Concerning Candace Buckner’s June 5 sports activities column, “Clark discourse grows ugly”:
Invoice Walton’s entry into the Nationwide Basketball Affiliation with the Portland Path Blazers raised among the identical robust points which have come up throughout Caitlin Clark’s season. Many mentioned Walton obtained an excessive amount of consideration, generated race-based reporting, was making an excessive amount of cash and was too fragile. Then, alongside got here energy ahead Maurice Lucas.
As David Halberstam wrote in his ebook “The Breaks of the Sport,” Lucas “introduced Portland a way of bodily safety that Walton, considerably intimidated by extra bodily NBA gamers in his first two years, badly wanted.” Lucas informed Walton he can be his buddy and that our bodies can be flying. Lucas’s safety allowed Walton’s sport to flourish. Together with Lionel Hollins and others, Lucas and Walton carved out a memorable championship season. Ms. Clark’s teammates have been fast to assist her up when she will get clocked; perhaps they might be a bit faster to guard her, too.
Steve Selby, Falls Church
The issue isn’t the notion that, because the secondary headline with Ms. Buckner’s column on-line said, “Caitlin Clark is right here to save lots of the WNBA, so long as she doesn’t get touched.” The issue is that with higher publicity, which Ms. Clark has dropped at the league, comes higher scrutiny.
In her feedback to the media, Ms. Clark has by no means mentioned nor implied what Ms. Buckner infers. She has acted in knowledgeable method, which is greater than could be mentioned in regards to the Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation and a few of its gamers. Utilizing intentional arduous fouls to place rookies of their place is irresponsible. If the league doesn’t just like the scrutiny, it ought to have addressed this difficulty way back.
Sadly, it doesn’t appear the WNBA cared sufficient to take it significantly earlier than Ms. Clark’s arrival. Now that the league is garnering detrimental consideration for letting its veteran gamers act with impunity, some need to blame Ms. Clark. If the league needs to develop the sport, its leaders want to scrub up the shortage of professionalism on the court docket. If this lack of professionalism have been to kill the present wave of enthusiasm for the game, the WNBA would have nobody in charge however itself.
In a current sport, Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson obtained repeatedly roughed up and nonetheless scored greater than 30 factors. Possibly we have to concentrate on her and her distinctive skills — or on one of many eight or so WNBA gamers who’re averaging extra factors, assists and rebounds than Caitlin Clark is. All this consideration may have a detrimental affect on Ms. Clark’s improvement and positively will trigger resentment from different gamers who’re scoring extra, getting extra assists and extra rebounds, and enjoying on groups which have profitable data.
Edward Drossman, New York
I’ve watched Caitlin Clark since her freshman 12 months. Her dashes upcourt evoked Pete Maravich. She splashed Stephen Curry-like threes, performed with the identical fireplace as Cheryl Miller and seasoned her play with Magic Johnson’s exuberance.
Nonetheless, she’s knowledgeable, and she or he’s going through defenses decided to press her, harass her and frustrate her. They usually’re succeeding. She leads the league in turnovers, and her area objective share and three-point share have plummeted from her school days.
Chennedy Carter blindsided Ms. Clark throughout an inbounds play, knocking her down. That was private and didn’t pertain to basketball, and Ms. Carter ought to have been suspended. However let’s keep in mind, that was one low cost shot by one participant. The Indiana Fever franchise did the sensible factor and submitted movies of play they thought-about questionable for the league to evaluate.
Throughout a current sport between the Chicago Sky and Connecticut Solar, the Solar’s Alyssa Thomas threw the Sky’s Angel Reese to the bottom by her neck. That was a extra egregious play than a shoulder verify. The place was the outrage from folks like Draymond Inexperienced, Charles Barkley and Geno Auriemma, who expressed a lot concern for Ms. Clark?
Bodily aggressive play could be part of basketball. Within the late Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, the Detroit Pistons bludgeoned Michael Jordan incessantly. The NBA’s reply was to merchandise the Unhealthy Boys.
Marc D. Greenwood, Opelika, Ala.
One time period that appeared early in Candace Buckner’s screed in opposition to WNBA rookie Caitlin Clark’s “ardent protectors” set the tone for the remainder of the piece. Ms. Buckner known as Chicago Sky guard Chennedy Carter’s flagrant foul in opposition to Ms. Clark “shoulder-checking.” A “transfer” that NBA participant Draymond Inexperienced “would in all probability scoff at as light-weight.”
