Pink! Bitches

Good old SI.com reported how the University of Arkansas football coach has decided to quit punishing goldbricking players by making them wear pink jerseys. He took this dramatic decision after realizing that a number of breast cancer related survivors wore the pink ribbons as a mark of solidarity, and received some harsh rebukes from the breast cancer community. What about the horrible psychological scars he was imposing on these young manly men, making them wear pink? Surely these were lawsuits waiting to happen.

The controversy took me back to the glory days of the "Monk's Boutique" basketball team in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the Southern part of heaven. Monk's, funded by pizza and alt rock impresarios, had pink and green jerseys for home and away games, respectively (I guess). I can tell you for damned sure that the referees never got comfortable referring to the jerseys as pink. They would say either "grey" or "white," as in "Foul on grey." It's hard to say pink.

Mary took this whole pink jersey controversy as another example of how all sports are stupid. Which is ridiculous. Not only do sports make it fun to get exercise, and therefore let you eat more delicious food, they are the primary way our educational system teaches kids to work together on teams. Yeah yeah, there's bands and theater and little research projects and other stuff, but there's not the same degree of pressure and momentary interdependence on the team which really teaches you get things dones. I'm sure there's research out there showing that, with some baseline of basic academic achievement assumed, there's a strong correlation between team sports participation and income later in life. The trick is learning when to stop watching Sport Center.