Welcome to the last edition of #blessed for the semester. I hope you enjoyed our brief time together this year as much as I enjoyed answering your really weird questions. I’ll be writing sparingly this summer, so if you’d like your sports-or-general-life questions answered, shoot me an email at hashtagblessedemory@gmail.com. To the mailbag!
Theoretically, could a team consisting of you and four random Emory students beat a team of NBA all-stars if they were all playing blindfolded?
My gut reaction was to say yes here, because basketball is an activity in which being able to see is pretty crucial. Have you ever tried shooting a free throw with your eyes closed? Pretty easy, right? Now try that with no idea of where you are on the court and a big ol’ piece of cloth on your face. Suddenly not as simple!
However, the more I think about this, the more I think the NBA all-stars could absolutely take us down given a proper strategy. Just plant DeMarcus Cousins in front of the rim and have him repeatedly jump up and down. Literally no one would dare to come within five feet of him. Couple that with the placement Stephen “Steph” Curry at the three-point line and telling him not to move, and I think they’d destroy us, because everything that Curry throws in the air is magnetically attracted to a basketball hoop. I imagine this gets really annoying when Curry tries to throw out, like, a banana peel, and it flies through his window and into a hoop in a nearby gym. He’s just tryna eat bananas like a normal human being!
Anyway, the most important point: Emory students are generally awful at basketball. Have you ever had the misfortune of walking past a pickup game at the SAAC? It’s literally a handful of sub-5’8” guys in Maggie’s tanks and a few sweaty middle-aged men repeatedly bricking three pointers again and again and again. I play in these games on the reg, and feel no shame. My three-point shot is fire. In fact, it’s On Fire.
You briefly discussed men’s fashion in your last column. What’s the biggest fashion problem you see around Emory’s campus?
This is something I’ve needed to get off my chest for a while: Emory’s sock game is beyond weak.
Almost every day I see an Emory man in an otherwise very nice outfit— a button-down and a nice pair of pants, perhaps — topping it off with a pair of athletic socks. This is possibly my biggest pet peeve of all time, with strong competition from people who take their shoes off in the middle of class. Do y’all not realize how bad your feet smell? They smell so bad! I have terrible-smelling feet, and so I counter it by NOT BEING AN ABSOLUTE MONSTER AND EXPOSING MY STANKY-ASS FEET TO THE WORLD.
Anyway, y’all need better socks. Wearing athletic socks with a nice outfit gives off a solid, “I’m here to have a good time, and my definition of having a good time is alphabetizing library books” vibe. If that’s the vibe you’re going for, by all means go ahead.
What’s your favorite obscure sport, and why?
I had to think a lot about this one, because I have a huge weakness for European handball. The World Cup of Handball (this is a thing!) happened this January, and I very nearly considered putting money on Iceland. Doesn’t Iceland seem like a country that would be really, really good at European handball? I imagine that the two biggest pastimes in Iceland are cuddling with seals and training for the handball world cup. It sounds like a truly lovely place.
But there’s only one objectively correct answer to this question, and that is curling. Curling is a beautiful, beautiful sport. The creators of curling have figured out what the rest of the sports world has yet to realize: A) sweeping things with a broom is one of the most emotional and dramatic activities in the world, and B) everything is more fun when you do it on ice. People frantically sweeping an ice-floor is the pinnacle of human achievement.
ACTIVITIES THAT NEED TO BE PUT ON ICE, RANKED:
- Boxing
- Congressional meetings
- Raves
- Beer pong
- People trying to slide on their stomachs like penguins
#SHOUTOUTS:
NHL playoff overtime, Tim Tebow, the death of print media, imagining Anthony Davis as a large octopus, watermelons.
Associate Editor | Ryan Smith is a College senior from Philadelphia majoring in journalism and American studies. He loves journalism and collegiate athletics, and thus considers it a miracle that he’s survived three years at Emory. He joined the Wheel his freshman year as Assistant Sports Editor before serving as Sports Editor and Features Editor. His work has appeared on SB Nation, Uproxx, Atlanta Magazine, Rivals, 247Sports and various DUC napkins, among other places. Nowadays, he can be found covering University of South Florida athletics for Bulls247.com.
