13.4.09

All Is Fair in Rhetorics and Basketball

Few Trail Blazers have participated in matches beyond the end of the regular season. Of course, I have done so for my country since my earliest ages (left), but this is no time for braggadocio.

Our inexperience served as the preamble for the recent team meeting.
*****
Coach McMillan: What are the play-offs? (He turns to the whiteboard to write.)
Sergio: A series of contests played to determine the winner of a championship!
Coach McMillan: …
Shavlik Randolph (whispering): I think that was a rhetorical question.
Me (also whispering): An oratorical device designed to get us to think?
Sergio: Of course! It did not seem an example of rhetorical hyperbole, given the lack of overblown language.
Me: We are tangenting!
Coach McMillan: Let me try again. You know what they say about love and war.
Me (thinking of Cristina): One involves deep feelings of affection and the other is armed combat between at least two parties?
Coach McMillan (with hintings of a smile): Miguel de Cervantes said, “Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.” And with the playoffs approaching, let’s keep that in mind for the games ahead. [Sergio and I incredulously high five.] Okay, let’s work on free throws.
*****
Scoring five points in 21 seconds before half-time of the recent Clippers match was an exhilaration. But it paled next to having Cervantes quoted at a team meeting! Let our unnamed playoff opponents tremble.
Rudy foto from Rudyfans.com,
Nate McMillan by the Oregonian.

2 comments:

  1. Rudy, tu ingles esta tan bien como para usar todas estas palabras exajeradas?

    Dudo que mi español este tan fuerte como el tuyo, pero me encanta tu blog, y estoy curioso sobre tu maestria del ingles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mis disculpas! Rudy tiene un buen dominio del idioma Inglés. Pero este sitio web está escrito por "Rudy hipotético." Él no es lo mismo!

    ReplyDelete

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