chantellesays - Yardbarker Blogs

Best Reason to Tweet

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:38:22 -0500

The other day I was having a conversation with my best friend Willie, trying to explain to him why he needed to get on Twitter, i.e. my latest addiction. I felt I was providing a good argument but he wasn't really buying anything I was saying. Well, two days ago I found a perfect argument why Twitter is a good thing: WNBA player Charde Houston.

You see, after going from homeless and living in a car to University of Connecticut standout to WNBA All-Star, Charde started a foundation called Y.O.U., or Youth Opportunities Unlimited. It's in the beginning stages but she wasted no time making a difference. When she heard about an 11-year-old basketball player and her 8-year-old brother in San Antonio who had lost their mother through domestic violence, Charde didn't hesitate. She set up a PayPal account for the family and has dedicated her Twitter page to reaching out to people for donations. The goal is to raise $3,288.00, representing $2 from each of her Twitter followers. After two days, donations are over $600 and climbing.

I know there are a lot of people that use Twitter for stupid stuff like telling their four followers they're eating a muffin. But there are instances, like this, where it can really be used for good. Please support Charde's efforts and help this little girl and her brother, as they try to make sense of this world through this difficult time.

Click HERE and HERE for articles on the incident.

Click HERE to donate. It's quick and easy.

You can also send checks or money orders to: Rose Sledge P.O. Box 740070. San Diego, CA. 92174.

There are some things that are worth taking the time to do. This is one of them. And it's only two dollars! Thanks in advance =)

Freshman Year School Days

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:32:41 -0500

Another piece I wrote for my book. Keep in mind this is a rough draft and like all of my blogs, has only been edited by me. So once the book goes through the editing process, this might change quite a bit. But here's a first look. This section comes from me discussing my freshman year. It will no doubt rub some people the wrong way, but since when is that a new thing for me? Let me know what you think.

***

The summer ended and it was time to move into the dorms. Coach Foster had arranged for Natalie and I to be roommates. He figured she would force me to be studious and get in the gym more often, and that I would loosen her up and make her have some fun.

Walking into Branscomb (the most popular freshman dorm) was like a trip through the twilight zone. I had just stepped from the real world into an alternate universe populated by designer people from the pages of Cosmo. They all looked so, rich. I looked down at my two suitcases and the plastic bag of sheets Sara had given me as a "welcome to college" gift. I didn't even have a blanket. And these girls had contacted their roommates over the summer to coordinate curtain fabrics, comforter patterns, and overall design schemes for, a dorm room? Where was I?

I had never seen girls like those before. It was like training camp for the Stepford Wife auditions. They were all so properly friendly and perfectly put together, skipping around like their Chanel pumps had air soles in them. I didn't fit in, with their clothes and their money, southern charm, and prep-school attitudes. Sometimes I imagined it was a front, and that underneath it they all had eating disorders, drug addictions, and terrible family skeletons, which I'm sure some did. But that didn't change the Southern Belles they were; it didn't make me fit in any more. I felt a little better that Natalie didn't fit in with them either. Of course she had a lot more stuff than I did, and her wardrobe was three times the size of mine. And she was white, with the whole Southern accent thing going on. Nonetheless, she was in no way interested in being a debutante; she was an athlete.

When Nat got there I was happy to see her again, and relieved she was dressed in sweats like me (not Bebe cute coordinate sweats but the regular grey fleece kind). Her parents Cassandra and Jim came to help her move in. They were such incredibly cute, doting parents. For the next four years, I was like their adopted daughter (they gave me a blanket, and much more), and Natalie was my white sister.

My scholastic tastes were much better suited to the college academic structure. In high school, on average, 60% of your grade is from daily homework assignments, while papers and tests make up the remaining 40%. That's why it had been so difficult for me to maintain my grades senior year. I wasn't at all interested in doing homework--or going to class--but the tests and papers were a cakewalk. I was relieved to discover that in college, 85% of your grade is tests and papers, while daily homework and attendance is usually only about 15%. So at the beginning of each semester, in my mind, certain assignments were dismissed from the get-go, and you could bet that if a class met three times a week, I was missing at least one of them.

