Category Archives: Sports

Today my Mom and I biked the 33 mile Tour de Peninsula, a beautiful ride throughout the Bay Area peninsula. Biking is one of the three things I am going to do more of – chess and ping pong are the other two – once I’m done with my competitive basketball career at the end of winter. (Speaking of chess – if you have kids get them into chess early on. Playing competitive chess at a young age greatly accelerated my strategic thinking abilities I think.)

We both finished the ride in about three hours, it was casual and full of rest stops. My Mom is still using the bike she got for her 16th birthday (she’s 55 years old now). It has three gears and a North Hampton license plate on it (where she went to college – Smith). Although I still think I’m a running person since you don’t have to deal with equipment, long bike rides are a blast especially since you can cover lots of ground. If you’re in the Bay Area be sure to make it to the ride next summer.

I’m in Reno currently for a summer basketball league tournament and two days ago, after winning our second game of the day (I hit a buzzer beater jumper from the top of the key!) we headed to the Circus Circus buffet. We were in high spirits especially since we defeated a strong team from Boston (gotta represent the Bay Area). The ten players and three coaches were truly pumped about the buffet. On the way over, I remarked to a coach, “I’m going to hit the buffet as hard as I hit the boards today.” To a fellow teammates, I remarked, “I’m going to the hit the buffet as hard as I hit the ladies.”

Once at the buffet, we gorged ourselves with food. We’re all burning so many calories playing ball that no one is concerned about how much food we consume. Just eat eat eat. After downing two humongous plates of food and two full cups of 2% milk, I took a little break. Immediately I faced questions. “So Ben, what’s going on? Is that it? Just two plates?” A minute later – “Ben, tell me you’re not heading to desert already?”

My friend Andy keenly observed, “You know, I don’t think girls would like it here.” Indeed.

I’ve always thought that athletes and artists are far too revered in our society while public servants and intellectuals are left to bite the dust. Along these lines, jock recruits to selective colleges has been a major topic in higher ed recently. I just read a fantastic article/book review in the New York Review of Books (link below). As Slate says:

An Amherst professor attacks the hypocrisy of college admissions officials who pay lip service to the primacy of academic standards but lower them to help promising athletes hurdle the bar. But, he thinks, “It seems all too convenient for reformers to discuss the divide between academics and athletes apart from its larger social setting.” He believes the “larger goal should be to moderate the obsession with rank-ordering human activities”—like prioritizing either academics or athletics—”with a different set of ideals—choice for all, openness, mutual appreciation, an end to exclusionary bifurcations.”

Link: The New York Review of Books: Jocks and the Academy.

I laughed when I got an email last week from a marketing guy at Sports Illustrated magazine wanting to know how/why this blog was the #1 result for a Google search for “sports illustrated blog” (no quotes). I responded saying I had an insider deal with Google. Other than this post when I quoted some very funny excerpts from a Sports Illustrated issue, there should be no other reason why I come before the actual company itself.

Similarly, a woman from Scripps College came across my blog after a Google search for “college admissions blog.” Unfortunately, Scripps is a women’s college, but in our exchange I did encourage to start a blog with an “insider’s look” at the college admissions process.

Link: Google Search: sports illustrated blog .

Tonight my busiest four months of the year came to a close as our basketball team ended with a victory. Unfortunately, I’m sick – cough, throat, stuffed up – which no doubt is related to academic and basketball related stress. But, with a week off next week and the season over, I’m looking forward to getting well and having more time to devote to my various activities. Besides the normal, my spring will be centered around some exciting things happening with my company, upping my grades and nailing the SAT, starting to look at colleges, working on a book proposal, planning my trip to Zurich in June, and of course, doing a lot of reading and laughing. I will be blogging along the way!