Category Archives: Sports

Linsanity versus Tebowmania

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Jeremy LinThe recent rise of New York Knick basketball player Jeremy Lin and his religious beliefs made me think of the rise of Tim Tebow and Tebowmania. In this case what I want to examine is why Tim Tebow engenders a large amount of anger and even hate while thus far Jeremy Lin is a popular figure.

The two have many similarities in their stories and their strong religious belief and performance on the field of play makes them compelling stories. There are also significant differences between them and any comparison loses some of its legitimacy because of this fact.

Still, I want to examine why I think faith based thinking is the reason for much of the anger.

A quick summary of their stories for anyone reading who is not a sports fan.

Tim Tebow was arguably one of the greatest college quarterbacks of all time helping the Florda Gators to two National Championships. His strong religious beliefs and lifestyle made him a favorite among evangelical christians. His running style in college led many to believe he lacked the skills to translate to a successful NFL quarterback and despite being drafted in the first round most experts predicted a lackluster career.

Jeremy Lin went to Harvard where they have no athletic scholarships and went undrafted by the NBA after completing his matriculation. He is of asian american descent and one of the few players in the NBA of that race. He, like Tebow, is also deeply religious. In the last few weeks he has become one of the bright young stars of the NBA with strong performances for the New York Knicks.

The two are obviously quite different in many ways but what strikes me when reading the various comments and critiques of both players is that Tebow seems to garner a great deal of vehemently angry posts whereas Lin does not.

One of the themes I hammer home in my novels is the contrast between faith based thinking and critical thinking. In the case of Tebow and Lin supporters I think there is a tremendous amount of faith based thinking. Both men are deeply religious and faith based people want them to be good, often refusing to acknowledge the real issues that detractors mention.

But why does Tebow generate so much more anger?

Here is where it gets interesting for me.

I think the reason Tebow generates so much anger is that the stark reality of faith based thinking versus critical thinking is exposed dramatically. Tebow’s statistical play is among the worst in the NFL whereas Lin’s statistics are outstanding. What I think is important is the transparent nature of faith based thinkers refusal to accept reality. Tebow has many tremendous qualities but also has some obvious negative traits as a football quarterback. Many of his faith based fans absolutely will not deal with these on a logical level. They want him to be good so, in their minds, he is good.

This anger against faith based thinking is well deserved. Faith based thinking is bad for people personally, bad for them professionally, and bad for society as a whole. In what other place in life does faith based thinking work besides religion? Do you hope the baby’s diapers will clean themselves? Do you have faith the boss will promote you if you do a poor job? Do you think the house will get clean on it’s own?

What I find distressing is the misplaced anger against Tebow and potentially Lin if his play falters. Put your hate where it belongs, on the faith based thinkers, not Tebow and Lin. They both seem to be trying to make their way in an incredibly difficult profession without resorting to faith based thinking. Both are working hard to improve their craft.

I say, let’s watch Tim play and see if he gets better. Let’s find out if he is a good quarterback by critically analyzing his performance and see how many games he wins in the NFL. If he keeps winning games then let’s call him a good quarterback, if not, then treat him accordingly. And the same for Jeremy. Let’s see how the season plays out. In a meritocracy it is incredibly important to give people chances and even more important to reward them when they succeed.

This atheist is rooting for Tim and Jeremy, prove those detractors wrong!

Please comment, tweet, like, stumble, digg, and all the rest if you agree or disagree!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

Teaser – Linsanity versus Tebowmania

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Jeremy LinTomorrow I’m going to examine the phenomenon of Jeremy Lin’s Linsanity and Tim Tebow’s Tebowmania. The two men have captured the attention of the sporting world in the last few months and one thing that struck me strongly was the passion and anger they engendered. In particular I noted the anger and apparent hate that Tebow has generated and that Lin has largely managed to avoid.

Both men are strongly religious and this is usually a recipe for public adulation in the United States. I’m going to try and examine why there was such a large negative reaction to Tebow, not withstanding his legion of fans.

Stay tuned!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

P.S. I got a “Like” from Tristan Nagler and Alternate Economy and his blog is well worth a perusal for those of you who are interested in the well being of the earth and the economic ways we can help. Take a look.

Crony Capitalism

Crony Capitalism

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Crony CapitalismThe topic for today is something called crony capitalism which is destroying free enterprise. The basic idea of capitalism is that free markets provide the best economic model for the growth of a nation. There are a lot variables within capitalism but at its most fundamental it is an idea that includes private ownership and production, wages for workers, free competition, and accumulation of capital for profit.

The ideas of capitalism are probably good fodder for another blog. What I want to discuss today is how crony capitalism is destroying the free market and with it our libertarian ideals. While crony capitalism has the word capitalism within it, it is actually a form of socialism, or government control of industry. Socialism is another badly misunderstood word and I should take that up in another blog. The ideas keep rolling in!