I got A's in my most difficult classes though, because then I was forced to apply myself. If I knew before hand I could get away with minimal effort and still get a B, then that was cool with me (and if I really hated the class, I'd settle for a C). Daddy and Coach Foster used to tell me that if I weren’t so smart I'd have better grades, which, modesty aside, I think is probably true. But unless a class really intrigued me, I wasn't going to waste my time worrying about it. There were a few that did, like the consulting class I took which was taught by a guy that ran his own firm, and senior year, a grad school course on the effects mental health disease had on a persons ability to be productive in the work force. As for the others, if I wasn't going to pay attention in class anyway, I didn't see the point in being there.

That mindset didn't sit too well with my academic advisor Gary Gibson, or Coach Foster. I remember the first time I got caught skipping class. It was Friday, and Natalie and I had been out late the night before. We were sleepy and didn't want to get up for our 8 a.m. class. Nat never skipped, but since I did it all the time and had yet to get caught, she figured she’d stay in bed too. Go figure the one time she decided to skip with me is the time Gary decided to go to our class with his athlete checklist. When we weren't there, he had to report us.

That afternoon, Coach called Natalie and I into his office. When we arrived, the seniors on the team--Cion, Chavonne, Jen, and Candice--were there too. Coach said that freshman couldn't be expected to know any better because obviously our seniors hadn't told us skipping class was against the rules, and therefore, we weren't in trouble. The seniors however, would have to get up at 6 a.m. the next morning and run a timed mile for their transgression, while we sat in lawn chairs and watched.

Natalie and I looked at each other, horrified. He couldn't be serious, we reasoned as the seniors glared at us. "No Coach, they told us," I said. "We were just really tired, and accidently slept in." "Ya Coach, it's not their fault. We'll run instead," Nat chimed in. It occurred to me that we were whining to be able to run a timed mile at 6 in the morning, but it was the preferable alternative to having our respected seniors run for our mistake. The least he could do was let us run with them. Even that would be better than them suffering while we relaxed.

They let us panic and beg for a couple minutes before the girls exchanged a look and all burst out laughing. I quickly looked to Coach and saw he was grinning smugly too. It was a joke! And they had all been in on it. I fought back a smile as I tried to be mad; they had really scared us.

It turned out only part of it had been a joke. Natalie and I had to get up and run the next morning, but the seniors didn't have to. In fact, no one came with us. He trusted us to do it, which we did. That's one thing I've always liked about Coach Foster: he believed if he treated us like we were responsible, we were more likely to act responsibly. His belief kept me relatively in check. Disappointing Coach was my nightmare. And of all the things I'm going to tell you, keep in mind there were countless things I did--or didn't do--simply to keep his faith in me in tact. I can't say rules would have been enough to do that.

As far as that particular punishment went, we wouldn't have dreamed of sleeping in or not doing it right. We got there early, timed ourselves, and ran like they were watching. After that, in the process of setting a personal four-year record, I didn't skip class for a whole three weeks.

Coach chilled out a little when I proved my point by getting a 3.5 my first semester, skipping class and all. After that, I guess he figured as long as I was putting up numbers in the classroom and on the court, there was no real reason to fight with me. And I appreciated it. After all, that's more like the real world anyway. It's about production. As long as you get it done, most people don't care how or when or why. Doing what you're supposed to do is all that matters.

I hesitated to include this part actually, because I tell so many kids how important education is all the time. I really do believe it's essential to success. I was, and still am, always eager to learn. The important thing about school is that it teaches us how to learn. It's not so much what we're taught as it is realizing our learning capacity, and then pursuing the knowledge to fill it.

For me, I had no doubts about my intellectual ability. I read the material, wrote the papers, did the projects, and took the tests. I made a conscious choice to bypass the stuff I found trivial, such as busy work and non-essential class time. I know I'm not winning over any parents here, and pray all kids don't think they can get away with this too. I'm not trying to convince anyone with my argument; just letting you know where my mind was at the time.

Whenever the subject of school comes up, I'm often asked if going to an elite academic school like Vanderbilt was hard. I always say yes and no. First of all, I never went to any other school for a comparison, so relatively, I don’t know. I do know I was constantly surrounded by insanely smart people. So it's my theory that schools like Vanderbilt are more difficult because they're harder to get into. They only let in the extra smart (or extra studious, there is a difference) people, and everything is graded on a curve, thus inferring a higher quality of work. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that they can attract the most brilliant faculty from all over the world either. So ya, the work was definitely not what I would consider easy, and at first I was a little intimidated. But what do you do when you're somewhere that's a little out of your league but you're determined to stay? You step your game up.

