Sunday, May 29, 2005

Equality in sports...

As someone who lives in NASCAR country, I've never been a big fan of Robbie Gordon. My children know this enough to be able to repeat my complaint. My 4 year old will, during a race, announce the following to whomever listens: "Robbie Gordon is a hothead". That being said, most of NASCAR is full of hotheads. I guess in a system where your own winning matters more than anything, you're not likely to see a lot of empathy or understanding for someone else's point of view. Too much empathy can have a negative impact on your ability to force someone else to lose.

But still, Robbie Gordon strikes me as even more hotheaded than average. And his latest complaint about today's Indianapolis 500 just seems really dumb to me. Basically, he's saying that Danica Patrick, a 100 lb woman, has an unfair advantage over the men in that sport who average 200 lbs. Doesn't an unempathetic hothead have an advantage over an empathetic competitor in NASCAR? Why is one advantage fair and the other not?

Personally, at 5'8" it doesn't matter how smooth my jump shot is, nor how well I can handle the ball. In a basketball game, I have a huge disadvantage against a 6'4" person with the same level of skills. Basketball is a tall person's game. Racing is to the swiftest. And that puts a premium on weight. Robbie Gordon should just get over it. And so should anyone else who happens to think that their particular advantages are fair, but someone else's advantage is not.

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