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| Wade hits one of the many circus shots he hit in game 6 |
Miami
Heat
Last
Sunday the Miami Heat were trailing the Indiana Pacers 2 games to 1, Dwyane Wade
had just played the worst game of his career—a 5 points on 2 of 13 shooting struggle that included a "Get the F outa my face!" altercation with head
coach Erik Spoelstra—and everyone had completely written the Heat off. The talk
wasn't about whether or not they needed to split the big 3 up, we jumped right past that. It was whether Pat Riley or Phil Jackson would be coaching the team next season (because Coach Spo was already gone) and what they could get in return for trading Wade or Chris Bosh.
Fast
forward 7 days and that narrative has done a complete 180. The Heat dominated all 3 of the
games since to eliminate the Pacers 4-1, including one of the best statistical games in
NBA history from LeBron James (40/18/9/2/2). Dwyane Wade—whose value had depreciated so much after game 3 that ESPN analysts were saying that the Knicks wouldn't
even trade Amare 'Thank God My Contract is Guaranteed' Stoudemire for him—put together the best 3 game stretch
of his playoff career, capped off by an amazing 41 points and 10 rebounds on 17 of 25 shooting performance in the
series clincher.
Now, despite the uncertainty of Bosh's health going forward, everyone has the Heat advancing to the NBA Finals and Coach Spo is doing one hellova job. On May 20th we were positive
they were not going to beat the Pacers. On May 27th there's no
chance that the Celtics can beat them in a 7 game series.
What
a difference a week makes.
 |
| Lolo lacing up a fresh pair of Asics before a workout |
Lolo
Jones
I
became an instant Lolo fan after I saw her interview with Dan and Papi on Dan
Le Batard is Highly Questionable (Si! Si! I'm very intrigued!). She's a very cute girl, with a beautiful smile and came off as super cool, insightful and
funny—even joking about coming up short in the biggest race of
her life.
The
months leading up to the Olympics is when we start to learn all of the back stories about the American athletes we're supposed to root for. This summer, Lolo Jones will be one of our biggest stars in
London so it was no surprise that there were 2 specials on last week about the 2 time World Champion hurdler. One on HBO's Real Sports and the
other on ESPN's SEC Storied.
A
lot of people already knew Lolo's story before the programs aired. Her hard times as a child growing up in Iowa to earning a degree and becoming a 3 time NCAA Champion
at LSU. Her Olympic journey of going from not making the team in 2004 to leading the Gold
Medal race in 2008 before inexplicably clipping her lead foot on the 2nd to last hurdle causing her to stumble to a 7th place finish, then handling
it all with an uncommon level of class and perspective.
Out
of more than 60 minutes of footage about a woman's inspirational story of perseverance and
determination, a 2 minute snippet is all everyone can talk about. Lolo Jones is a
virgin. The fun, playful, charming, humble and gorgeous Olympian is saving herself for
marriage. Maybe it's because she's 29, maybe it's because she's cooler and prettier than the mold our stereotypical minds picture when we hear something like this, but her lack of sexual conquests has dominated the Lolo-sphere
the past week.
It's
overshadowed the stories about her family once having to live in a Salvation Army
locker room, her father being in and out of her life—and prison—while teaching her
and her siblings valuable life lessons like how to shoplift from the
supermarket as a preteen. No one's talking about her first learning how to run because the family's
car often broke down and they would have to run home to keep
warm in the snow or her progression to becoming the best in her sport.
Instead,
everyone has been cracking jokes about her V card. People who don't even know her saying stupid stuff like, "I heard she's
a out there and her not being able to keep a man is not as much her choice as it is
others not wanting putting up with her crazy" and everyone trying to fix her up with Tim
Tebow—America's most famous male virgin. (The latter of which I don't think
she minded too much)
You don't have to worry about Lolo though, she's one tough cookie—hurdles are the perfect metaphor for her life; she's overcome so many of them outside of
the track—I can't see a little gossip shaking her.
Regardless of what your values or beliefs are, I
think it was incredibly brave of her to share one of her biggest, most personal
secrets with the world so that she can be an inspiration for young people everywhere. I
also think it's unbelievably immature to ridicule her for doing so. I thought Lolo was one cool-ass chick last week and my opinion of
her certainly hasn't changed because of something so minute that's really none of my
business anyway.
The
best part about how much things can change in 7 days is that they can change just
as easily the following week. Hopefully by next Sunday people will start showing a little bit of the
class and perspective that Lolo did in 2008 and her story will once again be an inspirational journey about determination, perseverance and hard work.
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