Gumbel's Olympic Remark

Yep - Dirk Nowitski is one bad mamajama. I used to love Detlef Schremp, and Steve Nash showed what he could do winning the MVP last year. But even with the Euro-influx over the past 10 years, the exceptions still pretty clearly prove the rule in the NBA.

0 Replies

Schrempf played here for the University of Washington, which had a European pipeline for a while during the '80s and early '90s. He was the best of the lot!

0 Replies

the european--or canadian in the case of Nash, even chinese in the case of Yao--players don't contradict my theory. since there aren't too many black players in their home country, they weren't intimidated from taking up basketball.

0 Replies

Gumbel's a putz. Many Americans care, most Canadians care, hudreds of millions of Russians care, hundreds of millions of Europeans care (Swedes, Norge, Danes, Finns are deep into these sports, whether there were an olympics or not, and the Germans, Austrians and French have long been into the Alpine sports).

I use basketball and football broadcasts to put me to sleep--so, i guess, in Gumbel's book i'm a racist for not recognizing the superiority of black athletes. So? Who cares what Gumbel thinks? I don't look to right- or left-wing Lushbaugh types to provide me with political opinions, and i don't look to people like Gumbel to tell me what i ought to think about sports.

0 Replies

Setanta wrote:

Gumbel's a putz. Many Americans care, most Canadians care, hudreds of millions of Russians care, hundreds of millions of Europeans care (Swedes, Norge, Danes, Finns are deep into these sports, whether there were an olympics or not, and the Germans, Austrians and French have long been into the Alpine sports).

I use basketball and football broadcasts to put me to sleep--so, i guess, in Gumbel's book i'm a racist for not recognizing the superiority of black athletes. So? Who cares what Gumbel thinks? I don't look to right- or left-wing Lushbaugh types to provide me with political opinions, and i don't look to people like Gumbel to tell me what i ought to think about sports.

Who said they did? I always thought the winter olympics was for the birds.

0 Replies

Just for the record - I don't think Gumbel was saying that blacks are the superior anything. I think that part of his statement (and it was just one sentence, but it was the juicy part, I guess) meant that unless there is opportunity for everyone (blacks don't have much access to winter sports, in general) to participate, the best athletes aren't necessarily being represented. I mean, no one can deny that any sport that blacks have participated in en masse, they have done well.

Well, someone could deny it, but they'd have to be from the moon, or something.

0 Replies

Re: Gumbel's Olympic Remark

snood wrote:

...

"... Try not to point out that something's not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what's called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won ......"

...

Am I the only person here who sees this as being, perhaps, also dismissive of female athletes? Gymnastics and figure skating fit this mold, both of which are 2 of the only sports, still, where you see a lot of women. I guess Dominique Dawes's achievements mean squat, as do Surya Bonaly's.

I've got a definition of sport for Mr. Gumble.

It's a sport if it fits all of the following criteria
1) it's a physical activity
2) it's competitive
3) there is some sort of scoring kept, however that is done
4) it makes you sweat or can make you sweat (and due to exertion, not due to tension), and
5) it's nonsexual (I only throw this in to eliminate any yahoo who wants to claim that team bed-hopping is a sport)

#1 means running is a sport, but NASCAR probably isn't (sorry).
#2 means you need more than one competitor, it also means stuff that's by definition rigged (we know that other contests are sometimes rigged, but it's not their raison d'etre), like pro wrestling, isn't a sport
#3 means boxing, golf, gymnastics, track, basketball, horse racing (the score is win, place or show) are all sports
#4 means chess isn't a sport, but jai alai is
#5 should be self-explanatory, no matter how short Anna Kournikova's tennis dresses are

I agree with those who see this as Gumbel pushing March Madness. But really, there are other ways to promote an upcoming sporting event without acting like an as$.

0 Replies

Well, I still see it as Gumbel expressing his opinion that the winter Olympics is a sham, that nobody cares about those sports in America except for about two weeks (and even then not much - American Idol is slaying the Olypics in the ratings), and that the best athletes can't be represented if blacks don't have access to the sports.

Besides, all the whining about Bryant "Grumbel" and all the other names they call him won't hurt his income a bit, or the fact that he has been hailed as one of the best interviewers on TV, or the fact that Real Sports has won him more than one Emmy.

The folks that really dislike him a lot say its because he's "arrogant". Well, I suspect if he were white and as self-assured, he would just be considered a little cocky. He always has seemed a little uppity to some folks, and I've always been a huge fan.

0 Replies

snood wrote:

American Idol is slaying the Olypics in the ratings

and World Poker Tour probably obliterates Real Sports in the ratings. so what's the relevance?

Quote:

Besides, all the whining about Bryant "Grumbel" and all the other names they call him won't hurt his income a bit

and Rush Limbaugh probably makes more money than him. that make Limbaugh more of an authority on anything?

0 Replies

snood wrote:

American Idol is slaying the Olypics in the ratings

yitwail:

Quote:

and World Poker Tour probably obliterates Real Sports in the ratings. so what's the relevance?

You got a problem with Gumbel, or something? The "relevance" to this
particular topic is that the Winter Olympics doesn't have much of an audience. And I don't think poker is running opposite Real Sports - but you were just making something up, right?

