Nasty Brawl, Tarnished Images

Dear George,

I’ve been a UC basketball fan since we came here in the late 1960’s. Oscar Robertson, perhaps the greatest college player of all times, starred for UC’s team from 1958 to 1960, and the school won national championships in 1961 and 1962. Part of that tradition is the Crosstown Shootout, the annual game between UC and local rival, Xavier University. Cincinnati’s two Division One college teams are frequently ranked in the top 25 in the country, and the inter-city matchup between schools a mere two miles apart involves the closest proximity of major college basketball rivalries in the nation. Xavier is a smaller, Jesuit university with a higher academic ranking and more of an elitist private school feel about it. UC is a much larger public university with slightly more of a blue collar aura. Members of the two teams play summer basketball together, know one anothers’ games well, and are eager to establish local bragging rights. The game has been going on since 1927, and UC has had the upper hand overall (48 vs. 31 victories). Xavier, however, had won 8 of the last 12 games, and, enjoying a No. 8 national ranking so far this year, they have been the clear favorite this time around. The competition was intensified the week beforehand when controversial local talk-radio show host Andy Furman interviewed UC guard Sean Kilpatrick and elicited Kilpatrick’s opinion that he was superior to Xavier’s All-American guard, Tu Holloway (who Kilpatrick suggested wouldn’t even be able to start on UC’s team).

Saturday’s game started off very closely for the first fifteen minutes – 8 ties and 6 lead changes. Then, with about five minutes left in the half, Tu Holloway sank a three-pointer which began a 12-0 run for Xavier. Xavier went on to outscore UC 42-28 in the second half, resulting in one of the largest blowouts in the series’ history, 76-53. With 15 seconds left in the game Holloway said something to UC’s bench as he ran down the court. Later he reported, “I was just saying that it’s my city right here. I’m cut from a different cloth. None of those guys on that team are like me.” With 9.4 seconds left, Holloway and UC freshman Ge’Lawn Guyn engaged in a heated verbal exchange, and XU freshman Dezmine Wells shoved Guyn to the floor. Both benches emptied, and players from the two teams engaged in an all-out brawl, pushing, shoving, and throwing elbows and punches, while coaches and staff members tried to break up the fight. During the melee 6’-9” UC senior center and star Yancy Gates landed a Mike Tyson-like punch over the left eye of 7-foot Xavier center Kenny Frease, and another of UC’s big men, junior Cheikh Mbodj, kicked Frease after he had fallen to the ground. When Frease was helped up, the left side of his face was bathed in blood. The officials declared the game over, and Holloway got on top of the scorers’ table, yelling about the victory. Eventually the two teams were escorted from the floor in what had become a tense and dangerous situation.

The respective coaches and university officials quickly issued strong statements condemning the outbreak. UC coach Mick Cronin said, “There is no excuse for any of it, on our side, on their side…We accept full responsibility. It will be handled. There is zero excuse for that in basketball. You’ve got to learn how to win on one side. You’ve got to learn how to lose on the other side.” Xavier coach Chris Mack allowed his starting guards, Holloway and Mark Lyons, to do post-game interviews (a move that he later regretted), and neither player expressed any sort of apology. Holloway said that the game’s hostile atmosphere was due to Kilpatrick’s statements in his earlier radio interview with Andy Furman: “We got disrespected a little bit before the game, guys calling us out. We’re a tougher team. We’re grown men over here. We’ve got a whole bunch of gangsters in the locker room, not thugs but tough guys on the court. We went out there and zipped them up at the end of the game.” Mark Lyons added, “At the end of the day, if someone puts their hands in your face or tries to do something to you, where we’re from, we’re going to do something back. We’re not going to sit there and get our face beat in by somebody like Yancy Gates or somebody like that”

A day later UC issued six-game suspensions for Gates, Mbodj, and one of the freshman players who had swung punches, as well as a one-game suspension for Guyn who had been involved in the initial confrontation. Xavier suspended Wells for four games; Lyons and a walk-on player for two games; and Tu Holloway for one game. Players publicly apologized or retracted earlier statements. The Hamilton County prosecutor’s office announced it was exploring the possibility of felony charges.

