’d love to contribute that much, but we can’t… so let’s just say we’ll add the next $100 which is given with a spirit much like the widow’s mite in biblical parables.

    Thursday night is the WNBA draft. Pretty, Susan, Chris, our Gay Boys Basketball Buddies and the rest of the Gamecock Nation will be watching to see which team will be lucky enough to pick A’ja Wilson.

    GOOD LUCK, A’JA! YOU GO, GIRL!

    You’re simply the best.

     

     

  • Maya Angelou and Coach Dawn Staley – the power of personhood


    American poet, author, civil rights activist Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014) and Coach Dawn Staley, head basketball coach of the University of South Carolina women’s basketball team – what’s not to love and admire about these women in March or any other month?

    https://thedrabble.wordpress.com.

    http://www.espn.com/espnw/feature/22732028/for-south-carolina-coach-dawn-staley-game-life-life-game

    Stay tuned.

  • I was this close


    The Pulitzer Prize people called and said I was probably going to win their Nonfiction Prize for Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home this year but I had to be available for an interview and photo shoot this past Saturday night. I had to say no because that was the night of the annual Carolina – Clemson football rivalry game which I never miss.

    (Gamecocks lost 34 – 10) Bummer.

    P.S. My Longhorns also lost their football game on Friday night to Texas Tech and, to complete the sports trifecta, my Gameock women’s basketball team lost to Notre Dame on Sunday night. Trifecta major depression…plus no Pulitzer.

  • Laver Cup transcends traditional tennis


    The finals of the US Open tennis tournament in New York City earlier this month were bittersweet matches for me. Sweet because my all-time favorite tennis player Rafael Nadal from Spain won his second major tournament in 2017 on the men’s tour when he added the US Open title to his 10th. French Open title at Roland Garros earlier this year, but bitter because the end of tennis on Arthur Ashe court at the Billie Jean King tennis center in Flushing Meadows meant the end of my television tennis season. Bummer.

    Not so fast, my friend.

    Enter the Laver Cup in Prague this weekend – three days of competition between six of the best European men players against six of the rest of the world’s best male players in a team format designed for speedy matches and awesome entertainment. Tennis Channel commentator Paul Annacone remarked that this team tennis concept transcended traditional tennis and could create a new model for future events.

    Gosh, I hope so. I watched all three days of the matches live which meant I got up for my jet lag time zone of 6:00 a.m. start times while Pretty snoozed. Pretty loves to watch tennis, too, but she’s happy to watch the DVR recordings at a more appropriate time, i.e. anytime after 9 o’clock in the morning.

    The World team members included John Isner, Sam Querry and Jack Sock from the USA, Denis Shapovalov from Canada, Nick Kyrios from Australia; they were coached by the always unpredictable, highly excitable tennis legend John McEnroe who brought along his younger brother Patrick as his assistant. Patrick’s major task presumably was to try to keep John out of trouble, but he had about as much success with that as General Kelly has with keeping DT out of trouble. Patrick probably had a lot more fun, though.

    The European team included the aforementioned Nadal, Alexander Zverev from Germany, Dominic Thiem from Austria, Marin Cilic from Croatia, Tomas Berdyche from the Czech Republic and one of the event’s organizers, Roger Federer, from Switzerland. Their team was coached by another living tennis great Bjorn Borg whose calm restrained presence coaching Team Europe was the perfect antidote for the fiery outbursts of World Captain McEnroe –  Borg doubtless remembered Mac’s tirades only too well from the days when they played singles against each other almost 40 years ago.

    Interestingly, the players on each team mirrored the character of their coaches – the World Team players on the bench were full of energy, pranks, visual antics and obviously having great fun when they watched their teammates competing. Team Europe was equally enthusiastic on the court, but their court-side behavior was much more suited for the Golf Channel. Golf claps galore.

    The Tennis Channel made the mistake of putting a hot mike on Coach McEnroe on Day 2 of the matches but had to reel it back in when Johnny Mac could be heard clearly advising one of his players  to “go out there and knock his dick off” at a particularly heated teachable moment in one of his coaching opportunities. Alrighty then. Mike drop.

    The highlight of the matches for Pretty and me, however, was a doubles match that featured our two favorite guys respectively, Federer and Nadal, playing together on the same side of the net for the European team, against Sam Querry and Jack Sox  representing the World team. For us plus every other Roger and Rafa fan everywhere, this was the tennis version of a Dream Team in action.

    Nadal shares a doubles strategy with Roger

    Not everything went as planned 

    that was funny, right?

    The point scoring for the matches changed daily so that regardless of overall matches won by each team, the drama continued into Sunday and the Laver Cup came down to a singles match between Nick Kyrios and who else? Roger Federer. Federer won in a third-set tiebreak that had as much entertainment value for me as a Wimbledon final – well, maybe not quite that much – but more than I would have thought possible when it started on Friday.

    Inaugural Laver Cup goes to Team Europe

    Original Rocket Man Rod Laver presented the first trophy to the European team. Laver is the only person to possess all 4 major titles in a calendar year (the calendar slam), and he accomplished this remarkable feat two times…once as an amateur and once as a professional tennis player. The organizers of the Laver Cup established this tournament to celebrate his achievements and his legacy and can take a bow for its initial success in Prague.

    Next year’s Laver Cup moves to Chicago in the USA. Hopefully tennis fans will be treated to another brilliant weekend of creative play with the World Team holding more of a home court advantage. Do not curb your enthusiasm!

    Roger popped the champagne cork as Rafa watched

    Too much fun. Stay tuned.