School and college sports

[Ticklishchap]

Staying with this tangent: despite what Edward says in his post above, I fear that the cult of drab egalitarianism has affected Oxbridge. One college (Bartender Edit - minor snip of political content) has even taken octopus off its menu because it was ‘unfamiliar’ to ‘working class’ students. While I very much share the Whitmanesque adulation of rugged working-class masculinity, I also believe in levelling up rather than levelling down. It is actually more ‘democratic’ to believe that people of all backgrounds can learn to speak and dress well, think clearly and open themselves to new experiences. The PC mindset traps people in limited experience, limited horizons and ugly forms of speech.
The mechanical approach to education has done a lot to destroy the tradition of self-education in working class communities; this is a great tragedy.

 

[Edward]

Staying with this tangent: despite what Edward says in his post above, I fear that the cult of drab egalitarianism has affected Oxbridge. One college (Bartender Edit - minor snip of political content) has even taken octopus off its menu because it was ‘unfamiliar’ to ‘working class’ students. While I very much share the Whitmanesque adulation of rugged working-class masculinity, I also believe in levelling up rather than levelling down. It is actually more ‘democratic’ to believe that people of all backgrounds can learn to speak and dress well, think clearly and open themselves to new experiences. The PC mindset traps people in limited experience, limited horizons and ugly forms of speech.
The mechanical approach to education has done a lot to destroy the tradition of self-education in working class communities; this is a great tragedy.

It's bizarre window dressing. I often despair of Oxbridge making a thing of trying to attract more state school kids, without fully comprehending how the social culture of these Colleges works against it. Who wants to be "the poor kid" who can't go to any of the balls because they all demand a certain ticket price and standard of dress? I also know people who have turned down places at Oxbridge in large part because they simply could not have afforded to eat had they not also worked during term - which Oxford at least forbids. I wholly agree that the aspiration should be to offer the full experience to the widest range of people, but until they are realistic about the actual barriers....

Of course, the other problem with the UK is the outright fetishisation of Oxbridge as a brand, when many other universities are, frankly, just as good and often a better option on a subject level (or offer a teaching approach better suited to many students)... they just don't quite fit into the old-boy network in the same way.

 

[Ticklishchap]

I agree with the idea of ensuring that nobody is deprived of knowledge by economic deprivation- which is why I referred to working class self-education which used to be a great force for good in the UK (and US). A certain type of approach to education does a disservice to people from poorer backgrounds because it suggests that high culture is not ‘for them’, that aesthetically ugly ‘estuary English’ with a low range of vocabulary is ‘equal’ to forms of standard English (including Scottish, Irish and Welsh forms) in which complex ideas can be expressed. This is why I am in favour of levelling up rather than levelling down.

Also, university education is fetishised above vocational education which is one of the reasons why we have such a serious skill shortage and many traditional skills/forms of craftsmanship have been lost. The idea that 50% of the population should go to ‘uni’ is worthy of Lewis Carroll: ‘all must have prizes’.

Ironically, the way to kill off Oxbridge will be to make it ‘like everywhere else’ so that it loses its mystique. Look what has happened to the Anglican Church since it introduced demotic language and assorted PC agendas. Only about 1% of the population attend and part of that is because the sense of mystery has been lost.

 

[Edward]

Also, university education is fetishised above vocational education which is one of the reasons why we have such a serious skill shortage and many traditional skills/forms of craftsmanship have been lost. The idea that 50% of the population should go to ‘uni’ is worthy of Lewis Carroll: ‘all must have prizes’.

The irony is that the funding pressure created by trying to get a certain proportion of kids into university (as distinct from the less measurable, but much more sensible, strategy of ensuring university places for all those who are capable of benefiting from them) twinned with official cuts to the sector (the latter unseen by those on the 'outside', so 'we' get to bed the bad guys charging ever-higher fees), are pushing so many to the point of struggling to afford tertiary education, that I do believe we will once more see the rise of apprenticeship-based vocational schemes, albeit that many of these will be combined with a university-delivered qualification over a longer period of time (say five or six years on 'day release'). It's certainly a shame that society has been driven in a way that doesn't value alternative routes equally, despite one uniform approach not being something that fits all professions (or, frankly, even all academic disciplines: when you work in a university, the levels to which you see the sector tying itself in knots to try to create an equal value metrics culture for science as art as law as modern languages as history and worse is absurdity in the extreme. But then that's the era we live in: everything measurable and everything measured - and if it can't be measured we'll find some spurious metric that can stand in its place....).

Ironically, the way to kill off Oxbridge will be to make it ‘like everywhere else’ so that it loses its mystique. Look what has happened to the Anglican Church since it introduced demotic language and assorted PC agendas. Only about 1% of the population attend and part of that is because the sense of mystery has been lost.