The brawl elicited a lot of distress on many people’s parts: the players, the coaches, university officials, alumni and fans, reporters, and the general public. While the media took a moralistic tone, they also provided nonstop coverage of the incident, including Internet videos of the brawl, blogs, and endless hours of talk radio discussion. Everybody got some of the blame: the fighting players themselves, the coaches (who didn’t take their starters out of the game near the end when the game was essentially over), the referees (who failed to take steps to reduce mounting tempers), Xavier student fans (whose relentless taunting of the UC bench and coaches contributed to the scene), excessive pre-game hype from the media, and the university’s sports programs themselves. Some observed that incidents like this don’t happen at Harvard vs. Princeton games. Players’ reputations and even their potential professional prospects were damaged, as were images of the two universities and their athletic programs. Some have proposed that the game be cancelled in the future. Questions were raised whether UC and Xavier were recruiting athletes who met their schools’s standards, whether the intensity of inter-collegiate athletics has exceeded all reasonable bounds, and whether glorification of power, violence, and hyper-masculinity necessarily results in destructive consequences. On the other hand, it’s easy to get carried away with moralizing. Some fans noted that it’s not that unusual for team sports events to erupt in fighting. Maybe if Gates’s punch hadn’t bloodied Frease’s cheek and it hadn’t been captured on color TV screens, the whole event would have faded away by now. I do think that the statements and actions by the respective universities were appropriate, that the offending players need to take their medicine, and that various parties should examine what sort of adjustments can minimize a recurrence of the happening. Then it’s time to move on. I guess I’ll still cheer for the UC Bearcats.

Love,

Dave

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer (multiple stories at www.news.cincinnati.com, Dec. 10-12, 2011)

G-mail Comments

-Phyllis S-S (12-13): Dave, Wow - you make it come alive. I'm glad I wasn't there though. I hate seeing that stuff…. Phyllis

V and L: NOLA Sweeties, Age Three

V and L in their double stroller

Dear George,

Our granddaughter V and grandson L turned three in September. We hadn’t seen the children since May, and we were excited to spend Thanksgiving in New Orleans. V and L are growing up very quickly. As a duo, they sang the alphabet song, recited the pledge of allegiance, and counted to ten in Spanish. They can operate the remote for the cable TV (which we never figured out) and are working on using their dad’s I-phone. They’ve also gotten to the stage where they’re good playmates with each other and much more able to communicate. K and J are model parents -- loving, involved, creative, sensitive, and fully enjoying their kids. It’s not an easy responsibility. Having been a parent in a one-child family, I’d say two kids the same age are a much more complicated task. There aren’t many breaks during the children’s ever-busy waking hours. However, J and K remain remarkably calm and supportive -- I don’t think either one of them raised their voice a single time. They delight in the children so much that even the hard stuff becomes fun. The children have become still more sociable since we last saw them. V, in particular, seems very adept for her age. When we went to a big Thanksgiving potluck dinner, she mixed among all the adults with ease. On the way to the party, V had picked a little blue flower, and, when we passed a young woman sitting on her steps, V handed her the flower and said, “I picked this for you.” You could see the young woman’s heart melt right on the spot. L, too, has become much more outgoing and secure than he was six months ago. Here are some photos of these cutie-pies which give a sense of their lives at age three.

Love,

Dave

Katja with V and Iko

We did some baby-sitting our first full day while J and K were at work. Katja was a little nervous beforehand, but once V told her how much she loved “Nana”, all anxieties evaporated.

Katja, V, and L watch "Diego"

The children watch some TV each day, and they sit motionless, entirely transfixed. They introduced us to “Diego” and “Dora”, and we became transfixed too.

At the Lemonade Parade

We walked up to Carrolton Ave. and discovered the Lemonade Parade smoothie shop. V and L split a strawberry Smoothie, and Katja had one too. I initially declined, but then decided to have a dish of chocolate ice cream. V and L, of course, immediately decided that chocolate ice cream was the best. I wound up sharing, though I insisted that children take a drink of their smoothies before each spoonful of ice cream.

Two angels take a nap

The children get up really early, and after hours of high paced activity they’re ready for a nap. They drift off without a peep like little angels.

Feeding the ducks at City Park

One afternoon K took us to City Park which is a short drive from their house. There’s a fun playground, a Peristyle guarded by huge sculpted lions, and a flock of ducks who are happy to chase after a never-ending supply of bread crumbs.

