National Red Herring Week
By I say we follow the lead of the Senate GOP leaders. Their move to bring up gay marriage now is fantastic. Ok, it’s so transparently political that’s it absurd, but we all need some absurdity. I propose that we deem this National Red Herring Week wherein we all rant about pet peeves that have nothing at all to do with the real problems facing the planet and its inhabitants.
My contribution: coaching in tennis.
We should take the opportunity of Federer complaining about Nadal’s Uncle Toni illegally coaching from the stands to change the rule. Other sports allow coaching during play and it does not minimize the player contribution at all, but only adds to the strategic complexity. The claim that it would encroach upon the reliance on the individual in the sport is wrong. Players would still need to adapt. Boxing allows conferring with trainers between rounds. Why not tennis? It would not detract from the sport, but make it more cerebral. If Peter Bodo is right and the coaching really wasn’t helping Nadal much because he is a physical/emotional and not an intellectual/strategic type player, fine. But why should we constrain the game of those who would be so helped? The rules ought to be there to create the highest quality of play, not to constrain it.
Take that poverty, torture, war in Iraq, atrocities in Sudan,… LALALALALALALALALA