2008 Woodie Awards
I thought the Air Jordan brand made basketball a universal sport -- apparently Rome didn't get the memo
Matt Kiebus
Issue date: 2/26/08 Section: Sports
By Matt Kiebus
Columnist
ROME -- If you are a middle-of-the-road pick-up basketball player with limited high school experience, a vertical leap of two centimeters and looking for a self-esteem boost, consider playing against some Italians.
Now, to clarify, by "Italians" I mean "Romans," who dribble a lot better with their feet than their hands.
Everywhere you go in the United States you can find a basketball court, especially in a city. In fact, the game is so diverse in the States you can find various levels of competition suitable to your skill level and experience.
There are the up-tempo games with young, athletic, good players, to half-court games with middle-aged balding guys. And for the novices out there, there's always a "jungle-juice" court with a little bit of everything: skill level, gender, age, color, creed. (This is normally a favorite court because of the satisfaction people receive from swatting an 8-year-old girl's shot into the street where a car proceeds to run the ball over. True story.)
But I digress.
It is impossible to find a public court inside the city walls of Rome. A few days ago I strolled through my neighborhood for over two hours looking for a place to shoot around. I walked the streets with my new European outdoor basketball and the Space Jam soundtrack thumping on my iPod. I was so ready … and so American. I might as well have been wearing the stars and stripes as a cape.
Jogging and dribbling around the neighborhood resulted in confused glares from the natives.
A couple Italian teens actually took my basketball to demonstrate their "Ronaldino-like football skills." Basically, they played "keep away from the American" then proceeded to punt the ball 30 yards - - wait, 27.1 meters. We then exchanged pleasantries, meaning I introduced them to a few of my favorite English words. We all had a good chuckle.
I even considered telling them soccer was stupid.
All of a sudden -- my useless movie knowledge kicking in -- I was reminded of Canadian Bacon: The scene at the hockey game during the Canadian national anthem when John Candy's friend remarks that Canadian beer sucks, and then everything stops and an entire nation starts fighting with four Americans.
Columnist
ROME -- If you are a middle-of-the-road pick-up basketball player with limited high school experience, a vertical leap of two centimeters and looking for a self-esteem boost, consider playing against some Italians.
Now, to clarify, by "Italians" I mean "Romans," who dribble a lot better with their feet than their hands.
Everywhere you go in the United States you can find a basketball court, especially in a city. In fact, the game is so diverse in the States you can find various levels of competition suitable to your skill level and experience.
There are the up-tempo games with young, athletic, good players, to half-court games with middle-aged balding guys. And for the novices out there, there's always a "jungle-juice" court with a little bit of everything: skill level, gender, age, color, creed. (This is normally a favorite court because of the satisfaction people receive from swatting an 8-year-old girl's shot into the street where a car proceeds to run the ball over. True story.)
But I digress.
It is impossible to find a public court inside the city walls of Rome. A few days ago I strolled through my neighborhood for over two hours looking for a place to shoot around. I walked the streets with my new European outdoor basketball and the Space Jam soundtrack thumping on my iPod. I was so ready … and so American. I might as well have been wearing the stars and stripes as a cape.
Jogging and dribbling around the neighborhood resulted in confused glares from the natives.
A couple Italian teens actually took my basketball to demonstrate their "Ronaldino-like football skills." Basically, they played "keep away from the American" then proceeded to punt the ball 30 yards - - wait, 27.1 meters. We then exchanged pleasantries, meaning I introduced them to a few of my favorite English words. We all had a good chuckle.
I even considered telling them soccer was stupid.
All of a sudden -- my useless movie knowledge kicking in -- I was reminded of Canadian Bacon: The scene at the hockey game during the Canadian national anthem when John Candy's friend remarks that Canadian beer sucks, and then everything stops and an entire nation starts fighting with four Americans.
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