Most of my learning curve was in study habits. Like I said, school teaches you how to learn, and I'd never seen anyone study like these people. I'm talking beyond the color coordinated notebook tabs and highlighting key terms in textbooks. My classmates took meticulous class notes, actually went to the library, spent hours reading background information, did case studies or interviewed people if necessary, and then put together the finished product in a neat little package that looked like something straight out of a boardroom. After I learned how to properly use the library, presentation was the next thing I picked up from them (thank you Kinkos). Once I figured that out, it was all downhill from there.

One problem my classmates couldn’t help me with was my fear of speaking, to anyone. I remember telling Tammy Boclair, who handled our media relations at the time, that I was not doing any interviews; I was too scared. Well, being the new blue chip recruit on campus, there were quite a few people who wanted to talk to me, and Coach Foster would hear nothing of me turning them away. He immediately forced me to enroll, whining and complaining, in a public speaking class.

The day I was scheduled to give my first speech I walked to the classroom door, notecards in hand, looked inside at all my classmates I would have to speak to, turned around and walked right back to Branscomb. To this day, after all I accomplished in my college career, Coach Foster still says his greatest achievement as my coach was that I graduated with the ability to look people in the eye, and speak to them with confidence. My entire freshman year he constantly commanded me to look him in the face, because every time he spoke to me, my eyes went straight to the floor and stayed there. I do so much public speaking these days that I realize what an invaluable gift he gave me.

Yes, I Will Check

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:35:16 -0500

Notice: If we’re dating, expect me to check out your twitter, facebook profile, and whatever else. I’ll tell you why. Because I believe in certain transparencies in all intimate (emotional or physical) relationships. How’s that for an opening to inspire disagreement? But that’s ok; let me explain.

With technology seemingly taking over the world, we have found a new way to ruin relationships: the internet. The world wide web does more than allow us to keep in touch with out of town friends and family. It exponentially multiplies everyone’s possibilities for much less innocent connections.

Facebook can tell a lot about a person, although it’s not hard to manipulate. You simply don’t put up (many) pictures, untag yourself in other peoples, and make something up about why your status still says single (baby I just don’t like my business out there for everyone to see….ya, ok). Same thing with myspace. Twitter is a little more difficult because you can’t control what other people tweet about what they’re doing, even if it involves you. And if you don’t want someone to know you’re playing them, you can’t check them when they inadvertently shout you out for the world, or the other people you’re trying to get at, to see. But since Twitter is still catching on, it depends on if your social circle has decided to participate.

So the question is, if you’re dating someone, should using the internet to check up on them be off limits?

Some people say yes. I mean, where’s the trust? If you’re with someone who you can’t trust then should you really be with them? I’ve always thought that if I’m dating you and feel like I need to sneak through your phone or email, then we don’t need to be dating in the first place. So isn’t checking their facebook or twitter page the same thing? I say no.

Social networking is a public platform. If it’s out there for everyone to see then it’s not dishonest to look for it. Kind of like the “in plain sight rule” always referenced on Law & Order – my favorite show by the way. If incriminating evidence is in plain sight, where a normal person could have seen it, it’s fair game. Same goes for relationships. If I don’t have to violate personal property to see it, then it’s legal.

As long as the information isn’t obtained through dishonesty (stealing passwords and breaking in), it’s their bad for letting it get out there. Because bottom line is, the internet can only ruin relationships if one or both people involved are lying and/or misrepresenting something.

Yes, we should all trust the person we’re with. I’m not talking about cataloguing their every move, or constantly stalking their ex’s or friend’s pages. But we have a responsibility to ourselves to do what we can to protect our hearts, our time, and our health (because all cheating is not kept strictly online).

In my Pimpin vs. Playin post, I’ve already argued that people should be honest about their intentions and needs in all relationships. If you are really doing this, there should be nothing to worry about when the person you “care” about sees what’s out there for everyone else to see.

Thoughts anyone?

Fat Kids Piss Me Off

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:00:57 -0500

Seeing fat kids really pisses me off, and it has nothing to do with the kids. I'm not talking about kids that haven't lost their baby fat yet. I'm talking about obese kids that need to stop eating so much. But I can’t be mad at them, because they don’t go grocery shopping, or cook their own meals. Nor can they be expected to know the risks of unhealthy eating. No, when I see fat kids, I shake my head in disgust at the parents.

