Wasn't there a movie about this?

During the 80's and early 90's the slam dunk contest captivated basketball fans. Unfortunately the intense adulation for graceful feats of sky walking led a generation of young basketball players to believe being "like Mike" wasn't emulating the endless hours MJ spent working on his shooting and basic fundamentals, but instead focusing a good part of their basketball development on moves rarely used in an actual game.

Consequently the quality of American basketball has slipped. Now the best player on the best team in the NBA -- and the likely league MVP -- is a German, the league's two-time defending MVP is a middle aged, South African-born Canadian, the number one pick in last year's draft was an Italian, and when the United States plays other top basketball playing countries in international competition we have just as good of a chance of losing as we do winning.

Our only hope is the rest of the world will get as hung up on the superfluous slam dunk -- and the easy gratification of the oohs and the aahs that it brings -- as we did.

There have been promising developments on that front in Europe, where slam dunk contests have been popping up all over the place. Only if all European contestants are as earth bound as the fellow in the video above, I can't see the slam dunk catching on to the point of poisoning the continent's youth.

Of course the whole thing may have been a clever ploy to get to know a cheerleader better.

Catfight!

So you're a big man on campus type college basketball stud. You play for the defending national champions, and were the star and revelation of last year's March Madness.

But you still feel it. You know what they see: The way you sashay up and down the court. The casual contact that sends your weak body sprawling to the floor. The long hair. The being French.

You know what they are thinking. And it's pure jealously. Of the money to come. Of the primo University of Florida tail that comes and finds you.

You try not to let it get to you. What they think. But it does. More and more, you start defining yourself by what they think. It starts to take you forever to get ready to go out. Your cell phone bill is astronomical. And the menstrual cramps. They suck.

So you're playing in one of your basketball matches. This bitch UK cheerleader keeps staring at Al Horford, even though he is totally standing next to you. And then you get knocked over again and there she is -- the whore cheerleader -- sticking her pom-pom in your face.

A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do. (The full slaptastic video is here)

I blatantly ripped those photos from some site, but I can't remember which one and they seemed to have been getting plenty of traffic without me.

Acronyms are confusing

If this youtube phenomenon has taught me one thing, it's cheerleaders -- previously noticed only for their symmetry of face and tightness of sweater -- are natural and under-appreciated comediennes.

Whether it's act-like-sporting-good improv, or playing the neighborhood runt who triggers lighthearted disaster by getting in the way, the cheerleader's commitment to comedy is second only to her love for the home team.

But what happens when these two impulses come into conflict? Increasingly, the song girls of USC are shirking tradition by choosing their mission to make us laugh over artistically stifling team loyalty.

Here is the video evidence:

Lazy Friday post

The guys like them. The other girls don't. But there is one thing we can all agree on: It's funny when cheerleaders fall down.



Bonus video: One of my favorite sugary pop/punk songs of all time -- with
cheerleaders.