Busy at Cooking School

“Cooking School” is a favorite activity at home. L and V were pretty accomplished at measuring out the flour, breaking eggs with their hands, and mixing it all together. I didn’t taste the finished product, but the children gobbled it up.

L is an excellent eater

My vague impression is that the children eat all the time. They zoom around at such a rapid pace that they need a lot of fuel, and they snack all day long. Unlike lots of children who can be more picky, V and L eat everything. Fruits and vegetables, nuts, granola bars, hummas, crackers, eggs, chicken, etc.

V greets Mr. Okra

Mr. Okra, New Orleans’ last traveling fruit and vegetable vendor, made his weekly rounds one day, and V ran out to greet him. Mr. Okra knows V and L by name, and they had a friendly exchange.

V and L on the Panther

We went to the zoo in Audubon Park one afternoon, another of the children’s favorite outings. It’s a beautiful setting because of the palm trees, live oaks, and tropical foliage, and the children loved the animals, whether real or sculpted.

Cotton candy at the Circus

There’s nothing that lends more magic to the circus than a pair of three-year-olds. I’d forgotten how wonderful cotton candy can be. Not to mention the wild tigers, trained elephants, trapeze artists, and motorcycle daredevils.

Building the gingerbread house

K brought home a gingerbread house package from the store, and the children enthusiastically helped to build it. Because of a few mishaps, it took some duct tape to get the structure to hold together, but it was a big success nonetheless.

V’s photo of Mom and Grandpa

V decided she was tired of being photographed, but would rather take the photographs herself. I gave her my digital camera, and (at age 3) she took this picture of her Mom and Grandpa. You can tell that the adults thought this was fun.

Leo climbs on Grandpa (photo by JML)

A nice thing about little kids, like doggies, is that there’s a lot of affection shown through physical contact. I enjoyed reading the Times-Picayune while L enjoyed climbing on my back.

V stomps her foot

Even though V didn’t want to have her picture taken any more, she became more cooperative when I captured her stomping her foot on the dining room table. L, in the meantime, shows the kind of concentration abilities that suggests that one day he’ll be a prominent scholar.

Family breakfast at the Ruby Slipper

We all went out to breakfast at the Ruby Slipper, right down the street. V and L have reached an age where they can do pretty well eating out, and they elicited many admiring reactions from the public.

Grandkids and grandparents

All in all, we had a wonderful time. Now we’re sad to be away, but look forward to our next get-together.

G-mail Comments

-Phyllis S-S (12-9): dear Dave, They are soooooooo adorable. You look very happy being with them… Phyllis

-Gayle C-L (12-9): David, What a great trip you had w the family.

The last photo w you Katya and the kids is just great! Everyone looks great and the kids have really grown:) Looking forward to your next letter:)

Lots of love, G

Report from NOLA: 1. Mid-City, Looking Good

Dear George,

Katja and I are recently back from a wonderful Thanksgiving visit to New Orleans to see our son and daughter-in-law, J and K, and our darling grandchildren, V and L. Their house is in the middle of Mid-City, which in turn is in the middle of New Orleans, about halfway between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. K and J live just two blocks away from Canal Street, so we could walk a short distance, hop on the bright red trolley, and, for forty cents apiece, enjoy a 2.5-mile ride to the French Quarter. Mid-City is a largely residential area, off the beaten track for tourists except during Jazzfest. It’s a hip, mixed income, well-integrated neighborhood with lots of young families. It’s bounded by N. Broad St., Orleans Ave., City Park Ave., and the I-10 Expressway. Canal St. runs through its center, and N. Carrollton Ave. and Jefferson Davis Parkway cut across it.

I spent some time every day walking around the neighborhood because I’d adopted the role of official dogwalker for the family pooches, Titus and Iko. I was particularly taken with Mid-City’s architecture which is unlike anything we have in Cincinnati. The majority of the buildings are double shotgun houses which date back to the late 1800s and which are decorated with wooden "gingerbread" ornaments. Shotgun houses are long and narrow and get their name because one supposedly can shoot a shotgun through the front door and it will exit the rear door without ever touching a wall in between. Mid-City borders City Park with its Art Museum and Sculpture Garden and is home to numerous excellent restaurants and bars, some of the city’s finest old cemeteries, and the Mid-City Lanes Rock N Bowl where J and K introduced us to Zydeco dancing years ago. The levee breech at the 17th Street Canal following Hurricane Katrina resulted in massive flooding of the neighborhood with virtually all of its buildings heavily damaged or destroyed. Like most local homeowners, J and K, who had just bought their first house two years before the hurricane, had to entirely gut the interior and rebuild from scratch. Mid-City has led New Orleans in housing reconstruction, and a casual observer might not even realize that the nation’s most devastating natural disaster occurred here just six years ago.

