Are You Blind?: Wrong Sports Haircuts

Why do some many of America's rising sports stars have hairstyles that look like a cross between homeless and 1980s lesbian chic?

The radical Jerry Rubin says in his book, DO IT, "Young kids identify short hair with authority, discipline, unhappiness, boredom, rigidity, hatred of right, and long hair with letting go... Wherever we go, our hair tells people where we stand on Vietnam, Wallace, campus disruption, dope. We are living TV commercials for the revolution..."

Revolution requires a break from the old. Hence, revolutionaries are using modern art, modern music, and a change in dress styles and hair styles as a part of this break from the establishment. This opens the mind of the youth to a break with the old political ideologies and prepares him for a revolution. This is why the Christian should not fall prey to the enemy by adopting the outward changes that are used to bring about a new social order.  --Jack Hyles

Dr. Ralph Grimson is a clinical professor of psychiatry at U.C.L.A. School of Medicine; he told the American Medical Association, “I believe one of the reasons that young males and females wear their hair alike and dress alike stems from their fear of the opposite sex.  Long-haired boys and girls seek a twin, not a sweetheart or a lover.  They are only secure with someone who resembles themselves.”  This is not a fundamentalist preacher!  It’s a U.C.L.A. psychiatrist who says that the reason boys and girls dress alike is because they’re afraid not to dress alike.

What are those young men with long hair really saying? Marshall McLuhan asked theoretically, “In what may seem a ludicrous statement, they are sending a message to all who will listen: ‘We are no longer afraid to display what you may call feminine.  We are willing to reveal that we have feelings and weaknesses’” 

Getting a little too close? 

Did you know that false religion is usually built on the breakdown of the sexes?  The Greek Hermaphroditus was divided at the waist; the top half was female, the lower half was male, and both were worshiped. 

2 Corinthians 4:4 - In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Heathen religions often worship a god that is half male and half female, split vertically down the middle; one side has a woman’s breast and the other side has a man’s body.   --Jack Hyles

Doppelgänger, NCAA Tourney '12 Edition: Kanye West v. Darius Johnson-Odom

Random rifle shots on the 2012 NCAA men's tournament:

• Doppelgänger--Marquette's Darius Johnson-Odom and entertainer Kanye West. Darius is like a younger, harder-headed version. Kanye is softer, but his head is much larger. They have the same underbite-prominent smile.

• The field has been whittled to 30 as these words are written. The obligatory upsets have splashed down. Duke and Missouri were #2 seeds that went down to #15's. Lehigh played out of their mind, and for a school like that, beating a perennial power is amazing. But it's no longer surprising when the Blue Devils go out early in the tourney. They live and die by the three. When they are hot in March, Duke is always capable of making the title game, but trey consistency only happens once in a while.
• For some reason, no one else asks why Coach K's game plan has shifted to three-point bombs in the last six seasons or so. Duke has a solid big man legacy, and that's changed since the turn of the century.

• As usual the referees are catching some heat. When the best image-capturing technology on the planet is replaying fractions of a second, sometimes the human eye will seem second-rate. The zebras should get the benefit of the doubt, unless the error was ridiculous.

• Ohio State's Jared Sullinger is the most easily-frustrated college player in recent memory. The mini tantrums are a sign of bad judgment, and it's a sure thing that NBA teams have taken notice. At least one team won't care, because Sullinger is very good. He's not transcendent on any level, however. He lost weight before this season, but his legs and feet are simply heavy. That points to a very average professional player--one who will likely spend a lot of time clenching his fists on the bench.

More Deadly Than the Male

For most guys, there is no good time to watch women play hoops.

If you agree with that, you missed three well-played games last weekend. The NCAA women's Final Four in Indianapolis was very competitive, and the title game was better than the men's. Which isn't saying much.

Texas A&M squeezed Notre Dame out, 76-70, in the final. That was after those teams beat two #1 seeds each to reach Tuesday's game. And two of the bullies on the block were Connecticut and Tennessee.

The big problem with women college teams is that the divide between the haves (UConn, Stanford, Tennessee, about a half-dozen others) and the have-nots (everyone else) has been huge since the ladies' tourney began in 1982.

Some years ago, it was not easy to appreciate Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes or Sue Bird when their college competition didn't always look ready to play. And watching the University of Conneticut's sublime Maya Moore destroy unskilled defenders doesn't show me how good she really is.

That's why I picked up on the women's tourney at its end. The teams are stronger top to bottom. The title game's stars, Skylar Diggins and Danielle Adams, led two teams who can really play.

Let's anticipate a shift. Maybe a female basketball recruit who was only thinking about one of the powerhouses will think about a Notre Dame or an A&M. Maybe the 101-39 scores I always see in women's hoops will start to equalize. While those kind of scores exist, people will know that the game is not competitive yet--that there just isn't a big enough pool of talented players.

In college, I wrote for the school newspaper. One of my beats was the women's basketball team, a team that went undefeated in conference play before getting beat down by Tennessee in a #1-#16 match-up. A few of the male writers on staff would laugh into their hand at me. Like a lot of men, they thought basketball was all about high-flying. They didn't know what I knew.

I knew that a skilled, fundamentally-sound player, no matter the gender, is dangerous. And very fun to watch.

NCAA Basketball Tournament: 'Parity' Is Like Ash In My Mouth

Another March Madness, another busted bracket. I only do one bracket a year, and picked Kansas to whip Villanova in the title game. We're done with the opening two rounds of the 2010 NCAA Tournament, and this is no longer possible. That's a fact. Also a fact: After the first weekend, the most over-used word is parity. "We now have parity." Parity? Where? When did that begin? When Cornell makes the Sweet 16 four of six years--that's when we can say that the playing field is level. Let's see Northern Iowa actually win the title, and then reach the second weekend again in '11. Only then could we claim that there is a true sense of unpredictability. But those things are not going to happen. More than likely, these teams (and the entertaining St. Mary's College) will be replaced by a handful of other upstarts. Every March, we get so excited over the upsets that we get amnesia. Upsets happen every year. Brackets get destroyed quick and in a hurry.

The one recent exception was 2009, where all four #1 seeds made it to the national semifinals. There will never be true parity in major college ball. Although the usual murderer's row didn't appear in the tournament this year--represented by perennial powers like UNC, UCLA, and UConn--do you really doubt that they'll miss again next season? Schools like North Carolina are just on a different level. They have the recruiting network. The money. The boosters and alums. Big-time community support that, in most cases, has been there for over a generation.

You're going to see the same twenty or so universities making the tournament for another generation. There are exceptions to this old-school theory, like a Gonzaga, which has built a winning program in recent memory. But they still aren't part of the upper echelon--they're merely outstanding (so far). They're not Michigan State, or Duke.

Yes: that kind of powerhouse, where a great coach leaving or a losing season are just bumps in the road. Not the beginning of a retreat to obscurity. Remember when that team did good that one year?... This is why I'll always be most enthusiastic for the NBA over college. (Other than the obvious upgrade in play and talent.) At least the pro league doesn't pretend to be something it is not. Its flaws are there for everyone to see. Meanwhile, the NCAA proposes adding thirty-two teams to the Madness, yet pretends that the phrase 'student-athlete' is still written in the correct order.

Come on. Try and convince me.

"The Appalachian" Archives: College Football Needs Tourney, Cardinals Need Win