.png)
PHOTO:
LSU’s Angel Reese (10) and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark lifted their sport in the 2023
NCAA women’s Final Four, but the discussion later shifted to taunting.
Visit my website homepage, TomShanahan.Report
By
TOM SHANAHAN
We should be still awash in the glow
surrounding the 2023 LSU-Iowa NCAA women’s basketball title. The parallels with
the 1979 Michigan State-Indiana State men’s championship deserve more
discussion.
When Michigan State’s Magic Johnson
faced Indiana’s State’s Larry Bird, the showdown captivated the nation. The
24.1 TV audience rating remains a record (as does Michigan State’s record TV
audience of 33 million against Notre Dame in the 1966 Game of the Century).
In the aftermath, network broadcast
rights soared. Final Fours were moved from 15,000-seat basketball arenas to
60,000-plus football stadiums. The men’s game has never looked back. Seth
Davis, the acclaimed sportswriter and CBS studio host, wrote a 2010 book about
the game’s impact: “When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball.”
So, what might LSU and Angel Reese
defeating Iowa and Caitlin Clark mean to the women’s basketball’s future? The
game drew a record ESPN TV audience of 9.9 million, including a peak audience
of 12.6 million.
Sadly, though, the blame game
overtook discussions of exciting progress in women’s game credibility. Reese
was unfairly singled out for taunting Clark. The social media world jumped on
Reese, even though two days earlier in the semifinals Clark used the same fake
wrestling taunt against her vanquished opponent, South Carolina.
But don’t blame Reese or Clark.
Blame John Cena, who acts out fake
wrestling scripts, for popularizing a taunt of waving his hand across his face
to say, “You can’t see me.”
When did unsportsmanlike behavior
become cool?
Fake wrestling – please don’t call
it pro wrestling – has sunk its ugly tentacles into legitimate sports. Fake
wrestling is the Kardashians of the sports world – popular and profitable but
shallow.
The other Magic-Bird parallel, of
course, was the elephant in the room.
Reese is Black and from a city
background, Baltimore. Clark is White and from a farm state, Iowa. An
uncomfortable Black vs. White conversation emerged because, well, this is
America. Reese got trapped into a villain’s role.
But it didn’t have to be that way.
Magic is Black and from the city courts in Lansing, Michigan, while Bird is
white and from the countryside, French Lick, Indiana.
Yes, the comparisons are different
since Magic’s effervescent personality and Bird’s dour avoidance of the media
were both well-known from a season of national coverage. Magic and Bird were
wary of each other in college but only because they didn’t know each other.
They became great friends and rivals in the NBA.
So far, we’ve only just met Reese
and Clark. We don’t know enough about their personalities. They’ll probably
like each other if they meet – they’ll learn just as Magic and Bird they share
plenty in common despite different backgrounds.
When Reese and Clark next meet they
should mimic Cheryl Miller, Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Maya Moore, Candance
Parker, Brittany Griner or others. Not John Cena. He wouldn’t survive 10
seconds against a legitimate world-class wrestler.
Or take a page from LeBron James.
Remember the 2015 NBA finals when
James, then playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers, warmed up before Game 3 of the
NBA finals against Golden State? James saw Cleveland Browns legend Jim Brown
sitting courtside and bowed to him.
There is so much cruel irony to fake
wrestling’s popularity overtaking the women’s Final Four storyline. Legitimate
wrestlers toil in anonymity while scraping up funds to pursue their dreams of
Olympic glory. Fake wrestlers make their money acting out scripts written on
the backs of a sport dating to the original Greek Olympics.
Stephen
Neal, a three-time Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots, was a
two-time NCAA heavyweight wrestling champion, winner of the Dan Hodge Trophy
(college wrestling’s Heisman) and the 1999 World Wrestling Championship
freestyle heavyweight gold medal in Ankara, Turkey, before he took up football.
When Neal joined the Patriots, his
teammates asked him if he wanted to go into pro wrestling. Sportswriters learn
early legitimate wrestlers don’t think that question is funny. Neal responded
he wasn’t into acting. Neal’s teammates, legitimate athletes, didn’t understand
the absurdity of the question. They didn’t ask Tom Brady after filming his
first commercial if he planned to go into acting.
And for fake wrestling enthusiasts
reading this, don’t toss Brock Lesnar’s name into the ring for credibility. For
one, Neal beat Lesnar in
the 1999 NCAA final to finish an unbeaten season. Neal moved onto a 10-year NFL
career. Lesnar won his NCAA title in 2000, but when he tried to cross
over into the NFL, he was cut by the Minnesota Vikings. Then, he cashed in on
fake wrestling. The best
world-class wrestlers are on another level. Nobody compares Tom Brady
with his backups.
The taunting imbroglio also ensnared
the First Lady, Jill Biden. She attended the final and was so enthralled with
the performances she naively suggested both LSU and Iowa visit the White House.
Her focus was on viewing the 2023 Final Four as a transformative moment.
She didn’t understand runners-up
don’t share the stage with champions. And no doubt Larry Bird would have
scoffed at an invitation to join Magic’s White House stage as a friend or a
foe. The First Lady’s office issued a clarification. It was a mistake inflamed
by the blame-game backlash.
Remember that Reese and Clark are
college kids. They’ll learn with time life turns around to bite you from
behind. But maybe, hopefully, they’ll avoid stooping to mimic fake wrestling
taunts.
