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Home > Michelle's Blog > Previous Postings > 04/16/07
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Previous Postings |
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April 16, 2007:
What Kind of Sport is That?I went to high school in a small town in Iowa called Albert City - population of 640. It was a great place to grow up - walk to school (and not uphill, barefoot and against the wind both ways like it was for the generation prior...), do your chores before you could have fun, ride your bike until the whistle blew, to which you had about 5 minutes to then get home for supper. A dime for your allowance and then taking 4 hours to decide what to spend it on, playing outside ALL the time, watching three channels on T.V. and only on Saturday nights. I was clueless about politics and all other areas of interest to those OUTSIDE of Iowa - a world I only knew from vacations.
In my case, I had one thing unique to all others. I know you might think it was growing up with 7 brothers and 2 sisters, but no, that's not it. You might think, as the smallest person in the family, that it would be trying to find a meatball in the spaghetti noodles after all the others had their fill...but no, that was not it either. You might even think that it was doing the laundry for all those people with a machine that had a ringer and a spinner and the mountains of clothes, that then had to be hung on the line. Not that, although that was quite something...especially with 7 brothers.
It was the way we played basketball in Iowa. As a girl growing up in the Tall Corn State, I never knew any other way to play hoops than to play 6 on 6. Iowa was the last state to keep this game as the way it was played by all women in the generations prior.
In this game, you were only allowed to play on your half of the court - 3 on 3. I played offense, so I only played against the other teams 3 defenders. There were some other rules too. You only got to have 2 dribbles. The defense could not touch the ball outside the lane (the area around the basket), and the only time you played defense was when you missed a basket and the other team's defense tried to get the ball to their offense. You never really had to do much ball handling - just passing and trying to get open. Plus, you could take two full steps after you picked up the ball.
This last week, I was sent this video link of a group of women in Iowa who have taken this game and now are carrying it on into the future generations. Take a Look at "Grannies Got Game"!!!
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=7e4f1b4e-92f1-4ba9-b049-a4a95cc5e3e7&f=00&fg=email
I thought this was so awesome and also, gives us hope as to our future of sports and healthy activities. This was a great game and the reason Iowa kept it for so long was because it was what made the state famous. The girls state tournament was the hottest ticket going.
Once I went to college, it was another story - learning how to play the "other way". It was quite an adjustment. Because of the "2- full -step" rule, I think I traveled about 20 times a game in my first 10 games. I had to learn to play defense and ball handling from scratch. BUT, the bonus was that since the defense could not touch the ball outside the lane, I became quite the set shooter. In other words, I could really launch the three pointers, when that became a rule in the game.
So all was not lost on this small town Iowan girl when playing college basketball. I learned to adjust to the game, but as all things in life, I also cherished the quality of the life, and the game, that I had growing up. It gives me pride to think that I was a part of something that was unique to women, and that the world watched, and still watches, as these women today cherish it's uniqueness.Keep Smiling!
Michelle