Only What We Made Them

Two institutions of higher learning -- what we used to refer to as colleges -- were playing a game of basketball last weekend. It was a blowout and words were exchanged between players. A few of the players felt disrespected and near the end of the game, decided to regain their self-respect as grown men and retaliate. As punishment, one of the coaches required his players to take off their jerseys after entering the locker room.


I remember the retaliation mode as a kid and would usually use it after being asked to do something around the house -- take out the garbage or clean up my room. This would usually result in either teasing the dog or shooting the mailbox or other metal objects with the BB gun. Most of the metal objects around my house were dented and it’s no wonder I was never allowed to own anything more powerful than a Daisy.

My being disrespected in some way was just not an option and the dog knew it. So when dad found dents he would do what any grown man would do and require me to take off my shirt. Ultimate dissing, which is cool slang for actually being disrespected. Something a grown man (whatever that’s supposed to be) would never tolerate).

He would say, “Son, you have to earn the right to wear that shirt and shooting the mailbox with the BB gun will not get you there.”

He explained this technique to my wife before he passed away, and it works for her also. “Harmon, until you get that yard mowed and feed the birds you cannot wear that shirt in this house!” Dissed again.

Now I read where the coach of the University of Cincinnati basketball team has adopted the same strategy. It seems one of his players felt “disrespected” and decided he and some “tough guys” would “zip” up the other team.

Here’s what one of the players said, “We got disrespected a little bit before the game, guys calling us out. We’re a tougher team. We’re grown men over here. We’ve got a whole bunch of gangstas in the locker room, not thugs, but tough guys on the court. And we went out there and zipped them up at the end of the game.”

This is basketball is it not? Putting a ball through a hoop? Maybe doing a little dribbling and passing on the side? I’m still trying to figure out what “zip them up” means. Don’t we have a zipper factory here?

After watching the brawl on TV I take it to mean cheap shots at your opponent when you get dissed. In that way you gain back the respect you mistakenly thought you had in the first place. Or it could be a new IT term college players use when they’re boarding the bus. “Take it away Joe, everybody’s zipped up.” So the coach had them take off their jerseys because they did the zipper number.

Wow. Talk about getting dissed. And I must say, it’s interesting to see how language has evolved with many college athletes speaking, not French, but some mystical language known only to the scholar. Honestly, I’d like to see a little more imagination when it comes to disciplining the college athlete of today.

What about this innovative idea? Have them write on the board, “I will not say ‘them guys’ again” a thousand times. Oops, there’s that self-esteem thing again. This activity might affect confidence in the dribbling of the ball. Now that I think about it, I could have done a “zipper job” on a lot of people down through the years who failed to treat me like the grown man I was supposed to be but wasn’t.

Well, they got one thing correct. It does come down to respect. And I’ll bet you $1 most of these “grown men” will be back on the court in two weeks. Well, they’re only what we made them, are they not?