Good Article About Coach Ralph

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MikeADore
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Good Article About Coach Ralph

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Seadog73
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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Read it earlier tonight. Really cool story about her AND her mom. True pioneers.
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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Yes, very good article. Interesting to realize that I was in/around Chapel Hill around the same time as her mom. I remember the type of basketball "specifically tailored" to women. In high school in Florida, it was six-on-six with nobody crossing the center line. Around the time I graduated, they switched to the "roving guard" where one player from each team could roam the whole court. (In my mom's day, the court was divided into 3 sections; she was a "side center" and played in the middle section.) In the early 70s I played in a rec league in Chapel Hill that was 5-on-5 fullcourt, pretty much like what we have today - history progressing right before my eyes although of course I was completely unaware of it at the time.
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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VandyWhit wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:17 pm I remember the type of basketball "specifically tailored" to women. In high school in Florida, it was six-on-six with nobody crossing the center line.
I've read about women's basketball played in this fashion, but never seen a live game. I went to high school in Memphis in the mid-60's, and Vandy in the late 60's. No women's basketball at either school. So sexist to be sure. Was the old-style 6 on 6, with 3 offensive players and 3 defensive players sexist or just different? I have no opinion either way. I guess if it was sexist it was maybe because it was felt that women weren't athletic enough to run up and down the court? I'd like to have seen a few of those old women's games to get a feel for what it was like. When playing recreationally, just pick-up games in the gym, I've usually played 3 on 3, half-court.
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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I recall that the 6-on-6, no one crosses half-court is the way Pat Summit played HS ball. I also think that she either initiated or was a key figure in a lawsuit to change that to allow HS players to play the same game the boys were playing. I don't think that rule was changed until after she finished HS though.
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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geeznotagain wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 10:57 pm
VandyWhit wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:17 pm I remember the type of basketball "specifically tailored" to women. In high school in Florida, it was six-on-six with nobody crossing the center line.
I've read about women's basketball played in this fashion, but never seen a live game. I went to high school in Memphis in the mid-60's, and Vandy in the late 60's. No women's basketball at either school. So sexist to be sure. Was the old-style 6 on 6, with 3 offensive players and 3 defensive players sexist or just different? I have no opinion either way. I guess if it was sexist it was maybe because it was felt that women weren't athletic enough to run up and down the court? I'd like to have seen a few of those old women's games to get a feel for what it was like. When playing recreationally, just pick-up games in the gym, I've usually played 3 on 3, half-court.
Yes, 6-on-6 aka "half court basketball" used 3 offensive players from one team and 3 defensive players from the other at each end of the court. Back in those days, there weren't any interscholastic teams for girls in Florida, just PE classes and intramural teams. That changed after I graduated and moved on when Title IX took effect. But there were girls basketball teams in rural west Tennessee when I lived there in the early 1950s. At our small high school, fielding a boys team was sometimes somewhat problematic because so many boys dropped out of school so the girls team was a relatively big deal.

And, yes, the reason for the different rules for girls was sexist. An influential group of PE teachers in the teachers college in Tallahassee thought it was important for girls not to over-exert themselves, get too excited, or possibly even too sweaty because they believed it was harmful to girls' health. Times have certainly changed on that thinking during my lifetime!
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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Seadog73 wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 5:45 am I recall that the 6-on-6, no one crosses half-court is the way Pat Summit played HS ball. I also think that she either initiated or was a key figure in a lawsuit to change that to allow HS players to play the same game the boys were playing. I don't think that rule was changed until after she finished HS though.
I don't remember exactly when the rule changed in Tennessee, but I'm pretty sure you're right in Pat Summitt's critical role in getting TSHAA to switch from 6-on-6 to full court. IIRC, one of the issues was that international basketball was played fullcourt, while in the USA girls/women's basketball was most commonly played on the half court. The article mentions the USA women's team getting shellacked in Russia, but doesn't talk about the style of bball that was played. IIRC, Sue Gunter once said that one of the difficulties of USA women's teams playing internationally was that they had to master a different style of basketball.
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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VandyWhit wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:04 am
And, yes, the reason for the different rules for girls was sexist. An influential group of PE teachers in the teachers college in Tallahassee thought it was important for girls not to over-exert themselves, get too excited, or possibly even too sweaty because they believed it was harmful to girls' health. Times have certainly changed on that thinking during my lifetime!
That sounds plausible. Yep, times have changed. While channel surfing a couple of nights ago, my wife and I happened across some TV coverage of the US olympic trials in curling. I've always thought curling was a cool niche sport, but it got me wondering why men compete agains men and women compete against women. In the vast majority of sports, the reason for the separation is obvious: differences in strength, athleticism, body size, etc. But it seems to me that none of that comes into play in curling. So maybe it's just traditon, sexism,whatever. This has no relevance to Vandy sports, but the post about women's BB and sexism brought this to mind. We watched the curling for 90 minutes or so, and it's a very intriguing sport.
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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Taking this entirely off topic;
A couple of decades ago, I had an employee who used spare time + vacation, etc. to be a curling referee. Piqued my interest but haven't watched much over the past few years. I manage to catch a match occasionally. Learned to really enjoy it.
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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geeznotagain wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 9:25 am
VandyWhit wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:04 am
And, yes, the reason for the different rules for girls was sexist. An influential group of PE teachers in the teachers college in Tallahassee thought it was important for girls not to over-exert themselves, get too excited, or possibly even too sweaty because they believed it was harmful to girls' health. Times have certainly changed on that thinking during my lifetime!
That sounds plausible. Yep, times have changed. While channel surfing a couple of nights ago, my wife and I happened across some TV coverage of the US olympic trials in curling. I've always thought curling was a cool niche sport, but it got me wondering why men compete agains men and women compete against women. In the vast majority of sports, the reason for the separation is obvious: differences in strength, athleticism, body size, etc. But it seems to me that none of that comes into play in curling. So maybe it's just traditon, sexism,whatever. This has no relevance to Vandy sports, but the post about women's BB and sexism brought this to mind. We watched the curling for 90 minutes or so, and it's a very intriguing sport.
You made me google stuff! I had thought curling *was* a mixed gendered sport ... apparently I was wrong! So I wondered why and it led me to some googling.

I came up with this article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/o ... story.html

It seemed to indicate that the extra strength men have on the the throw matters and that when they've played, top women's players just don't really compete with top men's players.

I lost the link, but there was another article that also suggested that a stronger player that is able to put more pressure on the ice with the broom is able to heat up the ice more and be more effective sweeper.

Who knew?
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Re: Good Article About Coach Ralph

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When the discussion turns to curling, that's a pretty good sign that we're basketball-starved! That won't last long, though, with 3 tough games coming up in the next 3 days.
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