What is largely meant by this term is not capitalism at all. The United States government has become overly involved in the success of business. It is through government involvement that a particular product or service now succeeds. This has spawned an entire industry of lobbyist who spend their days trying to convince government officials to pass laws, regulations, and make actual purchases that favor their employer.

Most people see this problem with the U.S. military and decisions on which system to purchase are often decided by factors other than the actual effectiveness of the product.

However, this crony capitalism extends much deeper into society than most people realize. Go ask your employer if you have any government contracts. Ask them how much of the company money is spent on trying to get government agents to give them advantages.

There are a lot of reasons to fear this subversion of true capitalism but I think the main idea goes back to what Ayn Rand suggests in her writing. That the individual achiever must be allowed to succeed or society as a whole will eventually fail. The problem with crony capitalism, from my perspective at least, is that companies and individuals achieve not on the merit of their work but upon their ability to bribe government officials into altering the playing field so that they succeed. This eventually means companies that are good at bribery and backstabbing succeed while companies that just want to make a good product, employ hard workers, pay them a good salary, and make some money are defeated.

Again, we arrive at the point where I’ve complained all day long and not offered any solutions to the problem.

This is an extremely difficult problem but at its heart it comes down to fairness of government regulation. I’m a relatively moderate Libertarian in that I believe government regulation is necessary to prevent anti-trust situations but these regulations need to be broad and aimed at creating a fair playing field for all businesses.

It’s not easy to come up with legislation of this sort but I’ll take on food labeling as an example of my ideas. There are currently a bevy of regulations on how to display the nutritional contents of food. The problem is in defining what percent of a particular nutrient applies to a wide variety of people and what defines a serving size. It seems clear to me that nothing is going to be applicable to someone of my size, 5 foot 7 inches (1.7 meters) 165 lbs (74.8 kg) of twisted steel, and say, the left tackle of the St. Louis Rams. Go Rams!

So, why not simply put in the actual nutritional value of the entire package on the label. I can figure out how much of the package I eat, I can easily find out the daily allowances for someone of my size. It’s not the governments job to lead me to  the water and hold my hand while I drink.

Another example might be the animal husbandry industry. Simply make the producer put a webcam on their livestock and slaughtering pens and make it publicly available. If I know how the animal is treated then it is up to me if I want to save a little money or purchase the more expensive, but better treated, animal.

I’m a believer that government needs to regulate but the purpose is to create a fair playing field so that the best business can succeed, which is a winning formula for you and me.

Tom Liberman

Super Bowl … Saturday?!

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Super Bowl 2012

It’s Super Bowl Sunday and I’m going to use the occasion to examine the question of moving the game day to Saturday. This is an idea I’ve been a proponent of for quite some time and when talking about it with friends I always complained that the NFL was foolish not to adopt it.

For many years I stood by this argument without bothering to further examine why the Super Bowl remained on a Sunday. This demonstrated a fallacy called Ought-Is or Wishful Thinking. Simply put it is the idea that we want something to be true so we therefore believe it is true without critical analysis. The Ought-Is is a pretty common reason why we fail to fully examine situations and make mistakes.

So, let’s put on our Critical Thinking caps and get to work!

The benefits of a Saturday game are fairly self-evident. Parties could occur on Saturday night instead of Sunday night. Bars, hotels, and other venues would get a boost in revenue because the revelry could go on all evening. The game itself would air in the evening rather than late afternoon. People could stay up late without having to go to work the next morning.

Our critical thinking skills come into play to determine why the game, with all these tangible benefits, hasn’t been moved. One of the important aspects of critical thinking is determining who stands to gain and who stands to lose by a particular proposition. In this case the thing I chose to ignore was the idea of who loses with a Saturday game. Can you think of the answer? Take a moment.

Two parties lose by moving the game to Saturday, the NFL and the host city. The process by which the NFL determines the host city does not involve, to my knowledge, a direct cash payment. However, the host city is generally chosen by their “ability to host”. Well, let’s parse that phrase. What the NFL means by “ability to host” is really how much money can they extract from people who come to see the game.

While the NFL benefits from direct ticket sales and certainly from advertising I would imagine that the events surrounding the Super Bowl, including specially built venues to entertain the visitors in around the host city, provide a hefty boost to that income. Most of these special events take place on Saturday with a continuation onto game day. This revenue would certainly decrease with only half a day on Saturday to run before the game.

Likewise, the host city gets more hotel revenue and more tourist revenue by having the game on Sunday. Tourists arrive either late on Friday or early on Saturday and spend the rest of their time spending money. If the game were played on Saturday this would eliminate a full day of tourist revenue. Now, certainly many tourists would stay through Sunday in any case but the loss of revenue would certainly be significant.

Ok, now we’ve uncovered the reason for the game staying on Sunday, can we come up with a solution to the problem? The only real solution that I can think of is to have some sort of national holiday on the Friday before the Super Bowl (if the game is on Saturday) or the Monday after (if the game remains on Sunday). The NFL has proposed such solutions but it seems unlikely that the government will get involved and even if they do, some companies would ignore the holiday and this might curtail some of the revenue generation.

