Pistol: Alcoholism and its Affect on Pete

    Alcohol is bad for anyone in Amy amounts. People die periodically from overdoing it, drinking and driving, etc. However, although at its worst, people enjoy it most. What kind of people exactly? Well, wealthy people, including athletes. It takes horrible affect on their bodies, and one person who can tell you that best is Pete Maravich. According to the book, "Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich"  Pete downright loved to drink. He did it for several reasons. He did it to wash away lost games (there were a lot in his first pro years), he did it leisurely, and he did it to overcome unwanted emotion. This  is not only a bad idea from a psychological standpoint, but from a physical standpoint as well. The book went into painful detail Pete's next games, with him scoring way below his point average due to "medical complications,".
    One severe example of Pete's malnutrition was when he developed an infection in his throat, similar to streptococcus, but more severe with several more symptoms. As he tried to soldier his way through games, he often was hurting and couldn't produce to even his minimal expectations. In that stretch of games with the throat infection, he averaged10.2 points a game on 33% shooting, very well below his standards. Does this go to show that when you need it, you're body deserves the utmost care? That's a given priority if you plan on living a long happy life. However, if you're going to let alcohol slowly destroy you by overdoing to a point where your liver needs to be replaced, your life is as good as done because alcoholics will always hit the ground running, if they can actually run. So as always, when the time comes, please drink responsibly.

The Jordan Rules: How to Win

    "The Jordan Rules," by Sam Smith is a very informational yet resounding book in my opinion. While directly commentating on the Chicago Bull's 1990-1991 championship season, Smith also goes deeper and explains and complicates the relationship between management and the players themselves. This is deeply important, considering every ball player nowadays follows money more so their loyalty to the team. Unless the team is committed to keeping their best players paid, then players will listen to consider teams that offer multi-million dollar contracts. However, if players are not worth the money or off-court-drama, they'll let them go. This was a large problem for the Bulls prior to their 1991 championship run. As anyone with a common knowledge of basketball would now, Michael Jordan was not only the best player of his era, but of all time as well. He definitely knew it too, as he was never satisfied with his salary or with his teammates.
    Jordan was just beginning his prime run as a NBA player, having been in the league since 1984. His teammates were never up to his caliber, however this never necessarily meant they didn't give as much as he did each game. According to Smith, in the early years of Jordan's prime, he usually managed to upset teammates by making negative remarks and commentary on their game. "Careless and lethargic," is how he once described the overall team play after being swept by the Detroit Pistons one playoff run. In fact, in the late 80s, the Bulls saw the playoffs so few times as they recorded several 50+ loss seasons that decade alone. Only in 1989 did they reach the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost in seven games to Detroit again. The past failure of the Bulls is heavily due to the fact that Jordan was just a rookie, the management was still in the middle of a rebuilding stage, and generally there was poor coaching. By 1991, this was all resolved by getting rid of Jerry Reinsdorf, who's offensive gameplan was basically was to ride Jordan each and every game, acquiring supporting talent to help out Jordan (i.e. Scottie Pippen), and by hiring the renowned coach, Phil Jackson, who went on to make the Bull's game a team game with a triangle offense dominant offensive game, rather than just Jordan trying his best to dunk on someone.
    Now why is this important? Well, to me it gave greater insight on to a very strategic, yet free flowing contest. Being familiar with the triangle offense, I found that it made sense that Jackson had used it for the Bull's. Jordan, who was always getting bodied wherever he was on the court, was now able to breathe a little and others could get the ball. This also sends a message of a spread out effort rather than just depending on one, core effort. Strength comes in numbers, and that had to be learned in order to win.

