THE BIG TEN and its WHITEY BALL

by Andy Kissko, andykissko@yahoo.com

In an open letter to Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany, the NAACP chairman- Julian Bond declared the Big Ten’s style of men’s basketball to be “racially intolerant to other brands of basketball”, “overtly boring in a way we attribute to white attitudes” and “unwilling to incorporate a more, viewer-friendly, minority-style of play”. Mr. Bond said this issue had nothing to do with the races of the actual players, but rather their styles of play. “When your league’s premiere player, Alando Tucker, actually boxes out, pivots, plays defense and avoids technical fouls, you know something is amiss in the very intellectual fabric of the athletic conference. The whole culture is non-ghetto, for that we blame the whites.”

The Chairman went on to praise programs such as the University of Cincinnati, University of Miami, and the Jerry Tarkanian UNLV program of yesteryear, citing that their style of play is much more in tune with how urban kids play in the playground. He went on to state that this brand of basketball is actually fun to watch. Clearly voicing his disdain for disciplined, ego-free style of play where rebounding and free-throw percentage are the fulcrum of a team’s success Mr. Bond stated “Look no further than the paucity of entrants in the annual Slam Dunk contest that the Big Ten puts forth. Other than Jason Richardson, I challenge any of you to name one legitimate ‘leaper’ that has played in the Big Ten this millennium”.

In response to the allegations of overtly “white” play, Commissioner Delaney offered this via his publicist: “No shit, it’s white. It isn’t like we don’t recruit the likes of Joakim Noah, Kevin Durant or Corey Brewer. It’s just that they don’t come to the Big Ten. Then when we do get a phenom like Alando Tucker or Greg Oden, they not only are not flashy, they don’t even talk any trash.” When reached by telephone about the steps he is taking to make their image not only less-white, but also more controversial and less dull off the court, Delaney replied “The DUI at Illinois helps with that dull image, for sure. Maybe since our players are rarely as ghetto as our counterparts in the SEC and even ACC we should go more of the Gonzaga route and try to get some scandals with more hallucinogens and put less emphasis on hoping for violent crime, where U of Miami has had so much success. I mean, sure violence is bad but 1) it’s free press for your school, 2) it provides the image of danger for your program, which is an excellent demographic to reach and, 3) it isn’t like the President of United States has displayed a disdain for violence, either.”

This forum of debate was not limited to the NAACP and the Big Ten, however. Louis Farrakhan went on the record to state “I do hate me some whitey ball, and we have the Jews to blame for this”, and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin stated that if he were the Big Ten commissioner “The brand of ball they played would be chocolate.”