So, for all our critical thinking we don’t have an easy solution. That’s the way of it sometimes but at least I have some peace of mind as to why the game continues to be played on a Sunday.

I would suggest that we all try to use our critical thinking skills when faced with a seemingly absurd situation. Oftentimes you will find that Wishful Thinking has blinded you to the reality of a dilemma.

Tweet, Link, Like, Comment, and all the rest if you think other people might like to read this!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

NFL Pro Bowl – Effort

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The NFL Pro Bowl was a sorry affair according to all who saw it. The idea I want to explore today is exactly what sort of effort was required from the players to make it an entertaining event and how this sort of obligation effects our own lives.

Let’s look at some of the reasons the players would choose not to play hard.

  1. Professional Football is a particularly violent sport and injuries are common.
  2. The game has no effect on the standings of the teams.
  3. Football is a team sport and the players are unfamiliar with one another and have had little time to practice.

I think we can all see the power of the first argument and the fact that players don’t want to risk career ending injuries in a game of this nature. The baseball All Star game fell prey to this same malaise, so much so that a new rule was created to enliven the game. The NHL All Star game has long been a showcase for offense with defense taking a back seat and the normal fierce body checking all but eliminated.  The NBA All Star game is such that pregame events are more exciting than the game itself.

The other two arguments resonate with me as well and I do see good reason to, at least, play a bit more easily and let the offensive stars showcase their talent.

Now let’s see what motivations the players have to play hard football.

  1. It’s entertaining for the fans.
  2. Professional pride in doing their job.

The first argument is a tough one to nail down because not all fans are entertained by the same thing. Some fans love a defensive struggle while others like an high scoring, high flying game. It’s fair to say that most fans came away from this year’s Pro Bowl feeling dissatisfied.

I think it is also accurate that interest in the various All Star game has declined, probably because of the exposure the players get on multiple media outlets. Twenty years ago All Star games were a chance for people to see the stars of other teams for the first time. Now, we can see them pretty much as often as we desire.

Professional pride is an interesting argument as well. I’m all about professional pride but when the outcome of my efforts make no difference, or very little difference, it does become hard to put forward maximum effort. I think the world would be a better place if we all gave it our best but it is unrealistic to expect people to work their hardest under every circumstance.

I suppose, in conclusion, the lesson to be learned is that when the value of an event is reduced it is only natural to expect  people to put forward less effort and there are probably few artificial ways around this fact. We can try to assign value to something but people generally see through such subterfuge.

If you want people to put forward their best effort then there has to be good reason for them to want to do so. This goes for business projects, school, sport, and most aspects of life.

So get out there and give people good reason to shine and you might be surprised by the result.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

St. Louis Rams Football Fortunes

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I’ve been blogging about critical thinking, disasters, personal responsibility, and other topics the last couple of days so I thought I’d take on something important this time … my beloved St. Louis Rams!

You can stop laughing now … no … I’m serious … this isn’t a joke … that is to say the blog isn’t a joke … the Rams … we’ll I’ve heard them called worse than a joke.

We fired yet another coach and now in St. Louis the debate begins. Is the new coach any good? Are the coordinators any good? Who will they draft with the second pick? Should they trade it for more picks?

I love sports and I truly enjoy the endless speculation that it engenders. Did the manager make the right move? Who is to blame for the loss? The only thing I don’t like this the mean spirited attacks against a particular coach or player but I’ll save that for a blog about why some people enjoy being filled with hate. For this blog I’ll stick to the topic at hand.

We’ve had a bad run of it here with the Rams the last five years with only the memories of the Greatest Show on Turf years to sustain us through the dark days. Coach Vermeil retired after the Super Bowl year and things were okay for a while under Coach Martz but soon everything fell apart in an ugly way.

So, what do I think about the new hire and our prospects for the future. I’m optimistic. I think the team was better than they played last year but a brutal schedule (most difficult in the NFL, six games more difficult than the next most) and a good number of injuries really piled up on them. No excuses, we weren’t a good team.

I think that’s what I love most about sports. We can spin why were good or how we got unlucky but the bottom line is the result. No one gives us a win because our father runs the company, no one puts a few more points on the board because of a little misfortune. You win and you lose and that’s determined in a quantitative fashion. If you have more points you win. If you don’t, you lose. So, we got more yards than our opponents, held the ball longer, outplayed them, none of it matters and that is one of brutal beauties of sport.

I hope for the best with my Rams, yes, “my Rams”, that’s the way I feel about it. They are my team, rain or shine, and I’ll root for them unless they move to Los Angeles or London. As I said, I’m optimistic and I think we’re going to win some games next year, maybe even 9 – 7 or 10 – 6. Call me a fool, a hopeless dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Go Rams!

Tom Liberman
Sword and sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist