by Hap Rocketto
I married into a Rhode Island family that is loaded with male sports fans. Baseball, basketball, football, soccer, golf, hockey, tennis, lacrosse; you name it and their huge plasma TVs blare it forth almost 24 hours a day on one of the dozens of sports channels to which they subscribe. Most family events see them gathered in little clusters discussing the team or individual performance of the sport de jour. Except during baseball season I am usually on the outside looking in because baseball is my favorite; read that as the only, professional sport I follow.
America’s Cup racing was also on my watch list until they discarded the 12 meter yacht, and Dennis Connor sailed a catamaran in 1988, with the excessive commercialization that followed.
Although shooting is my passion, I also have the guilty pleasure of playing in the Westerly Adult Kickball League. My cousins by the dozens participate sporadically in golf, old man’s basketball, and softball at the local Y, but I am pretty sure that it is really just an excuse to get out of the house and have a frosty one with some old buddies, and there is nothing wrong with that.
That being said an unusual set of circumstances has led me to watch some collegiate basketball. My daughter Leah is a student at Syracuse University and during her freshman year the cousins suggested we visit Leah, because they are fond of her. But that didn’t mean I didn’t suspect that there was an ulterior motive, because they also said while we were there we might as well take in a basketball game. Knowing little of the sport, I didn’t realize that ‘Cuse has a nationally ranked team. Each year since, the cousins have picked out a weekend that happens to coincide with a significant Big East Conference game. One was a game against Villanova which turned out to set the record for the largest crowd for an on-campus college basketball game in NCAA history. I sat in the Carrier Dome, along with my cousins and daughter, to bring the total paid attendance to 34,616.
As I said I know little about the sport except that it was invented by Doctor James Naismith of Springfield College as a way to keep his gym classes productive when forced inside during inclement weather. From the comments I hear made by my cousins while watching the game with them I surmise that there is something more complex going on upon the hard wood floor than ten tall sweaty guys running up and down the court tossing a ball into a hoop. I just can’t see it.
The cousins would have me think that basketball is a tough sport, because, I as I said earlier, they are all now relegated to local level slow break competition. They have no idea of the level of competition at which I participate and that is why I know shooting is tougher than basketball. Come on, just how difficult is it for five tall guys to help each other to toss big ball into a basket? Granted basketball is more physically demanding than shooting a rifle but I think that blasting a quarter size groups into the center of the target at 100 yards all by yourself is a far more difficult task than working as a team to dunk a ball.
Therefore, in the style of late night talk show host David Letterman, I have constructed a list of ten reasons why rifle shooting is tougher than basketball.
10. When you get tired in basketball the coach just calls time out and replaces you with someone fresh. Not so in shooting.
9. When’s the last time a basketball player had to make a shot with the sun in his eyes?
8. How often does a basketball player have a perfectly good shot blown out by the wind?
7. If a basketball player places a shot a little higher than intended, no problem. The backboard causes the ball to bounce into the basket. No such luck in shooting.
6. Rifle matches commonly run all day. When was the last time you saw a basketball game run more than an hour or so?
5. If you’re not making your shots in basketball, you can just pass the ball to someone who is hot. No such convenience in shooting.
4. Rifle bullets travel around the speed of sound, 300 meters per second. Basketballs top out at around 15 meters per second.
3. A basketball player can shoot from anywhere on the court that is convenient and comfortable. All rifleman shoot from the same distance.
2. A basketball player may shoot as often as the opportunity arises and is not limited to the number of shots taken. A rifle match requires that each rifleman shoot the same number of record shots, if they shoot more then allowed then a penalty follows.
And the first reason why shooting is tougher than basket ball is if you miss a shot in basketball you, or a team mate, can just jump up, grab the ball, and try again. Try that in shooting.
The only real similarity between the two sports is that a competitor attempts to score points by shooting. In rifle it is through a hard hold and easy squeeze in prone, sitting, kneeling, and standing while in basketball it is via hook shots, jump shots, lay ups, or the dramatic, and ever crowd pleasing, slam dunk.
But I have come to like basketball in a way. It gives me a weekend of male conviviality with my cousins, of whom I am fond, and, most important of all, I get to spend some extra time with my daughter.
