Is a female Mike Tyson possible?

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, sports, sociology, gender issues, women's issues, polemics

Korfball is a coed version of basketball that arose in the Netherlands in 1902. Each team sends four players on court. It is the only international coed team sport, so far.

At the end of The Stronger Sex: What Science Tells Us About the Power of the Female Body, author Starre Vartan presents korfball as an example of the possible, a truly coed sport. The primary sex-based rules of the game are that men guard men and women guard women, and that each on-court team consists of two of each. Other than that, both men and women pass the ball (dribbling isn't allowed) freely to team members of either sex, both men and women guard, both men and women shoot and score, and so forth.

This book drops right into the middle of the controversies over "men in women's sports," and the debates about why (or where) it might or might not be fair. Ms Vartan's thesis: give girls the same opportunities to learn sports as the boys have, beginning in toddlerhood, and we'll find out if they can compete on the same level. At the moment, systemic sexism is infinitely more prevalent than systemic racism (my language, not hers, but I think she'd agree).

Let me say that the great majority of those who "identify" as this or that "gender" are lying or insane. They are making it harder for the truly trans to receive compassionate counsel and care. They are very few. The number of those who are now detransitioning (or want to) probably greatly outnumbers those who make a successful transition. But after a full transition, surgery and all, successful transitioners will never reproduce.

There is a turning point in every life, a process we all pass through, that is expressed in the pairs of words, "boy - man", "girl - woman". It is puberty. Some time between age 10 and 16 (for me it was 12), hormone production ramps up and secondary sex characteristics develop over a span of 3-5 years. Before that, boys and girls can develop equal skills and equal strength. Afterwards, nothing is the same. Some child athletes become adult klutzes; some awkward children grow into athletic adults; but more likely, the sporty kids become sportier adults, and the rest become spectators…and some, like me, do our best to ignore sports, from birth to death (when our son played on various teams, I would attend the games and cheer him on. Otherwise, I don't care).

When our son was about eight he took gymnastics classes for about a year. In the end, he preferred running sports (soccer, track, and roller hockey). But I noticed something while observing his gymnastics classes. Puberty messes up the kids, but in different ways. Both boys and girls get more awkward. Boys' legs seem to shoot out ahead of their torsos, and it takes them a couple of years to relearn balance and coordination. Girls' hips thicken and their busts get heavier, which throws off their balance in a different way; it takes them the same couple of years to accommodate. The "lucky" girl gymnasts (if you want to call it that) retain a boyish body into adulthood with small busts and narrow hips. These are the most likely to become career athletes.

Excuse me if this seems crass: A woman whose bra has F cups is not going to be a talented athlete. You male athletes, try this: F-size breasts weigh five pounds each; strap two five-pound pot roasts to your chest and go exercise. Instant Klutz! Curiously, nowhere in Stronger Sex did I find a word about the effect of breast mass on athletic performance.

The great value in the book is the mass of data the author has gathered, or more frequently, gleaned, about the various strengths of female bodies. Briefly, nature has endowed women with extra "powers" to ensure they can carry, bear, nurture and raise offspring successfully. Where they stand out is in endurance, in the ability to bear pain even though they seem to feel it more intensely, in a stronger immune system, and in fueling exercise differently from men. But one significant fact must be kept in mind: A fit male body contains on average 15% fat, while a fit female body contains on average 25% fat. 

Putting that into practical terms, a woman of a given height and strength must weigh more than a man of the same height and strength. For example, consider a welterweight boxer, a man who weighs 144 pounds. He may have less than 15% body fat, but let's assume he actually has 15% fat; that comes to 21.6 pounds, leaving 122.4 pounds of lean body mass. A woman of equal strength and lean body mass, who has 25% body fat, will have 36 pounds of fat and weigh 158.4 pounds. That pushes her into the next weight class. In order to compete as a welterweight she would need to starve herself below 147 pounds, which would probably cause her periods to stop. It would also weaker her overall. But if she and the man were to box together with her weighing 158 pounds to his 144 pounds, she would still be at a disadvantage because moving the extra mass around would tire her out sooner. From this I conclude that boxing is not a sport in which men and women can compete on equal terms. Biochemistry and physiology make that impossible.