Quote:

Besides, all the whining about Bryant "Grumbel" and all the other names they call him won't hurt his income a bit

yitwail:

Quote:

and Rush Limbaugh probably makes more money than him. that make Limbaugh more of an authority on anything?

If being a sportscaster for decades doesn't make you at least enough of an authority for your opinion about sports events to be taken somewhat seriously, I don't know what would. But hey - we could go back and forth, but I'm alright with this if we can just agree to disagree like grownups, what about you?

0 Replies

snood wrote:

that nobody cares about those sports in America except for about two weeks

so America can drop out, and the rest of the world can continue to enjoy the winter Olympics <shrug>

0 Replies

the way of the future?

this was actually what I was looking for ... I heard an interview with this guy on the overnight radio system last night ... fantastic

0 Replies

snood wrote:

snood wrote:
American Idol is slaying the Olypics in the ratings

yitwail:

Quote:
and World Poker Tour probably obliterates Real Sports in the ratings. so what's the relevance?

You got a problem with Gumbel, or something? The "relevance" to this
particular topic is that the Winter Olympics doesn't have much of an audience. And I don't think poker is running opposite Real Sports - but you were just making something up, right?

Quote:
Besides, all the whining about Bryant "Grumbel" and all the other names they call him won't hurt his income a bit

yitwail:

Quote:
and Rush Limbaugh probably makes more money than him. that make Limbaugh more of an authority on anything?

If being a sportscaster for decades doesn't make you at least enough of an authority for your opinion about sports events to be taken somewhat seriously, I don't know what would. But hey - we could go back and forth, but I'm alright with this if we can just agree to disagree like grownups, what about you?

i thought that's what i was doing. i hope you aren't insinuating that i'm acting childishly. back to relevance, or lack of, you compared a sport with a non-sport, and i compared a sports commentary to a non-sport, but if time-slot has to match, then pick whatever non-sport show is on at the same time as Real Sport, and compare the ratings, and it still wouldn't matter one whit which had higher ratings because you're still comparing apples & oranges.

0 Replies

and one more thing to blame the MSM for

<now if we could all agree whether the American MSM fell to the left or the right of the political spectrum, that could be a whole other event>

Quote:

Update on African Athletes at the Winter Olympics
Believe it or not, there are actually quite a few African's competing at the Winter Olympics in Torino. With the Olympics wrapping up, I was curious about how they were doing. It's not that easy to find information on these athletes due to the lack of interest by the mainstream media.

http://goafrica.about.com/

Did anyone (reading here) know ...

Quote:

The change at Park City was due to the presence of the Black Summit, the biennial gathering of the National Brotherhood of Skiers. With 14,000 members (60 percent of whom are women) in 82 ski clubs spanning 32 states, NBS is the biggest ski club in North America, and it is growing.

0 Replies

ehBeth, interesting skimag article; thanks for the link. might be a matter of time until skiing becomes a "real sport" eh?

0 Replies

I was kinda thinking that Mr. Gumbel, and his fans, are a bit behind the times on this one.

~~~~~

Then again, I'd still be pleased if the U.S. dropped out of the Winter Olympics. More medals for countries where the sports are enjoyed and appreciated.

~~~~~

I like the Winter Olympics much better than the summer ones as I've done some variant of almost all of the sports in the Winter Olympics, and can relate to them - nice and cheap and accessible for an immigrant's kid in a cold country. Most of the summer sports seem like rich kids' sports to me.

0 Replies

Australia does not figure large in the winter olympics, for obvious reasons, yet we feel no need to denigrate athletes because circumstance has decreed that proficiency in a particular sport is unlikely to be developed by our folk, and to throw around ridiculously narrow definitions of "sport".

0 Replies

Dlowan speaks for the entire continent? They've all agreed on that point? Impressive.

0 Replies

ehBeth wrote:

I like the Winter Olympics much better than the summer ones as I've done some variant of almost all of the sports in the Winter Olympics, and can relate to them - nice and cheap and accessible for an immigrant's kid in a cold country. Most of the summer sports seem like rich kids' sports to me.

That is a very good point....I think not only can you relate to them, but you can better appreciate the enormous skill and so on shown by the competitors more than you can with sports unknown to you.....that being said, I have never even seen live snow (except at the side of the road, when I couldn't get out and play, because I was driving a work car to a work matter, dammit!) but I do appreciate the grace and skill of skiing related sports. Having fallen on my bum a lot the only time I ever went near an ice rink, I DO appreciate the grace and skill of skating....though while loving the acrobatics of figure skating, the fancy dress stuff in the pairs annoys me and detracts from my enjoyment, as does the nonsense in whatever that damned repulsive synchronised swimming stuff is called, which I really cannot watch, though I know it is very skilled.

Having never succumbed to the lure of any ball except a tennis ball, ball based sports bore me to tears.

0 Replies

dlowan wrote:

I have never even seen live snow...

Having never succumbed to the lure of any ball except a tennis ball, ball based sports bore me to tears.

I guess that rules out my idea for an Olympic snowball fight.

0 Replies

Gumbel's Olympic Remark

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know