I don't know, a lot of the change in the Anglican organisation seems to me to be more about chasing a departing congregation rather than the direct cause of their leaving. I would put much of it down to simple changing times, where it is for most people no longer socially advantageous to attend a church. (As an aside, much of Marx's apparent hostility to religion stems from the fact that his own father moved the family to a new ton and new business, and then announced to the family that they were no longer going to practice their Judaism, as attending a Christian church instead was much more business savvy going forwards.) I have mixed feelings on this, though as a practising Methodist I'd rather be part of a congregation of people who attend for its own sake, rather than one double the size where half of them are only there for some perceived social advantage from being seen to be. Of course, to some extent I grossly simplify a broader question...

 

[Artifex]

Universities (at least in the UK) may also be suffering from an infestation of low-grade office staff. I don't mean that there's anything wrong with working in an office, per se, but there is something wrong with the short-term 'target'-oriented culture that tends to come with it.
The marketing department has a job to do. That job is to attract as many students and as much sponsorship as possible. They do not know or care about education or learning - because they are not paid to know and because the system is not set up to let them care if they want to.
[Perhaps that is a little harsh, but to continue...]

That means that the message delivered to prospective students, and the wider public, is that university education is a product. Pay money, become an expert in something, get a better job. Better still, the grants and loans available from the government make it a buy-now, pay-later affair. No wonder the product is popular!

The difficulty comes when you realise that the product is not that. Universities provide a sheltered environment, access to experts, and to extensive libraries. They provide that on the implicit understanding that students will pursue knowledge independently. Most do not, and academics often end up teaching the students they wish they had, not the ones sitting in front of them.

I have a suspicion that the current situation is rooted in misaligned understanding of cause and effect. The best qualities found in graduates are valuable, but the existing education system is not what instils those qualities.

Somehow, the push for ever-greater education (which should be a good thing!) has lost the element of feedback. I wish I knew how it could be fixed.

 

[Big Man]

I have a question about basketball goals from the 1930s that (hopefully) someone here can answer.

I don't think I've never seen a basketball goal any other color than orange. Does anyone know what color a 1930s era basketball goal was?

Here is a little background for why I'm asking this question:

I was working down the hillside at the old home place yesterday morning and noticed something sticking out of the ground that looked interesting enough to dig up. Much to my surprise, it was an old basketball goal. What's so special about that, you ask? Well, absolutely no doubt that old basketball goal I found was one my Dad had back in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

My Dad was a star player for Nebo School back in the day. The photo (my Dad is the tall one in the center) is the Nebo championship team from 1941. One of my Dad's best friends, the late Ray Simmons (also in the photo), told me a couple years ago about the basketball goal my Dad had on the side of my Maw's old barn. The barn sat on the side of a hill, and Mr. Simmons said, "if you missed a rebound, you'd have to chase the ball all the way down the hill into Mrs. Brown's cornfield."

The old barn (and basketball goal) was long gone by the time I came around, and besides Ray Simmons telling me the story about the basketball goal on the side of the barn, I wouldn't have known the significance of what I found today.

This old rusted and twisted up basketball goal that's over 80 years old now, is really a treasure. I plan on cleaning it up and painting it to ensure it will be preserved, then maybe mounting it on the side of the garage (since the old barn is gone) so my Dad's great grandchildren can "shoot hoops" and chase missed rebounds down the hill.

I bet both my Dad and Ray Simmons are looking down from Heaven and smiling at my finding that old basketball goal after all these years.

 

[Bamaboots]

I have a question about basketball goals from the 1930s that (hopefully) someone here can answer.

Big Man, I can't answer the goal color question but maybe you can come up with one of these to go along with it.

 

[belfastboy]

I have a question about basketball goals from the 1930s that (hopefully) someone here can answer.

I don't think I've never seen a basketball goal any other color than orange. Does anyone know what color a 1930s era basketball goal was?

Here is a little background for why I'm asking this question:

I was working down the hillside at the old home place yesterday morning and noticed something sticking out of the ground that looked interesting enough to dig up. Much to my surprise, it was an old basketball goal. What's so special about that, you ask? Well, absolutely no doubt that old basketball goal I found was one my Dad had back in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

My Dad was a star player for Nebo School back in the day. The photo (my Dad is the tall one in the center) is the Nebo championship team from 1941. One of my Dad's best friends, the late Ray Simmons (also in the photo), told me a couple years ago about the basketball goal my Dad had on the side of my Maw's old barn. The barn sat on the side of a hill, and Mr. Simmons said, "if you missed a rebound, you'd have to chase the ball all the way down the hill into Mrs. Brown's cornfield."