Let's jump to the top of the scale. In the 1980s Mike Tyson weighed 220 lbs (100 kg) and had 7% body fat. Probably no woman in history has equal vital statistics. What is the ultimate strength of a woman's body? I was in the mining town of Battle Mountain, Nevada with a team of geologists. We stayed in a hotel across the street from a saloon. The others went to the saloon. I stayed in the room. Late in the evening there was a commotion across the street. I glanced out to see two men fly out and land in the street. When my colleagues returned I got the story. Miners are typically smallish men. These two weighed in the 150# range. They got into a fight. The saloon owner, a very large woman of late middle age, stepped over, grabbed the two by their belts, picked them up and clashed them together like cymbals. Then she carried them to the door, one in each hand, and threw them into the street. I don't know how she would stand up to a heavyweight boxer, but I know I wouldn't care to cross her!

I agree with the author that there are sports at which men and woman can compete on an equal footing. There are others that this is not so. What needs to change is a pervasive culture of "no, they can't" without data or experience to back it up…and very often, "no, they can't" runs contrary to past experience! Sport in particular lends itself to extreme opinions, none of which are correct or even useful. Since the coming of age of the X Generation, X has meant eXtreme. It's time to chill, folks.

So much of Ms Vartan's writing in this book is polemical in nature that it can be hard to read. I'll forbear complaining further, because of its value. Get this book, tighten your belt, and read it for that value.

Fantasy sports cost real cash

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, sports, fantasy sports, gambling, wagering, business

My wild card selection this time is Billion Dollar Fantasy: The High Stakes Game Between FanDuel and DraftKings That Upended Sports in America, by Albert Chen. The book brings together three subjects that are way, way out of my wheelhouse: Fantasy Sports, Wagering, and Business.

I was surprised to learn that daily fantasy sports betting even existed, and amused to find that it was not considered gambling by legal authorities for more than twenty years. I just had to shake my head. I had heard of fantasy football and fantasy baseball, and from what little I heard, they were the season-long variety. I didn't know fantasy sports was a huge field for illegal betting. Had I given it any thought, I could have figured that one out. The cash flow of legal gambling in America is about $160 billion. I expect that illegal gambling is similar in size, or larger.

The book has the story of three businesses among a multitude: seasonal fantasy sports went on for a long time, and continues to be popular, but probably more so among fans of middle and older age. Once technology allowed, some hyper-fans began to build the infrastructure to support game-by-game fantasy lineups. Many such ventures were started. The three groups who obtained major venture capital funding, so as to act as middlemen and facilitate this kind of wagering on a huge scale, were DraftSheet, DraftKings, and FanDuel. Within a few years, DraftKings absorbed DraftSheet, and then there were two. Between them, annual spending for the advertising needed to build a national base approached $1 billion by the middle 2010's.

With that kind of money flowing around, the business overcame the fan-ness. Ironically, FanDuel was founded by five Britons who don't care much for sports. They were entirely into it for the business, for the money. A further irony; they didn't manage to hang on to much of the cash. A facilitator is like a garden hose: full of water when in use, then it empties quickly.

Several trends underlay the drama of this 15+ year narrative. One is the changing regulatory environment, including a Supreme Court decision in 2018 that effectively legalized sports wagering, including fantasy sports and daily fantasy sports (amazingly, they went against strong lobbying by casinos); the matter is remanded to the states to determine what to allow. State-by-state lawmaking is going on right now. Another is a growing demographic of people who have no patience at all. The product of choice among younger bettors is moving from game-by-game to play-by-play ("Will pitcher X throw a curve next?" "Will QB Y pass or run?" "Will cager Z try for a 3-pointer?" "Will skater W pass or shoot?"). The digital infrastructure now exists to support it. Some also stack their bets, with dozens of wagers outstanding at any moment, and certain ploys depending on the outcome of others.  And another is the increasing comfort of venture capitalists to fund FanDuel and its clones and competitors.

