saw that a week ago. Not much of a Buzz fan but his approach to using teaching moments and the game of basketball is impressive. Groce has a similar mindset which I enjoyed while he was here.

I remember a prepractice talk about priorities and wasted effort and time involving a story about life and priorities...after the lengthy parable the end of the Tibetian story was how "youth spends their time and health chasing money while maturing adults spend their time and money chasing health". Deep stuff for college age kids but it was interesting to see him daily trying to help them find themselves and affect their lives .

How many international students play NCAA in the USA?

How many USA citizens play pro ball overseas?

Should we begin to include the Pledge of Allegiance in pre-game ceremonies? Use some of all the extra security at games to eyeball the crowd then escort non-participants off the premises (that part of the crew though should wear "brown shirts").

I can think of at one least regular poster on here who always says "it's only a game".....

WHy are you muddying up the board with your take on this? Giacomo put up a story with a video related to basketball that was done in the fall of 2015 prior to the season. THere was nothing in giacomo's statement or mine about a protest. There is nothing in the article about a protest. There is nothing in the video about a protest. It was a news story about how he communicates to his young men how and why they do what they do at Va Tech. I am sure in 2015 he had no crystal ball that gave him insight into what is happening in the fall of 2016

the headline from the ABC news article is the following

Virginia Tech Men's Basketball Coach Teaches Team a Lesson With Help of Veterans

By ALLIE KESSEL

Mar 9, 2016, 3:48 PM ET

NOTE the date.

COach Williams tweeted on his twitter account IN MARCH about his video from pre season in 2015

Buzz Williams
✔
@TeamCoachBuzz

Not sure how National Anthem video resurfaced 4mos later, but humble thanks to all, specifically our Veterans, for all the kind messages!💚🇺🇸
10:04 PM - 8 Mar 2016

142 142 Retweets
501

I am not sure what prompted your comment or why you felt compelled to muddy up the board with non basketball related commentary that was pretty far afeild from the subject and to imply that Coach was reacting to our present day situation a year ago.

Exactly because timing is everything. Post that when it happened and it means one thing. Post it today and it's a totally different story. And the original poster did post this in addition to the link:


Very powerful talk to his players about the National Anthem.

Giacomo started this thread in September of 2016, so I think we can assume his intent.

Having said that, I might be equally interested (if not more interested) if a coach invited a Jim Brown or Muhammed Ali to talk to his players on this subject.

Is it reasonable to ask blacks in this country to base their association with the US Flag on an event from 1865?

The history of how blacks have been treated in this country is terrible. It's atrocious pre-1865, and it's terrible post 1865. There's really no argument to make otherwise.

But the protest is working, and it's peaceful. Yes, it's making plenty of people like you angry, but it's also stimulating discussions like the one we're having. That's a tiny step forward toward resolving the problem. Of course, many of the people upset over the protest don't think there is any problem.

This was just published today, and I think it adds an interesting perspective:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/magazine/who-gets-to-be...

Comfortable people always say that those who are protesting are doing it wrong.

It's worth pointing out that those "flash in a pan" Mexico City protesters were reviled by almost every white person in America and lost just about everything at the time. Today, there are statues of them.

Similarly, Dr. King was detested by a majority of Americans when he was doing his most important and effective work (source: http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/08/26/when_martin_... ). Today, he is one of the most admired Americans in history. Same can be said for Muhammad Ali.

Kaepernick is certainly not in the same realm as MLK or Ali, but the response to him (http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/08/31/colin_k... ) is the same as it was to those guys at the time of their respective protests.

R.J., for the record I didn't like Muhammad Ali when he was Cassius Clay. I thought he was an extremely egotistical SOB. I remember the fight when he beat Floyd Patterson. He stood over Patterson and yelled, "I am the greatest" over and over again. Patterson was a real gentleman. Clay was a boorish, self-absorbed idiot. IMHO, he didn't improve much as Muhammad Ali. I never thought that his various "causes" later in life met my criteria of intellectually honesty. So, while your statement about what people think at the time of a protest and how it differs from what they think years later may be true in a statistical sense, but it's not necessarily true in any specific case. I know that I'm in minority in my opinion of Ali, but I never thought much of him as a person.

Thanks for the link - That is some very well thought and very well written commentary there

And here is what the "gentleman" Patterson had said:

"......who had told Sports Illustrated: “The image of a Black Muslim as the world heavyweight champion disgraces the sport and nation.”