SAINTS BRING VIGOR AND VICTORY

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A few issues ago, I wrote in The Advocate about attending my first professional sports game. After that, I thought about giving a local game a try. So, on Saturday (Feb. 8), I attended the games between our Mt. Hood women’s and men’s basketball teams and the Chemeketa Community College Storm.

I enjoyed both games, but I couldn’t help but notice just how different the experience of basketball was, comparing the women’s game to the men’s game, despite the objective being the same.

Over the course of the women’s game I got to observe the differences between that of a professional game and that of an amateur game. I recall a relative who always described amateur games as trying to explain why 1+1 equals 3 – a waste of time.  However, I did not find myself feeling that way as the women’s basketball game was quite entertaining and subverted the few stereotypes I anticipated would be involved.

You’ll hear talk of how men are physically more aggressive in athletics, whereas women tend to be less explosive in that sort of physical expression. Personally, I found that both games were physically aggressive, in different ways.

I noticed during the women’s game that they displayed more vigor when it came to how they played among themselves. Within the first moments of the first quarter, one of the players was in pain, having fallen to the ground hurting her head rather harshly. I also recall that near the end of the second quarter, one of the players had literally yanked the basketball so hard that her opponent had fallen to the ground due to the force used ( I was recently informed that this was legal).  

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As for men’s basketball, the energy was used differently. In quite literally the first five seconds of the game, one of our Saints had made a successful shot. The men moved faster and they would make shots even farther away from the basket than the girls, and I even saw dunking,  which I did not see in the women’s game. The only instance of any aggression that could’ve resulted in an injury was when one of our players had tripped near the other players while running, almost getting him trampled.

One of the more interesting things that I also noticed was the vigor of the crowd and how many spectators were there during both games.  During the women’s game, the crowd had a reasonable turnout, of about a third to half the seats filled in the MHCC gym. The audience was quiet and I saw many with their phones out that weren’t being used for pictures. While I did hear “You got it, girl!” shouts, presumably from the mothers in the crowd, it wasn’t anywhere close to matching the enthusiasm that fans exhibited during the men’s game, with the seats being three-quarters full.

While I understand why the men’s game was more popular, with their youthful vitality, I enjoyed the women’s game more. I couldn’t help but find that their form of vigor was more exciting (and scary), as I felt that their way of play was far more dynamic.

Regardless, my sense of Mt. Hood patriotism was satisfied as both of our teams claimed victory in these two matches – the Saints women winning, 54-39, and the men, 85-69.