Here's the basic business proposition of FanDuel, circa 2014: John Doe and Sam Hill, facilitated by FD's software, have entered a "snake draft" (drafting alternately, and they can't draft the same player); they agree on a point spread for the outcome. Each puts $10 into the pot. The winner gets $19 and FD gets $1. Multiply by 100 million on any game day of your choice. It's amusing that none of the big facilitation companies has yet turned a profit. Advertising is expensive!

I find the entire situation saddening, however. Maybe I don't have the betting gene or something. But I do have three friends whose lives have been damaged or ruined by gambling. One man's marriage ended because he spent all his free time at casinos, places his wife tried to like but soon found abhorrent. Another man has no social life outside the casino, and remains single. A third got into high-stakes poker and other "games", and spent two years in prison for stealing more than a half million from an escrow fund he had access to, to pay off his losses.

The adage to remember: Professional gamblers don't gamble. They know how they will beat you before they meet you.

It was interesting to get a long look into these things. I was glad when the book ended and I could come up for air. One of those experiences I am glad I had, and don't care to repeat.

Demobbing our colleges

kw: sports, corruption

All day I've heard conversations up and down the hall where I work, people arguing over whether the NCAA sanctions on Penn State's football program were too tough, or not enough. I stayed out of it. I am no fan of "big money" school sports programs. They have become the tail wagging the dog (for decades already).

A lot of what is wrong with college sports programs could be solved with a single Federal statute: Admission tickets price capped at $5, and 75% of the money thus generated to go toward well focused scholarships. Oh, yeah: and make ticket scalping a capital offense.

In my college years (which were scattered throughout my 20s and 30s), every school I went to had a football program that begged money from the college almost every year, to upgrade or replace a stadium, or to increase salaries. They had the same arguments every time, about how much the alumni "demanded" it, and how much some of them gave, and how much money the program generated. But in every single damn case, the money that flowed into the sports program stayed there, and none ever flowed back out. The program was just a black hole-money sink.

I recently learned just how highly Mr. Paterno was paid. As great a coach as he was, his pay was obscene! Nobody is worth that kind of money. The amount of money that flows around college sports (I won't even get into pro sports!) simply invites corruption, begs for it, and almost demands it. The corruption comes. When the janitors at PSU knew what was going on, for years, but were afraid they'd lose their jobs if they told the police, you know evil is afoot at the highest levels. And I have no confidence that the new university administrators and sports staff are any better. Give 'em time…

And let's not hear any moaning about how many minority kids might not get a chance at an education if they don't get a sports scholarship. Only about a tenth of them even finish, at most schools. They get to play a year or two, then either slow down, or get hurt, or flunk a class because the coaches won't let them have sufficient study time. A very few youngsters get recruited by professional teams. Most of the rest are discarded. These sorts of practices are a subtle form of racism that needs to be exposed.

There are a very few schools that boast they actually graduate 80% or 90% or more of their athletes. Any school where athletes graduate at a rate less than the school average, ought to have the number of sports scholarships it offers slashed or eliminated.

To all my friends who are PSU alumni: I am sorry for you. You have been needlessly shamed.

High but not the highest

kw: sports

I don't watch sports much, except for the Olympics. But, having lived in Oklahoma prior to moving to the East Coast, I had to watch last night's NBA finals game. Of course, I was rooting for the Thunder, but in the past, I've been for the Heat, even over the 76ers (I don't dare tell my neighbors).

This game was a defenseman's nightmare, an almost pure offensive duel. And I have to hand it to Miami, they played with a steady level of intensity that shows in the scores. As I recall, by quarters, they went 30-59-90-121. This overwhelmed Oklahoma, which had about four points less per quarter, with the final score 121-106.

Ordinarily, particularly at the playoffs level, a score of 106 is a winning score. Not this time. I say, though, hats off to the Thunder, for scoring 106 against the Heat! I wondered, how close was this to a playoff record? It didn't take long to find out, not close at all. The highest combined score was in 1992, when Portland beat Phoenix, 153-151. I makes me wonder how many miles the players ran, back and forth!

Curiously, I recall from my childhood hearing on the radio about a basketball game that was the first in which a team scored above 100. I've tried to find out more about it, but no Google search I have been able to craft has gotten me past the thousands of sites that tout Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point individual effort in 1962. Oh, well. This is the first game I've watched in which a team scored more than 120.