By allowing a child to eat whatever they want and not exercise, the parents are subjecting them to teasing, reproach in the eyes of society, and most importantly, countless health risks (Diabetes, future heart disease, a life of obesity, etc.). By the time they get older and know enough to change, it could be too late. There are countless, well-documented, statistics that tell us fat kids turn into fat adults, get diabetes more often, and have more health problems in general throughout their lives. Subjecting them to those consequences is not fair and, in my opinion, should be considered neglect.

As a parent, it’s your responsibility to have the best interests of your child in mind at all times. If you make the conscious choice to be unhealthy, that’s on you. You know the benefits and risks, and can choose to ignore them if you want. But children don’t know enough to make that choice for themselves. For the same reason they cannot be held responsible for things in court, they cannot be held responsible for their health. That’s part of a parent’s job.

I know some people will make the point that healthy food can be more expensive, and thus harder to provide on a budget. That's true, but eating healthy for less isn't impossible; it just takes more effort. And of course there are certain exceptions in terms of health conditions that cause weight gain regardless of nutrition. But in all other cases, parents need to stop letting their kids run to the refrigerator whenever they feel like it, sit in front of the TV all day, and have access to an endless buffet of sweets, fast food, and sodas. My message to parents: Good for you if you want to be unhealthy, but desire better for your kids.

Injuries, Weed, and God

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:07:55 -0500

As I've told you guys, I'm writing a book. It will be an intimate conversation about my life, and possibly the realest, most straight-forward picture of life and sports you've ever read. Here's an excerpt that takes place right after I tore my achilles, and right before my fourth year in the WNBA. Let me know what you think.

“Hey Royce. It’s Chantelle. I need some weed.” It was the first non-business related call I had made since arriving in San Antonio two days before. Royce was one of those guys that I had kind of liked when I first got to San An, until I figured out he was just trying to hit. These days we were cool, and I knew I could call him for info. on the club scene or, as in this case, to get high. And that’s exactly what I needed: something to take me somewhere else for a moment, away from this enigma that was my life. A Harry Potter movie just wasn’t gonna cut it this time.

So I made the call, and five minutes later I was crutching out of my house, on the way to meet him and his cousin Sherman at their apartment.

The last time I had smoked was at a party in Sac almost three years before. Shortly afterwards, on our next road trip to Phoenix, the league had surprised us with a drug test as soon as we got to the gym for practice. I immediately began to visualize the meeting with my coach telling me I was off the team for violating the league’s anti-drug policy, and the subsequent phone call to my Dad as I informed him I no longer had a job. I had been so scared I was going to fail that I offered up a prayer in which I traded a clean test for a promise to God that I would never smoke again. Well, I passed, and I hadn’t smoked since. In my current situation however, I figured God would understand.

They made fun of me for coughing the first few times. And it hurt when I burned my throat. You know, when you can’t hold it in and so you can’t help but cough it out? But once I got the hang of it, I allowed myself to inhale deeply, and drift away, one “puff puff give” at a time.

As my eyes narrowed and my smile came a little easier, my mind relaxed and I allowed myself to become entranced by the smoke, pretending that my worries disappeared into the air along with it. Soon, it was like the current state of my life was one long hallucination, and that when I came back, things would be as they should again. It felt good to believe that, if only for a couple hours.

While Royce was rolling the second one, I allowed my gaze to wander around the room. Almost immediately I noticed a gun sitting on the opposite corner of the coffee table in such an obvious location it made me wonder how I hadn’t seen it there before. Sherman saw me looking at it and asked if I had ever seen a gun in real life before. I said “No”. He picked it up and held it out to me, and I took it.

I examined it, tenderly caressing the matte black steel that was kind of pretty in a macabre sort of way. Then I pressed it against my temple; it was cold. Cold and unfeeling. I pressed harder. Holding it made me feel strong. For that moment I had control over something again. Even if I chose not to exercise that control, I still had the power to do so. In looking back I realize that the real strength was my ability to put down the gun, unused, and face my life, ruins and all. Still, it’s amazing how seductive control can be, especially considering the disarray of my world at the time; the gun didn’t leave my hand until I went home.