"The Jordan Rules" by Sam Smith

    This week, I read "The Jordan Rules," by Sam Smith. Although I only recently started it, I already appreciate the information and the style that Smith writes with. For example, the book is centered around the  1990 NBA season,  most particularly centered around that season's championship team: The Chicago Bulls. I mean, initially I was more so attracted to the book because Michael Jordan was on the cover, and I had finally found a book to be enthusiastic about, but still, I learned a lot of things I never actually knew or figured about "the greatest to ever play the game,".  Yes, everyone knows that Michael Jordan didn't make his high school varsity team the first time around. However no one really empathized with the fact that he worked so hard just to make his team the next year, he woke up every morning at seven o'clock each morning to workout with the varsity coach until that next year he made it. The public only knew him for his flashy dunks, his abilities, his shoes, and his movie "SpaceJam,". They didn't realize that it was failure and the comeback that brought him to believe in himself and get to where he was.
    I believe that since this is such a frequent topic in the book, I feel its meant to be almost a message. As a matter of fact, if its not a message then I don't know what is. If we try to establish a world-to-book connection, I believe that people usually are prone to just quitting after emotional and what they believe is terrible failure. If you think about Michael Jordan, who locked himself in his room and cried himself to sleep that night, and how he failed, he wasn't like most people. Thats why he's so unique though, he went in stronger and faster where others would've just stopped to avoid the pain. However, Jordan shows us, or me at least, that anything can done and it doesn't matter how long it takes or if you fail at it at first. The work put in before it is what takes you up to the highest pedestal. Sam Smith wants his audience to realize this, because he totally knows, and anyone who knows anything about Michael Jordan knows, that what he did was inspirational to the biggest basketball stars today. If the kids who read this apply the same effort and work to everything they do, they can be great in their own way. A kid with terrible grades could turn things around and be a straight A student the next time out. A poor citizen could make it to the middle class and even beyond if he works hard at his goals and tries. The message, so far, in this book is undoubtedly the fact that hard work sets you free.

Blog Review- Terri's Pride and Prejudice

http://jaarb.blogspot.com/2013/02/pride-and-prejudice.html
    For this blog review week, I read Terri's recent post about the old time classic of "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. Although I never read the book, Terri's post gave me a decent overview of the basic plot and character makeup of the book. I thought she kept her opinions well state while giving interesting information about the book. For example, she gave many examples of names of characters, then she made some sort of connection between her and the character. However, she doesn't only talk about the book itself. She also points out sophisticated themes that she perceived in the book. A good example of this is the theme of love that she points out. She explains that it's a very difficult phenomenon to understand for anybody however it takes time to develop and explain. She mentions too that the book did a good job of doing so, and I can't say I don't agree considering that when I think of "Pride and Prejudice,"  I think of a story of love and that book being one of the best romance novels of all time. Not every book gets a movie adaptation, and according to Terri, P&P sounds very worth of one.
    Alright, although I liked Terri's post, I also have some constructive criticism for her future posts. Having read through 2-3 of her posts already, I believe that this one might've been a bit short. I think there could've been a bit more elaboration in a few places. Also, some of the things she said may have been a bit repetetive, however not too much to disrupt the flow of the post. There was also a bit of no real conclusion to the post, she ended the post on an idea and I thought at one point she was going to sum up the whole book. I thought that would've been appropriate and really good because she brought up a lot of great ideas.
    Overall, I thought Terri's post was good, but a little more elaboration and a conclusion could've made it even better. She made a lot of great connections and made me think about things I never really commit to thought, let alone relevance. However, bringing  all these ideas together in a conclusion would've made a large difference for the better. It's not bad at all that she didn't have it, it would've made me feel a bit jealous though, but in a good way. Good job Terri!

The Issue and Theme of Race in "Pistol," by Matt Kreigel

    This week, I continued reading "Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich" by Matt Kreigel. While reading, I had come across a issue that never was mentioned before as literally game-changing factor: race. In fact, I remember being surprised at how none of Pete's or Press' lives hadn't encountered race issues, since at this time Americans held much tension between each other whether one was black, white, Latino  etc. Needless to say, there might be a few reasons for this. One being that between Press and his son, they didn't care what kind of person played their beloved game, as long as they had someone good to play. Do I agree with this? Totally, the fact that African-Americans couldn't play in front-runner leagues such as the NBA or the ABA for such a long time was because of the tension off the court in the culture of the U.S. For the Maraviches, life beyond basketball was almost irrelevant. Its quoted several times in the book itself that Press wasn't racially biased as a coach, player, or person at all. In fact, he made a point of recruiting or trying to recruit several colored players to the college teams he coached such as Clemson and Louisiana State University.
     Pete as well felt indifferent toward race. He loved the game, as his dad did, and never refused to play because he had to play with or against someone of another race. In the book, it even says that Press encouraged Pete to take on all challenges and challenge the impossible. Also, had Pete had any racial issues with other players that affected how he played, I could most likely predict that his father would be furious to hear that Pete wouldn't play a game due to one's race. Keep in mind also that Pete was Press' ideal son. He was his crafted in his image and became actually the first basketball player to sign a million-dollar contract with the NBA, a phenomenon Press predicted when the kid was barely in high school.
    The NBA around the time of Pete Maravich had already a racially integrated number of players. If Pete had any racial issues or prejudices, would've he had played in the NBA? Not at all. This was the time where colored people and white people both came together to play basketball. In the end, that's all Pete ever wanted to do. I think the very fact that Pete's mindset and conscious was always overlooking irrelevant things such as prejudice is actually beautiful. The '60s and '70s weren't exactly a golden age in racial tandem. I'm not saying everyone was racially opinionated, but kids were being raised to think a certain way of others and themselves, and they still do. However, as the status quo matured and people became more aware, it was people who saw past race and prejudice who are responsible for the "moving on," of things. So, in the case of Pete Maravich, was race actually an issue? No, and never was. One might make a joke or two, but in good fun. Pete just wanted to play, and a racist bigot wasn't going to hold him back and people weren't going to convince him to think poorly of those unlike him racially.