Super yawn but no freedom dawn

kw: current events, sports, politics

Here in the Philadelphia area, about half my colleagues at work are anti-Pittsburgh, and the other half are Steelers fans. Nobody talked about yesterday's game today, however. All the talk I heard was about the ads and the flub by Christine A. I didn't see the game: no cable, and the Fox broadcast doesn't come reliably to my antenna. I watched AFV and the Nature program on PBS instead, and turned in early.

On the Egypt front, the various sides' positions are hardening, and while "only" a couple of hundred deaths have so far resulted, there could be a real blood bath there with the tiniest of sparks. I mourn in advance, and pray. I marvel that the political "dignity" of an 82-year-old despot is more important to him than the lives of so many of his countrymen. That is the proof he is a despot.

The skates of their lives

kw: sports, achievements

I have been watching figure skating for decades, and I still can't tell a Lutz from a toe-loop from a flip. Because the Axel starts forward and lands backward, I can sometimes tell that one. But I can tell when someone is having a good time, and tonight's women's long program showed plenty of that.

There was huge pressure on Kim Yu-Na of Korea to get gold, and she did. But mainly she didn't just exceed her fellow skaters, she exceeded herself. Of the last group of six skaters, she was one of four who skated a personal best. In her case, she also set an Olympic record with her score of 228.

That is what I find satisfying about seeing championship performances: when someone does the best they've ever done, at the right moment. Sure, there may be someone who does even better and gets the top prize, but to exceed yourself is the greatest achievement. That's what this is all about.

Canada bows to reality

kw: observations, statistics, sports

Late yesterday Chris Rudge, of the Canadian Olympic Committee, acknowledged that Canada's "Own the Podium" ambition had been unrealistic. While it is a bit of a surprise that the U.S. is the podium's current owner, it is no surprise that they are ahead of Canada. A little story illustrates why.

A young man of our acquaintance had high hopes upon entering college, of continuing his sports career. He was, in high school, the fastest half-miler and quarter-miler in Delaware. He joined the NCAA and contacted the coaching staff of his chosen college campus in New Jersey. They were lukewarm. He told me, "Just at that school, they have three guys faster than I am, in both events." The population of New Jersey is ten times that of Delaware.

The land area of U.S. and Canada is similar, and there are equal amounts of great winter sports areas. What Canada lacks is people. The population of the U.S. is nearly ten times that of Canada.

Then, you might say, Norway has more Olympic medals than Canada, but has only 1/7th the population. True, but Norway is nearly all world-class mountain terrain. I've been there in Winter, and you need to be an athlete just to get around. Also, the first ten days of Olympic competition have favored the Norwegian athletes. They have longer traditions of the alpine sports. In the next five days, I expect Norway to gain at most one or two more medals, while Canada could well catch up to them.

The real surprise to me is that Russia has so few medals: half the US's total. When Russia constituted half of the USSR, they dominated winter sports. My best guess is that it reflects the great numbers of great athletes that once came from SSR's that are now independent. New countries like Kazakhstan, Latvia and Estonia are winning medals (just a few, true) for themselves now.

The relative poverty of China has kept their pool of world-class athletes rather small, particularly for winter sports. Their Summer Olympic medal count closely matched that of the U.S. This will change as their prosperity increases. In future Olympic competitions, China is the country to watch. I reckon it will be a while before India is any force in the Olympics, for their sports traditions tend toward Cricket and other sports that are not seen there (yet).

Another side thought: I hope American football never becomes an Olympic sport. It just doesn't fit the venue. I still don't see how basketball fits in. Oh, well. I know I'm in the minority on both counts.

A gratifying conclusion

kw: observations, sports, olympics, figure skating

The only time my wife and I watch TV heavily is during Olympics season, now every two years. So of course we watched NBC last evening until we were both falling asleep. Over my lunch break I just went back—now fully awake—and watched the online video of the amazing performance by Shen and Zhao, finally winning a gold medal in this, their last Olympic performance.

