On Serena and the 2018 US Open

It has been three days since the debacle at the 2018 US Open. Many people have jumped in the fray and many opinions have been expressed, some defending Serena Williams; while some profess their admiration for her talent and athleticism, yet also taking her to task for reacting the way she did, calling her out for having a reaction.

Three things became of interest to me.

First there is the lukewarm defense of the umpire, Carlos Ramos. There is the touting of his credentials as a tennis official, and there are small but spirited few who admiringly commending him for being fair to players of both genders because he is strict in his interpretations of the rules. The most common defense narrows the field down to the fact that his interpretation of the rules is strictly by the book, that there can be no fault to be found in his rulings. People who resort to strict and narrow reading of the rules are usually the same people who have a moral dilemma on their hands, or they have been called out by someone for not doing enough in a particular situation: witness the by-the-book defense of Paterno and of Urban Meyer. He walked right up to the minimal limits of his responsibility without doing an extra ounce more. The sign of someone who hasn’t done enough to meet his responsibility as a citizen of their society.

In the case of Carlos Ramos, it isn’t quite as serious but the logic is the same: he applied the rules as if he was a role model for future AI based tennis droids, strictly by the book, no interpretation allowed. Yet, in the any world where rules and laws are necessary for smooth operations, the rules demand interpretation because we cannot reasonably anticipate all situations and contingencies. The strictness of the interpretations is left up to the adjudicators. Interpretations that are too strict and too loose ill serve the greater good of the endeavor, but interpretations must be allowed. In this case Ramos hewed closely to the limit and it ill served the tennis world.

Texualists are those in the legal world who hold that only the original intent of the laws as written are the only interpretations that should be allowed. Of course the orthodox original intent of the laws are only those that are interpreted by the texualists and no one else. How convenient.

The other issue that interested me is the coaching rule itself. I am not so interested in whether Serena’s coach admitted to coaching or not, she was on the other side of the court and probably did not see his hands, which is where the looser interpretation of the coaching rule should have applied but wasn’t, thereby averting the controversy. This is important because this is the fuse that lit the situation into an unrecoverable mess.

I am not a regular tennis fan but by what I gather this is a rule that is difficult to enforce. What constitutes coaching? It seemed that coaches are expected to sit stock and live in fear of lifting a pinky finger for fear of being called for coaching. The other part of this coaching rule morass is that the rule is an open secret that everyone does it and it is rarely invoked. People on the broadcast talk about this rule as if it is an open joke amongst the cognoscenti, that this is one of these rules that exists as some kind of anachronism and that people ignore it with a wink and a nod. If this is the case, why even have it in the books? Why have a rule that is so ridiculous that no one knows how to deal with it? Why have a rule that is so broad and so difficult to enforce that the possibility of abuse by a very broad interpretation is very real. I think that Ramos in his zeal to be seen as strict and fair official abused this rule by so strictly interpreting this innocuous and arcane rule.

Now, the second and third penalties called by Ramos seem to follow his strict interpretation to a t, and I don’t have much to argue about those rulings, but the penalties that accrued are based on his original and humorless interpretation of the rules and what he thinks he saw.

Finally, the debate continues regarding what caused Serena to have her outburst and whether she had a right to be so indignant by equating the coaching ruling to being called a cheater. The ugliness blew up from that point on. Many electrons were sacrificed to that debate, but that doesn’t interest me.

What interest me is in observing the reactions of some of the people who have thrown themselves into the discussion. Those who take Serena to task for reacting the way she did. Many have pointed out that the best of the athletes who compete in the arena of public sports get incredibly personal, insulting, abusing, potty-mouthed, and childish when the ruling goes against them. They pout when things don’t go their way. Some have brought up the fact that there is a double standard when it comes to the male athletes versus the female athletes. The argument in response that just because men get ugly and cuss and swear doesn’t mean that women should be given the carte blanche to do the same. Indeed, that would be a sad and erroneous interpretation. The irony that people miss is that their reaction to what Serena exactly mirror the gender inequality in the way we view male and female athletes.