The old barn (and basketball goal) was long gone by the time I came around, and besides Ray Simmons telling me the story about the basketball goal on the side of the barn, I wouldn't have known the significance of what I found today.

This old rusted and twisted up basketball goal that's over 80 years old now, is really a treasure. I plan on cleaning it up and painting it to ensure it will be preserved, then maybe mounting it on the side of the garage (since the old barn is gone) so my Dad's great grandchildren can "shoot hoops" and chase missed rebounds down the hill.

I bet both my Dad and Ray Simmons are looking down from Heaven and smiling at my finding that old basketball goal after all these years.

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Your story reminds me of a baseball story. I was in a coaching clinic and the presenter was an ex major league pitcher and now pitching coach of the Oakland Athletics. He talked about growing up in Brooklyn and pitching to his dad in the street out front their flat. He said he learned quickly to throw strikes as his Father was not a great catcher and if he threw wild he had to chase the errant ball down the asphalted streets for blocks to retrieve it.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I have a question about basketball goals from the 1930s that (hopefully) someone here can answer.

I don't think I've never seen a basketball goal any other color than orange. Does anyone know what color a 1930s era basketball goal was?

The rims weren't always a standard orange color, the early ones were wrought iron, and typically black. But I think by the 1930s, and the standardization of the backboard, they were all orange for higher visibility.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have a question about basketball goals from the 1930s that (hopefully) someone here can answer.

I don't think I've never seen a basketball goal any other color than orange. Does anyone know what color a 1930s era basketball goal was?

Here is a little background for why I'm asking this question:

I was working down the hillside at the old home place yesterday morning and noticed something sticking out of the ground that looked interesting enough to dig up. Much to my surprise, it was an old basketball goal. What's so special about that, you ask? Well, absolutely no doubt that old basketball goal I found was one my Dad had back in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

My Dad was a star player for Nebo School back in the day. The photo (my Dad is the tall one in the center) is the Nebo championship team from 1941. One of my Dad's best friends, the late Ray Simmons (also in the photo), told me a couple years ago about the basketball goal my Dad had on the side of my Maw's old barn. The barn sat on the side of a hill, and Mr. Simmons said, "if you missed a rebound, you'd have to chase the ball all the way down the hill into Mrs. Brown's cornfield."

The old barn (and basketball goal) was long gone by the time I came around, and besides Ray Simmons telling me the story about the basketball goal on the side of the barn, I wouldn't have known the significance of what I found today.

This old rusted and twisted up basketball goal that's over 80 years old now, is really a treasure. I plan on cleaning it up and painting it to ensure it will be preserved, then maybe mounting it on the side of the garage (since the old barn is gone) so my Dad's great grandchildren can "shoot hoops" and chase missed rebounds down the hill.

I bet both my Dad and Ray Simmons are looking down from Heaven and smiling at my finding that old basketball goal after all these years.

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Best bet is probably a basic red enamel like you'd see on a mailbox flag. Our town hall had its original basketball hoops from the 1920s, and they were a dark red -- probably repainted a few times, but not later than the 1940s, when the hall stopped being used for sports. The very earliest rims were black cast iron, but red was an obvious improvement in terms of visibility.

 

[3fingers]

I used to do some work in an old school building that still had its gym. The main hoops were orange, but the old practice hoops on the sidewalls were red. The school was built in 1932.
Mr. Naismiths original hoop was a peach basket nailed to the wall. He later figured out that it would be simpler if he cut the bottom out of it so as to not have to stop play and drag a ladder over to retrieve the ball each time.

 

[belfastboy]

I used to do some work in an old school building that still had its gym. The main hoops were orange, but the old practice hoops on the sidewalls were red. The school was built in 1932.
Mr. Naismiths original hoop was a peach basket nailed to the wall. He later figured out that it would be simpler if he cut the bottom out of it so as to not have to stop play and drag a ladder over to retrieve the ball each time.

I often have wondered how long it took for the light bulb to light up......I envision a timid student in a stammering voice....."Excuse me sir, but wouldn't it be easier if we cut the bottom out of the basket?"

 

[MisterCairo]

I often have wondered how long it took for the light bulb to light up......I envision a timid student in a stammering voice....."Excuse me sir, but wouldn't it be easier if we cut the bottom out of the basket?"

 

[belfastboy]

Well at least my tax $$$ answered a burning question.

 

[Ticklishchap]

This is a nice inspiring story.

englands-kyle-sinckler-from-school-with-no-rugby-to-world-cup-semi-final

 

[Ticklishchap]

An American friend asked me a few days ago whether I ever played Rugby ‘in the mud’. I told him that I hardly ever played it in anything else!!!