I took the photos below in J and K’s immediate neighborhood, mainly between Jeff Davis and Carrollton and between Canal St. and Palmyra. It’s a fun and interesting place in which to stroll around. Lots of dogs, cats snoozing on the stoops, palm trees and live oaks, tropical flowers, kids at play, friendly people, and interesting houses. Here are some of the scenes that caught my eye.

Love,

Dave

SOURCES FOR INFO ON MID-CITY:

www.city-data.com (“Mid-City New Orleans”)

www.gnocdc.org ("Mid-City Neighborhood Snapshot")

www.mcno ("Mid-City New Orleans Neighborhood Organization")

www.wikipedia.org ("Mid-City New Orleans")

www.wikitravel.org ("New Orleans/Mid-City and Esplanade Ridge")

G-Mail Comments:

-Vicki L (12-5): HI David, Thanks for the photos of J and K's neighborhood- great to get a feel for where they're living. Such troopers. Glad you had a good trip… Love to Katja, you, Mike and Duffy. Sis

-Donna D (12-4): this was great david. wonderful pictures! donna

I Scream, You Scream...

The Ideal Dairy, Highway 577, Menominee, Mich.

Dear George,

If I try to imagine what heaven is like, I get a picture of winding gold-paved streets lined on both sides with gigantic self-serve ice cream stands. There’s every conceivable flavor, from mocha bean to maraschino cherries in peanut butter; gallons of toppings; and an endless supply of whipped cream, peanuts, bananas, and M&M’s. Nobody watches over you, and it’s all free. You can eat as much as you want. I guess that vision means that there’s hardly anything that’s as pleasurable as ice cream. That feeling is undoubtedly due to my family history. My dad was born in Marinette, Wisc., so we children were born with DNA from the Dairy State. We ate lots of cheese in our house, my parents’ favorite being Steve’s Cheese from Denmark, Wisc. Katja and I still buy a couple of bricks of Steve’s Cheese every time we pass through the Green Bay airport. As kids we guzzled down big glasses of milk whenever we were thirsty. Every couple of days the Ideal Dairy delivery man pulled into our driveway, picked up the metal rack of empty milk bottles from the utility room, and left a half dozen new quarts. Each bottle had an inch of thick cream at the top, and you needed to shake it well to get the milk and cream mixed together. The motto on the Ideal bottle read, “For Mothers Who Care.” We youth would question our mother about whether that was really true, and she would simply smile.

The Ideal Dairy was up the road from us on Highway 577, right at the city limits. It was good for milk, but it was sensational for ice cream. My father would bundle the family into our car and take us to the Idol, as he called it. They would have about twenty flavors on hand – the conventional ones, e.g., vanilla, chocolate, strawberry – plus numerous specials of the week. My favorite was Lemon Flake. I still salivate when I think about it. Since I left Menominee in the mid-1950’s I’ve never seen anything that comes close to the Ideal Dairy’s Lemon Flake. Their ice cream cones cost two dips for a nickel, and we were allowed to get four dips as long as we could eat it all. When I became a teenager I’d ride my bike home from school past the Ideal, buy six dips of Lemon Flake, and balance the whole thing while I rode home steering the bike with my left hand and eating my cone with my right. My dad always observed that ice cream was a dairy product and hence one of the healthiest things you could put into your body.

At home we frequently had ice cream for dessert. Vic would ask ahead of time what we wanted him to pick up at the grocery store, and we always wanted Sealtest Neopolitan since you got chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla all in one. As the oldest child, I had the task of dividing up a pint for the four children. Vicki and Peter were the youngest, so I’d split off a third of the pint and divide it in half for them. Family rules then called for me to split the remaining ice cream into two parts and give my younger brother Steven first choice between the pieces. You never saw such precise cutting. It was usually impossible to tell which slice was larger, but, if I made a slight mistake, there would be a lot of hooting and hollering. One time I took our two-thirds of the pint and split it into two drastically unequal parts, e.g., 80% and 20%. Steven was taken aback and didn’t know what to do. He sat and looked at it for quite a while, laughed nervously, and finally took the 20% piece for himself and gave me, his older brother, 80%. I felt a twinge of guilt, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment.

