Diagnosis -- March Madness

From stress or basketball or working or life, I have acquired chronic neck pain, and by chronic, I mean 10 days. It has been, when it flares up, incapacitating neck pain that stops me in my tracks, waylays me for 2 hours, and then disappears on the gossamer wings of hypochondria. At least, I think I am imagining it.

The worst possible thing I could have done tonight was watch house, about viral meningitis, and how the main symptom was neck pain. I started doing crazy self-diagnosis, which only made the pain worse. Then, I did some push ups and felt much better. Rather than schedule myself for a spinal tap, I think I need a head shrinker.

Anyhow, the basketball is really starting to heat up. I almost threw up on myself during the big 12 tournament game. To go with the theme, I am posting my grammar essay here. It compares grammar as a system to college basketball as a system. It got a perfect score, which means that even if it isn't entertaining, every colon, dash, and known-new contract segue is right on.

Enjoy.

The player grabs the long rebound. For fun, give him an arbitrary jersey number—34 (maybe it’s not so arbitrary). 34 sprints down the court as the opposing team struggles to get back on defense. 34 ducks two defenders; his teammate, call him 32, sets a screen. # 34 sees a lane and starts to drive towards the basket. In a kinetic ballet, 34 twists and turns in the air. Another player, in a different colored jersey, joins him in an adversarial pas de deux. As the ball releases from 34’s hands and begins its path to the basket, another hand reaches out, aiming for the ball, but catching 34 on the arm instead. A whistle shrills. Both players, 34 and his opponent, return to earth, but the ball continues to arc; it starts an ellipsis. The ellipsis denotes a delay; it is longer than a comma and less abrasive than a dash. As long as that ball hangs above the basket, the ellipsis continues. The crowd pauses out of respect to the ellipsis, as they wait to see if the shot will go or not. The ball bounces on the rim, maybe the backboard, rolls a few times, and then, ellipsis ending, falls to the bottom of the net. The sentence is over and is punctuated with an exclamation point from the referee. Count it!

Grammar is, fundamentally, just the application of rules. Grammar typically refers to the written and spoken word, but it can refer to any field or technique. Basketball is no exception. From the tip off to final shot of the game, basketball works within the proscribed rules of the game. To monitor the use of the rules, like a teacher with the infamous red marker, there are the referees. They make sure the game starts and ends. But, like literature, the rules are open to interpretation, and every game, like every story, is different.

The dunks and fouls will not happen at the same place in every game, but there are elements of basketball, like grammar, that will happen every time. Since basketball is a story, full of sentences, there will be many subjects. Some will be simple: the coach. Some subjects are compound: the Kansas Jayhawks and the Duke Blue Devils. Typically though, the sentence is a complete subject or noun phrase with lots of modifiers: perennial underdogs and frightened weaklings, the UNC Tarheels, and gifted defenders and three-time defending SEC champions, the Florida Gators. The verb phrases throughout the game will also vary. It can be a simple predicate: dunks. It can be a compound predicate: misses the shot and makes his own rebound. The best sentences in the story, though, will combine a terrific noun phrase with a memorable verb phrase; perennial underdogs and frightened weaklings, the UNC Tarheels, and gifted ball-handlers and three-time defending SEC champions, the Florida Gators battle for the basketball and, in the end, the eternal glory of victory.

Once the players hit the court, another grammar decision must be made. Just as a sportswriter would try to avoid a phrase like “the player enjoys rebounding, shooting, and to block,” a coach would try to avoid sending a 6’1” guard out against a 7’ center. Both writing and basketball must grant parallelism its due. Writing that is constructed without regard to parallelism will be confusing and difficult to read. In basketball, a coach that doesn’t match the players up to the opposing team can expect to lose a lot of games. When players and words don’t fit together, the end result is less than desirable.

Once those players are matched as well as they can be, play begins. Some trips up the court, the sentence is simple; Jackson scores. On other trips up the court, a team may need a longer sentence with more subjects or verbs or both. A team may pass a ball four or five times. Each pass acts like a comma in a sentence. A comma’s goal is to direct attention to the next part of a sentence; it slows the reader down and focuses their attention on the next word. A pass in basketball does exactly the same thing. When the ball is passed, the fan (or coach, player, or announcer) has to stop and find the ball again. A pass directs the energy to the next player and keeps the attention moving forward, towards conclusion. Sometimes, a pass goes into the wrong hands or out of bounds, just like a comma gets misused and directs the reader no where. Both are fundamental parts of their craft but both must be used appropriately.

The most exciting play in basketball is the slam dunk. The most exciting punctuation mark in writing is the exclamation point. Ideally, both should be trotted out as a special occasion, as something anticipated and placed at exactly the right time. Recently, both have become an overused cliché, causing fans of both mediums to roll their eyes a bit. The exclamation point, used correctly, will convey a sense of excitement, danger, or surprise at the end of a sentence. Overuse of the exclamation point cheapens writing. The same is true of overused slam dunks. If every sentence ends with an exclamation, it becomes hard for readers to know where to direct their attention. Many sentences that could safely end with just a period get punctuated with an exclamation point. The period may seem boring and safe, but it is effective. The same can be said for the period’s kindred in basketball: the lay-up. Perhaps, with a concerted effort, the exclamation point and the slam dunk can return to their former glory as rarely used but potent ways to punctuate a statement.

Different people like different authors, books, and writing styles. Similarly, in basketball, people like different teams, coaches, players, and styles. Someone who enjoys the frenetic style of Brett Eaton Ellis might like a fast, transition offense. A James Joyce fan might enjoy Syracuse’s zone defense—confusing and hard to follow, but effective and ultimately satisfying. The common thread between different books and different basketball games is that, different as they are, they all work within the rules; both arts must acknowledge and respect the grammar that governs them.