re:play Archive

The recent galling decision to drop wrestling from the Olympics has me steamed, but it has me musing about the virtues of the hand-to-hand contest, too. Wrestling and the Olympics go way back—back to the beginning, in fact. The amphora pictured here depicts a wrestling match between Peleus, the Greek hero and father to Achilles, and Atalanta, the only woman to have signed on as crew with the Argonauts (whose famous quest for the Golden Fleece you may have heard […]

Continue Reading about Wrestling Rubbed Out? Now They’ve Done It! Published on:
February 15, 2013

For almost a quarter century, I’ve divided my time between Rochester and Buffalo. This gave me the opportunity to observe the contrasts of two cities so close together yet so different culturally. If Rochester is the East Coast of the Midwest as some have joked, then Buffalo surely must be the West Coast of the East. Rochester could be transported to Rochester Minnesota and feel at home. Buffalo could move closer to New York and still feel comfortable. Rochester’s history […]

Continue Reading about A New Stadium and a New Museum Can Co-Anchor the Toronto-Buffalo-Rochester Mega-Region Published on:
October 25, 2012

The morning after the first Obama-Romney presidential debate, with the commentators having had a chance to sleep on it, we awoke to a flood of psychologizing. The president had looked tense and acted dismissive, they noted. This hopeful man who had once campaigned on the prospects of the bright future seemed worn down by the minute-to-minute demands of two wars, an economic collapse not of his own making, and a recalcitrant legislative branch. The challenger, an organizational man who seems […]

Continue Reading about What Big Bird Means to the Presidential Debate Published on:
October 5, 2012

The news that the Buffalo Bills recently released their longest-tenured player, punter Brian Moorman, came as a bit of a shock but not a surprise. With an injury rate of 100 percent, the average NFL career stretches only about three-and-a-half years; Moorman, though, has played in every game since he put on a Bills uniform in 2001. Over the course of his dozen seasons, the two-time Pro Bowler performed some amazing feats. He kicked an astonishing 84-yard punt against Green […]

Continue Reading about New Rule: No Punting Published on:
September 28, 2012

The Greeks imagined three kinds of water nymphs: Oceanids inhabited seas, ponds, lakes, and springs; Nereids swam in the deep salt water particularly the Aegean; and Naiads made their homes in fresh water streams, and even in wells and fountains. That Diana Nyad, journalist, radio commentator, ranked professional squash player, and most notably, endurance swimmer, should have a name that sounds like a water nymph is a coincidence too rich not to mention. Nyad turns 63 in a few days, […]

Continue Reading about Nyad the Naiad: Finding Play at the Extreme End of Competition Published on:
August 20, 2012

At home in the Carmel Valley, I enjoy a view of the steep ridge that holds the flood plain that the Carmel River (only truly a fast-flowing river in springtime) has cut into the rock. At points the shale is so friable you can dig into it with your bare fingers. The geologic past is not always easily readable in this valley; layers of sandstone, soft shale, sandstone, decomposed granite, and big stream rounded boulders in conglomerate residues piled helter-skelter […]

Continue Reading about The Tree House of the August Moon: Play and Solace in the Carmel Valley Published on:
August 15, 2012

The opening of NFL training camp put me in mind of an encounter in a different field. On a routine doctor visit, I was answering the usual questions. “Do you smoke?” the doctor asked.  I said, “no.” “Never did?” she persisted. “Nope,” I replied. “And never will?” she asked meaningfully, leaning forward. A little weary of the interrogation I said, “well, Doc, I’ve been trying to start, but I’m having no success.” Not a smile; not even a twitch. Next […]

Continue Reading about Knocked Cold and Loving It Published on:
August 6, 2012

I can’t pretend to care much about genteel Victorian pastimes. Bar skittles? Not a fan. Shove halfpenny? The game won’t get me going. Quoits? Shuffleboard? Zzzzzzzzzz…. But I will admit to amazement when watching Olympic badminton, resurrected from that bygone era, but startlingly athletic in its modern materialization. Engineers describe the shuttlecock, the feathered conical object that players bat about, as a “high-drag” projectile. It starts out fast when furiously swatted, but quickly slows and hangs excruciatingly—the hang time allowing […]

Continue Reading about Tanking the Game: Scheming and Disgrace at the Olympics Published on:
August 2, 2012

Psychologists tell us that by age four, children are very good at differentiating playing from fighting. But, what about those events that fall in the middle, play-fighting and rough-and-tumble play? Can fighting be playful?
Here we have an instinctive sense of the answer to the question—one that most of us boys honed by experience. We know the difference. The culture informally discouraged fisticuffs (but not verbal rough-and-tumble) for girls of course. And legal strictures discouraged it, too. For most of the 20th […]

Continue Reading about Is Boxing Play? Published on:
July 31, 2012