I attended my first professional basketball game last night. This was something called an “exhibition game,” which I thought at first meant the players would be hotdogging around like the Harlem Globetrotters, but my husband explained that it just meant the real season hasn’t started yet.
Boy, was it a weird experience.
The surrealness started as we wedged our way into USA’s Mitchell Center, a triumph of architectural design with no entrance overhang to shelter ingressing–what do architects call humans? Users? Patrons?–from the pouring rain. So we crowded in the door, juggling dripping umbrellas, and the first thing we see are two half-naked young women in white go-go boots. These lovelies, it turned out, were the Hornets’ cheerleaders, or dancers, or something. Like a pair of scantily clad church ushers, they were standing at the door to hand each of us a Hornets’ season schedule. Their costumes weren’t indecent– I mean, they weren’t sporting pasties or anything– but all that bare midriff and deep cleavage in the midst of a crowd bundled up in sweatshirts and coats and blue jeans — it was just weird. Objectifying, if you will.
So we went on in and found our seats. There was extremely loud rap music playing over the loudspeakers, or maybe it was hip-hop, what do I know, and the teams were being introduced as they jogged onto the court for that running around and practicing layups and stuff they do. Warming up, I guess. Of course, I knew the players would be freakishly tall. But I didn’t expect to have quite the sense of a horse show. There were all these seven-foot guys (except for one Hornet who is only 5′11″ and looks like the president of the Lollypop Guild next to the rest of them), all wearing the colorful satiny uniforms, literally being paraded in front of us. This effect was heightened by what was going on in the center of the arena, where players took turns lying down to be tended by trainers, who “stretched” them. (Maybe one of the many sports fans who read the Blues can explain to me why this kind of stuff doesn’t take place in the locker room. I mean, they can’t possibly be doing it to intimidate the opposing team. And why are their hamstrings all so short?)
Then the announcer, who was even louder than the music, started warming up the crowd. I guess that’s what they call it. In a ridiculous monster-truck-rally voice, he welcomed us, saying things like, “I gotta hear you MAAAAAKE some NOOOOOIIIISE!” Shortly after that we were asked to observe a hilariously brief “moment of silence” for our troops–perhaps the guy didn’t trust the crowd he’d just got finished riling up to stay respectfully quiet for more than 15 seconds. Then we got the national anthem out of the way.
Finally, the game was allowed to start: “YOUUUR Hornets!” as the New Orleans team was described, and the Miami Heat. Easily as many people seemed to be pulling for, and wearing the attire of, the Heat as the Hornets, but the Hornets had been declared the home team and the announcer paid them every sign of ear-splitting deference possible.
It’s been years since I went to any kind of basketball game, and I was struck again by the monotony. Back and forth, up and down, the seven-foot players constantly in motion, the ball going in the basket or not, but it doesn’t matter because another scoring opportunity is only seconds away. My husband tried to explain something about how pro ball has different rules involving defense, which is why some people prefer college ball, but I think it would take more than college rules to make me enjoy the sport. These guys were magnificent athletes, and it was impressive to watch them pass that big ball to one another zip! zip! and make lots of perfect three-point shots. But I missed the sense of build that you get at a football game, as your team works the ball down the field yard by yard, relying on intricate strategies that involve all the players. (Not that I’m such a big football fan, either, of course.)
I couldn’t help remembering what little I knew of basketball’s history, that it had been invented by some guy around a hundred years ago to keep the young men at the YMCA occupied indoors with wholesome exertion, instead of the unwholesome sort. (Presumably during the long winter months—I looked it up and this happened in Canada.) Boy, they’ve come a long way from the peach baskets on the wall. I wondered if that was part of why this whole event felt so bizarre and contrived to me–the game has evolved, obviously, but it still has something of a make-work feel to it.
Whenever a team took a time out, and lots of other times as well, we received little treats sponsored by a couple of radio stations. People were invited onto the court to shoot free throws, to play musical chairs, even have a dance contest. No matter how well or (usually) badly they performed, they were awarded the prize. One gal won a flat-screen TV. There was a kiss-cam!
And at halftime, they brought out the dancing girls, who, it turns out, are called the “Honeybees.” Isn’t that cute? We welcomed “OOOUUUR… HONEYbeeeeees!!” and they started in with one of those dances that involves a lot of what animal anthropologists call “presenting.” I leaned over and told my husband, “God, I’m ashamed to have a vagina.” I thought I said this in a low, confidential tone, but it turned out the young African-American man seated in front of us, the one with about two pounds of gold hanging around his neck, heard me. He looked back at us a couple of times, just cracking up, and then hunched over his cell phone, clearly to share this bon mot with the world through the miracle of text messaging.
Here is more on the Honeybees. From where I was sitting, they all looked white, but now I see that was just the hair.
I am sure this post is offensive to any number of basketball fans, and basketball moms, and YMCA members, and dance team coaches, and Spandex manufacturers. I apologize in advance to any who take umbrage. But I’m telling you, there was a Tom Wolfe novel unspooling in my head the whole time I was there.
Have you read Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons? There’s some fun basketball stuff in there.
Dell, your post is interesting but not quite as humorous to me as “Deacon” Andy Griffith’s description of his first experience at a football game.
Before landing the acting role that defined his career more than any other in 1960 (that of Sheriff Andy Taylor), Andy Griffith was a gifted stand-up comedian.
In this routine from his early (really southern-sounding) days, Andy is a bit confused about what’s going on out there on that green field with all the lines painted on it — “What It Was, Was Football”.
You may enjoy hearing this routine of his @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_f4uxKKK6Q