Our most thrilling family ice cream outings would occur when my dad would take us all to town to my Uncle Kent’s Menominee drug store after hours. Vic had a key to the front door, and we’d all go in and run to the soda fountain. We were allowed to be totally in charge of making our own ice cream sundaes. The only rule was that we had to eat everything we made for ourselves. My typical sundae would have six or seven different scoops of ice cream with multiple toppings, e.g., chocolate, butterscotch, raspberry, strawberry, pineapple, peach, caramel. Sometimes I’d bring along a ripe banana to turn it all into a gigantic banana split with whipped cream topping and nuts. In my entire life I can’t think of anything as exciting as being let loose in the soda fountain. This is probably where my fantasies about heaven come from.

Softserve ice cream was invented when I was a teenager, but it was viewed with disdain in our dairy-oriented culture. It might have actually been banned in Wisconsin. It was definitely the case that margarine was illegal in our sister state. As a consequence, some enterprising soul opened up a Margarine Store at the foot of the Interstate Bridge in Menominee so migrants from Wisconsin could cross the bridge and buy the forbidden substance. Even in Michigan the margarine was legally required to be white rather than yellow to avoid any suggestion it might be equivalent to butter. There were no softserve stores in Marinette. Our local Menominee softserve shop was on Ogden Avenue, five or six blocks down the street from the Interstate Bridge. It’s still there, some sixty years later. As a teenager I’d ride in from river house on my bicycle, looking to see if there were any girls to talk to on Ogden Ave. and wind up buying a softserve cone. On the way back home I’d have to pass Riverside Cemetery on a moonlit night, and I’d pedal as fast as I could. I still can visually recall the terrifying scene.

In college Katja asked me to teach her how to drive. I tried riding with her once as her teacher, but I couldn’t stand it emotionally. Instead I gave her the keys to my car with its automatic transmission, and she drove by herself four blocks straight down Yellow Springs Avenue to the Dairy Queen stand. She’d enjoy a cone, then make a U-turn and drive four blocks straight back. After weeks of solo practice sessions she’d become a reasonably proficient, self-taught driver, at least as long as it involved going in a straight line down the street to the Dairy Queen. She waited to get her driver’s license in Menominee because they didn’t ask you to parallel park and, as the prosecuting attorney’s daughter-in-law, she count count on being treated with kid gloves by the police.

After we got married and moved to Ann Arbor, we’d always have a half gallon of ice cream in our refrigerator freezer. Once in a while, I’d eat the entire half gallon in a single sitting. One year I went in for my annual physical exam, and my doctor asked me about putting on weight. He wondered if I were eating a lot of sweets. I told him no, I never ate any sweets at all. After a short pause, I mentioned that I normally eat half a pint of ice cream for dessert each day. The doctor looked at me incredulously. He asked if I didn’t consider ice cream a sweet. I said no, that ice cream was a dairy product. It’s just about the healthiest thing you can eat for your bones and your teeth. The doctor shook his head. He didn’t realize that that’s what you learn when you grow up right next door to Wisconsin.

Love,

Dave

P.S. I assume that the title of this posting is self-explanatory. Just in case, it refers to the first two lines of a poem that we used to chant in unison as children:

I scream,

You scream,

We all scream

For Ice Cream!

The Costs of Dominance

Mike (left ) and Duffy at the Clifton fountain

Dear George,

One can learn a lot from watching dogs interact with one another. Our sheepdogs, Mike and Duffy, have such different personalities, and that plays out in their every encounter. I used to think that all social behavior was learned, but, because of the dogs, I’m much more struck by the role of genetics. Katja bought Mike and Duffy when they were eight weeks old, and it seems to me that they’re pretty much the same way that they were in infancy. As puppies, Duffy was the alpha dog from the very start, pushing Mikey around with his aggressive behaviors. Mike has always been more gentle and laid back. Here are some of the concrete ways that the dogs differ in adulthood:

Duffy listens to a sound in the forest

What Duffy does more of:

Goes out the door first; comes back in first

Goes up and down the stairs first

Leads the way on the street

Pulls harder on the leash

Starts eating more quickly; finishes eating first

Pees first; poops first

Plays with (and thinks he owns) all the toys in the house

Chases and retrieves the thrown ball

Starts the barking at dogs passing outside the window

Acts more aggressively toward dogs on the street

Is wary of other dogs, avoidant, hyper-vigilant

Is more cautious toward strangers

Occasionally attacks Mike (over food, toys, excitement, etc.)