We are no experts, but I guess we have picked up something over the years. As other art forms, "We know what we like." We could both tell that this couple's level of artistry was far ahead of the others'. Even though there were a few minor errors, the overall impression was, just, "Wow!" Nobody else there left us with such a satisfied feeling.

While popular sentiment has been strongly behind Shen and Zhao, it was no sentiment that earned them their medal. It was their hard work and that ineffable quality of sheer artistry that so few ever attain. Much of what they did, technically speaking, is learned by many talented skaters; it is what they project, somehow sharing their heart with the audience, that makes them special.

Clipped wings

kw: local events, sports

While attempting to nap this afternoon I turned on the radio for some background noise. I usually have it just loud enough to provide a bit of white noise. But this time I could hear it was the Eagles game. I wound up listening there as I half dozed. I got up in the beginning of the fourth quarter and listened to the rest while doing some chores, hoping the Birds would score some points, any points, but No. They lost to the Cowboys 24-0. I haven't followed the team very consistently, but this was certainly their worst performance in my memory. Now I understand the same two teams play again next week. Hoo-boy!

I learn a bit of football history

kw: corrections, sports

In my prior post I complained (mildly) about the depiction of the football on the book's cover. In a friendly comment a correspondent pointed out that he played football (AKA soccer to us colonials) using just such a ball in the 1950s, and that Terry Pratchett would have used or encountered the same, as he was in school during that same era. I stand corrected. Apparently the hexagon-pentagon pattern ball is a much later innovation. Thank you, sir.

Sporting sciences

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, sports, science

Yes, folks, the results are in: a curveball really curves...a little. The fact is, most pitches curve, in direct proportion to the rate of rotation. The wonder is that there was ever any controversy over baseballs that don't follow purely ballistic paths. They really do interact with the air.

Anyone who has ever watched a game of ping-pong in which two good players put lots of "English" on the ball, knows that a spinning ball curves in the direction that the spin is "backward". In other words, if you slice a ping-pong ball on the right side, so its spin as viewed from above is counter-clockwise, its will curve to your left. The only ball that might not curve would be a "gyroball", with a spiral spin like a well-thrown football...except proponents of the gyboball claim it curves more than all the others. Maybe.

In Why a Curveball Curves: the Incredible Science of Sports, editor Frank Vizard and the writers of Popular Mechanics magazine demystify and elaborate the science behind phenomena in fourteen sports, from baseball, football (both kinds) and golf to swimming, skiing and boxing. Want to know why a hockey puck is called a "puck"? It just may have something to do with Shakespeare. Does "heading" a soccer ball scramble a player's brains? Not nearly as much as "heading" an opponent's head! There just might be helmets in soccer's future...

In the opening chapter on Training, the focus turns to doping, including a section outlining the ten greatest illegal doping scandals. The oldest is still the most famous: The East Germans proved that if you give a woman enough steroids, you turn her into a man with a uterus (as far as sports performance is concerned).

If you give it a little thought, it is no surprise to find that the greatest asset of a hockey goalie is the Eyes. You can't stop the puck if you can't see it, and when you can't see it, you do see what the other players are doing, and can anticipate it anyway. On further thought, I find myself surprised that more attention wasn't given to sight. But it is kinda like air. How many sports can be performed blindfolded or in total darkness? Only mano-a-mano grappling, judo and wrestling for example, come to mind. Of course, there could be no "spectators" then, could there?

A major section of the Swimming chapter is devoted to the newer suits, whether caps help or not, and other innovations aimed at putting more water behind a swimmer, ever faster. We find that the old attitude of keeping the head up to "hydroplane" would not be effective until a speed of 35 mph (~55 kph), so keeping the head down and the hips up is the better strategy...until a swimmer of the future achieves true hydroplane speed!

And what about that famous gyroball? To date, only two hurlers claim to be able to throw one. Whether it curves in a flat plane (rather than a sinking one), as advertised, isn't yet established. But to my mind, it ought to "carry" the way a spiral throw in football does, having less effective drag and being more stable in flight.

To some folks, all this extra knowledge might ruin things. But being a science nut, I find it helps. I am much less of a sports fan than the average guy, so knowing more about how things work just might help me enjoy sports-watching more.