Why is it that our first reaction to a woman being combative and fierce is to call her out for being combative and fierce? Why is it that we do not react the same way or to the same degree when it is a male athlete acting inappropriately? Why is it that we hold female athletes to a higher standard of conduct than men? Does this have to do with your own inherent bias? Some have advanced the slippery slope logical fallacy, that if we allowed women to behave in the same way then all of society would slip down the slippery slope towards aggressive incivility. My contention is: if we find the rude behavior so unattractive, why not hold the male athletes to the higher standard that you are holding the female athletes? Why has this NOT been the norm in all the evolution of our society? Why are we such hypocrites when it comes to civil behavior? Why do we put the onus on the female athlete to behave differently from men? Why do we hold female athletes to a much higher standard? Why do we excuse male reactions as being passionate and a good quality to have while we condemn the female athlete for the same behavior? Why are men considered a get getter and a woman a pushy broad? Why not apply the same standards to both genders?

In the end, the one good thing that comes out of this, I hope, is that we can use the  ugly incidence to open minds and change attitudes, because if we let the ire and disgust with the inequality to just fade away, as the powers that be are wishing for, the anger will simmer and then explode in a more emotional and uglier form later. This discussion isn’t going away.

Book Review-The Playmaker's Advantage

I was made aware of this book from a mention on one of Vern Gambetta’s Facebook postings. It piqued my interest as I am a coach for a youth sports team and I had been thinking about how to use the neuro scientific results that has been seemingly flying out academia. I bought the book at the beginning of August and decided to give it a crack, an unusual thing for me as I usually have a tall To Be Read stack balancing precariously on my end table. I had just finished reading Grit, the book by Angela Duckworth and I was excited but also puzzled by the unfulfilled promise of that book. I was disturbed by the lack of any discussion as to How to train Grit. I was definitely looking for something more all-encompassing of the neuropsychology area. As it turned out, this book explained many of my puzzles.

The book is split into three clear sections; the reason for the split is well explained in the introduction. The three sections are:  Playmaker’s Foundation, Playmaker’s Cognition, and finally Playmaker’s Commitment. The first section describes the research that has been done on defining what the authors mean by the Playmaker’s qualities and how they researched the playmaker qualities. Unlike most of the summaries of the literature on the subjects, the account of the research is fascinating and the synopsis of the results and conclusions were concise and explicit without shortchanging the nuances of this research.

Playmaker’s Cognition is the revelatory section of the book, in my opinion, as this is where the authors deconstructs the mythology around the decision making process that Playmakers go through as well as the cognitive processes that explains some of the why’s and how’s. This was particularly interesting because the authors were able to delineate the specific steps for decision making and the motivation for the steps, which implicitly gives us an idea as to how to train the athlete to work towards attaining the state of being of a playmaker. There are three chapters in this section: Search, Decide, and Execute, each chapter addressing the progressive steps of good decision making. This was a revelation to me, even though in hindsight the steps and sequence made perfect sense. It was one of those: why didn’t I think of that moment.

Finally, the last section on Playmaker Commitment section is the section where the authors address a number of topics appearing in the popular press that seemed dodgy. Topics like Grit, Growth Mindset, and the ten thousand hour rule; topics that had captured the imagination of many who are seeking a formula or a recipe for success in whatever endeavor they have an interest in. Since this book follows the others by a few years, the authors were able to address the ambiguities inadvertently left exposed in the other books, ambiguities that pulled the mass audience zealously into popular, yet misguided and false conclusions. I had read the tomes regarding all of these ideas, and they left me puzzled since the books did not address how to attain these qualities, but this book boldly states that no one really knows how to train grit, or inculcate a growth mindset, or truly believe that ten thousand hours is sufficient for mastery. In fact, ten thousand hours idea is not even applicable to the sporting world that this book is addressing. The authors did a real service for the other authors and debunked the populist myth that had taken over the popular press.

In fact, there will be many who will find dissatisfaction with the lack of a formula with this book, because in the end the authors are scientists and careful practitioners, it is their professional responsibility to be accurate and precise, even if doing so means not giving sound bitesques conclusions. They do however give us enough information for us to experiment ourselves and try to apply the concepts that they were able to uncover and summarize.

I am planning the season for a youth team that I coach, and I am now rethinking my usual coaching plans and integrating the ideas from this book as a part of the major revamp of my philosophy and the way the various parts of my coaching fit together. This will be an adventure of a grand scale. I am happy to have this guide which does not give me a recipe but will guide me through my thinking and philosophizing.