Is terrified of skateboards and firecrackers

Mike takes a rest break

What Mike does more of:

Submits to Duffy (usually)

Goes up to people on the street

Approaches other dogs

Plays more with their sister Sophie when Sophie visits

Licks little children on the face

Likes to wiggle through people’s legs

Lies on his back with his four paws in the air

Licks humans’ toes

Is calmer and more mellow in public

Various social psychologists have suggested that there are two major dimensions of human social relationships, (a) dominance-submission and (b) affection-hostility. These seem to apply to dogs too. Duffy clearly occupies the dominant position in our household’s two-dog pack; Mike, the submissive position. This is evident in just about everything. Toys are a salient example. Duffy considers just about all the toys in the house as his own, and Mike puts himself at risk of attack if he so much as approaches a toy on the floor. Duffy spends hours playing with his rubber kong, pushing it under a cabinet or a pile of clothes to present himself with a challenge. Mike lies passively and watches his brother play. Just recently Duffy has allowed Mike to have one toy of his own, a hard white ball with purple bumps in it. Mike takes it into the bed out of Duffy’s view, grasps it between his paws, and licks it with enthusiasm and apparent gratitude for his good fortune.

Duffy (left) and Mike at Mt. Storm park

On the affection dimension, Mike is unquestionably the friendlier of the two dogs. While both dogs act positively toward Katja and myself, Mike shows more friendly behaviors toward other human beings and other dogs, and consequently he receives more friendly responses in return. Duffy, by comparison, is wary of contact and more aloof. I think it’s likely that Duffy sees new contacts as a contest for domination and consequently finds them dangerous. So when strangers come up to pet the dogs, Mike readily moves toward them, while Duffy tends to move away and stand behind me. Usually I tell people that Mike is my friendly dog, Duffy is my shy dog, and it’s better to pet Mike than Duffy.

Duffy (left) and Mike on Ludlow Avenue

In these ways, then, the dogs live in two quite different worlds, both with their own sets of rewards and costs. Duffy enjoys various benefits of high status, e.g., ownership of valued objects, first priority in just about everything, exerting control and getting his way. But, at the same time, the world is a dangerous place for Duffy, since he has to establish his position through physical aggression and is consequently more likely to be the recipient of aggression. Particularly in the outside world, where adversaries are unknown and dominance relationships are yet to be established, Duffy is continually on guard and anxious. Because the world seems so hazardous, Duffy experiences a lot more tension. He’s probably a candidate to get an ulcer.

Duffy (foreground) and Mike on the creekbed at Mt. Airy Forest

It might seem, at first glance, that Mike loses out. He doesn’t get to play with the toys, he doesn’t get to retrieve the thrown ball, and he has to wait for his second turn at the water fountain. Basically, he has to submit to Duffy’s superiority in most areas of their daily lives. Mike, however, does receive a lot more social rewards. Because he’s prone to submission, he doesn’t elicit competition or hostility from others, and consequently he approaches other people and dogs (and is approached by them) with a more relaxed, unthreatening air. Thus, dominance proves to be a two-edged sword. In effect, Duffy gets the physical rewards, Mike gets the social rewards. Duffy also incurs a lot more overt costs by virtue of being leader of the pack. It would be nice if it were possible to be both dominant and to give and receive a lot of affection. But apparently the world doesn’t operate that way. I think that both Mike and Duffy enjoy pretty good lives. But they are markedly different.

Love,

Dave

G-mail Comments

-Vicki L (11-26): Hi D, Given your current theory, how would you compare the costs/benefits of your and Steven's

differing personality styles? Eager to hear. Hope you had a wonderful trip to N.O. and a festive Thanksgiving. Love, Vicki