Maus by Art Spigelman

     This week, I read  Maus by Art Spiegelman. Even though this is a re-read, I became aware of even more themes and saw a lot of purpose behind a lot more of the smaller more subtle things Art does in his book. There are many peculiar and questionable things in the book that I believe should have some sort of meaning or social message behind it. However, I also believe the book itself is a larger social message. This is due to the historical setting and meaning. The setting, for the most part being Eastern Europe during World War Two, in itself already hints at the nature and complexity of this story. Furthermore, Art's comic book style format and illustration give the book a gritty but slightly melancholic tone. In fact, grief and sadness is a large theme in the story. This is emphasized greatly by the inclusion of an unpublished, explicit short comic about the day Art's mother died entitled, "Nightmare on The Hell Planet". It features Art arriving bak to his home in Queens, New York. The comic features more realistic animations compared to the animalistic drawings representing different groups of people in the original story,
      Furthermore about the comic, it contains explicit details, from blood to hyperrealistic facial features. For example, Art's mother had committed a tragic suicide. The body that had been left unnoticed (she was home alone) was drawn in the boxed section. Very specific details include slits on the wrist of his mother, spilled pill bottles, and a naked corpse in a shower. This attention to disturbing detail was meant to almost scare the reader. To the point where they could feel how he felt that day, horrified and grief induced. The comic isn't the only example of grief and sadness and disturbing, mind twisting detail. Its in fact throughout the book. Spiegelman didn't hold back because he wanted to describe the world's worst horror to the best of his ability: the Holocaust. Yes, his father survives. The struggle, pain, and fear were all insurmountable for many, many others however.

Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich by Mark Kreigel

    This week, I continued my book, "Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich,".  Previously, Kreigel told the upcomings of Pete's father, Press, as a high school and college coach. Furthermore, it shows more of Pete's life, especially how hard he worked as a youth to be the best high school basketball player he could, and eventually be became the best at the time. In fact, it's probably safe to say that it's emphasized greatly. For example, Kreigel could be talking about Press, then he'd mention how Pete would be at each practice that Press held with his teams. From there, Kreigel would go on long tangents about the many drills and routines Pete would do either alone or with his father, who encouraged him and sometimes pushed him to be a great player. After thinking about it, I had to conclude that maybe in fact that Kreigel meant to do this for a variety of reasons. These being that he wants to emphasize the hardship and difficulty of being great, he wants to teach the lesson of being responsible for your own personal goals,  and that he's trying to quantify the actual amount of work and dedication needed to go pro, something many youths nowadays don't realize.
    I would like to start on my last reason. Kids are immature, no matter however they present themselves. They believe they know everything, and sometimes I feel the same. Except the fact of the matter is that they don't. This, mixed with an misguided belief that they'll someday go pro could really influence their academics and social life. Some kids go as far as dropping out for, high school because they believe they're that good. Kreigel is trying to warn youths who read his book that its not easy and doesn't just happen by fate, it takes the full extent of ones body and mind. Moving along, I also believe Kreigel is trying to motivate those who are almost meeting their ultimate goal to push forward even more to fully achieve it. Some people in life come so close but then give up because they can't make the final push, so I especially like this theory. Lastly, Kreigel also wants to teach his readers that opportunity doesn't always come to them. They have to mostly make their own and take it when it there. This way, anyone one doing anything could be successful.