A video clip of the incident, performed again and again from each angle, exhibits Ms. Carter knocking Ms. Clark to the ground earlier than the ball was in play whereas Ms. Clark was wanting away. That’s removed from a shoulder verify, which is often understood as a tactic to realize place in a live-ball scenario. The author additionally inexplicably ignored the mini celebration from the Sky bench after the foul.
Many of the column targeted on the racial and “Clark because the sufferer” commentary of these Ms. Buckner calls “Clarkies.” She provided comparisons to NFL and NHL teammates who shield their susceptible stars. To increase that analogy: If an NFL lineman dedicated a flagrant foul, his teammates would in all probability attempt to calm him down and separate him from the opposite participant, and the coach may yell at him. There wouldn’t be a bunch hug on the sideline.
Again to the “shoulder-check.” When one athlete (no matter race) deliberately shoves one other participant whereas she is wanting the opposite means with sufficient power to knock her to the ground, the chance of great harm is way increased than if each are battling for place. This kind of conduct needs to be denounced and punished for what it’s: a harmful, unsportsmanlike act. Sportswriters mustn’t deal with such conduct as a traditional a part of a rookie’s initiation, nor ought to they condone any teammates or coaches who have a good time it.
Concerning Jerry Brewer’s June 9 Sports activities column, “The fiercest battle in sports activities”:
I used to be an athletic little one and located nice alternatives in extracurricular sports activities within the Nineteen Seventies. My city offered probabilities for girls and boys to play sports activities collectively, each on a coed swim workforce and by making house on the baseball workforce for a lady who felt extra at house there than in softball.
I ponder whether it’s time for faculties to supply an “inclusive league,” one which welcomes everybody — even whether it is simply intramural till different faculties undertake this system. It appears it could be such nice enjoyable and good for folks of all genders to work together with each other. It would take the sting off competitors, too, which may destroy athletics for some youngsters. I wager participation in single-gender sports activities would decline.
Blake Ketchum, Claysburg, Pa.
Whereas properly written, Jerry Brewer’s column offers quick shrift to the women and girls who’ve sacrificed a lot of their youths to be one of the best athletes of their sports activities, solely to be overwhelmed out by a former male athlete.
If that appears truthful, why aren’t any trans males profitable NCAA championships in particular person sports activities? It’s easy: Organic males have a bodily benefit. When a former glorious male athlete transitions, they clearly have a bonus over organic girls.
Equity is the bedrock of sports activities. If competitors is just not truthful, there would appear to be little level to higher-end athletics. On the very low-end leisure leagues, it’s possible not practically as a lot of a difficulty. Nonetheless, for ladies who’re marginal athletes making an attempt their hardest, no matter their God-given pure means, to be benched for a trans athlete appears unfair.
Altering genders is clearly a really troublesome and emotional resolution. However it’s a private resolution, and there are penalties to any private resolution. These penalties mustn’t negatively affect organic girls.
There’s a purpose steroid use is banned in athletics: It offers opponents a bonus. Aggressive benefit by chemistry is just not the way in which to go in sports activities.
In his column on transgender rights, Mr. Brewer makes the next assertion: “Probably the most aggressive folks personal the messaging, and culture-war politicians have leeched onto the strain. It is perhaps the simplest wedge difficulty of their arsenal.”
He’s proper: Each the far proper and the far left are dominating the problem.
I’m a lifelong Democrat and as socially liberal as an individual could be, however transgender rights don’t prolong to the enjoying area or to sports activities generally. In actual fact, most of my pals really feel the identical as I do. The unfairness of letting folks born male compete with these born feminine needs to be apparent to even essentially the most progressive folks.
Concerning Jerry Brewer’s June 6 Sports activities column, “The battle over Jackie Robinson”:
Mr. Brewer’s column on Jackie Robinson actually introduced again great recollections. As a younger Jewish lad rising up within the Forties in Toledo, I grew to become an instantaneous fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers for 2 causes: 1. the primary base coach from 1947-1957, Jake Pitler, was Jewish and I may establish with that, and a couple of. Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in 1947, which additionally impressed me as a school-age child.
My dad and mom have been very liberal and delicate to discrimination in opposition to Black and Jewish folks. I lived and died with these Bums and hated the Yankees as a result of they beat the Dodgers in each matchup besides 1955. I keep in mind my namesake, Hank Greenberg (no relation), enduring antisemitism from gamers and followers, and the way he proudly stood up for Robinson. So, Robinson captured the souls of not solely tens of millions of trampled African People, but additionally a number of younger Jewish boys like me who felt the pinch of antisemitism. Sure, I believe we had rather a lot in frequent.
Larrie Greenberg, Washington