I made it back to my house a little while later and was once again alone with my thoughts. And I sat there, on my couch and still high, thinking about everything I got high to forget: How close I had been, how far I now had to go, how I had lost her almost as quickly as I had just lost my career, how I didn’t know if I could continue to tell myself “next season it’ll happen”… I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to feel.

I went to the freezer and stood in the middle of the kitchen as I downed half a bottles worth of vodka shots. Then, like that cold gust of wind when you first step out of the front door in January, it hit me, and I started to cry; that agonizingly silent cry purging itself from so deep down in my soul that the sound got lost on the way up. In fact the only evidence I was actually crying were the tears that found themselves dripping off the edge of my jaw, and the somewhat irregular breathing as I embraced myself and curled up on the living room floor. I don’t know how long I laid there, but the last thing I remember before passing out was pleading with God, “Lord, please help me.”

Injuries, weed, and God

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:42:06 -0500

So I made the call, and five minutes later I was crutching out of my house, on the way to meet him and his cousin Sherman at their apartment.

I Lie Because I Love You

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:41:54 -0500

I’ve heard it from my friends a million times: “I lie to her because I love her”. But no matter how often I hear it, it rubs me the wrong way every time. The realist in me says a man can love a woman while still doing other things on the side, and not wanting to hurt her, should lie to her about it. But the idealist in me finds it very hard to envision the concept of love without respect, honesty, and protection following suit.

As women, we all want to feel protected, and men do it because they are taught growing up that that’s part of being a man. I know men who cheat think they’re protecting their lady by making sure she’s not worried about what else they’re doing, or stressed about losing them. I get that part. But what about protection in the bigger sense of the word?

Like protecting her from wasting her time with someone she has to share when there’s someone out there she can have all to herself? What about protecting her physically instead of putting her at risk of catching something you bring home to her (ya, condoms don’t prevent everything)? Or protecting her ego from having another girl call and let her know she’s been sharing her man for the last few months?

There are lots of ways to protect your woman other than forcing her to live in ignorance. But those ways, true protection, require unselfishness and sacrifice. Sacrificing what you, your d*ck, and your ego want, for her heart and what’s best for the relationship. Sacrifice: the ultimate evidence on love. Without it, you just care a whole lot. There’s a difference.

***Note: Yes, I know women do this too and so this concept applies to everyone. But truth is, I’ve personally only heard this specific rationalization from men, so that’s the way I wrote it.

I'm Retiring

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:01:28 -0500

My basketball career ended yesterday. It's kind of a weird feeling, considering it's the only career I've ever known, even before I had a career. Since high school, there's never been a time I wasn't working at least five days a week, usually six, towards a basketball driven end. And now, at age 28, it's over.

After my first three weeks in Lebanon, I thought this might happen. The team I was playing for was great, and my teammates were amazing. They all had jobs outside of basketball and would come to our 6:30pm practice after having worked an 8 to 5 day. While I was getting paid a pretty good salary, they would come and work their butts off for a little more than free. It made me stop and ask myself, if I weren’t getting paid for this, would I still be doing it?

Since 9th grade the answer had been undeniably yes. Yes, I would continue this love/hate relationship with basketball. I would do it because I still had a hunger that wouldn't allow me to let go, or even loosen my grip. I would do it because in the end, it was always worth it. But at that moment, when I asked myself that question, I had to answer honestly: no, I wouldn't.

If I weren’t getting paid, I wouldn't be here lifting weights and going to practice. I wouldn't continue training, or chasing my hoop dreams of a return to the WNBA. Without the motivation of a paycheck, I would go home, to my family and the potential of a relationship, and pursue a career in writing. Writing was something I would do for free. Then it hit me: I was falling in love all over again.

We had been through too much together, basketball and I. Similar to when the love of your life has wronged you one too many times. You really want to forgive him or her because of all the good times spent together, but you can't find the energy. That's how my time in Lebanon has been. Basketball and I have developed the type of deeply fulfilling friendship that can only be born out of true intimacy. But the love affair is over.

Sitting in the locker room after my last game, I didn't feel sad; I felt unexpectedly relieved. It's time. Even though I don't have a job lined up, or any concrete idea of what I will do for money, or even what coast I’ll be living on in three months, this is something I have to do. There have been so many times in my life I've had to jump without knowing exactly where or how I will land. And this is another one. It's not like I'm jumping with no possibilities. I do have those. But there's a huge difference between possibilities, and counting on someone sending you a check every month.

I'm not scared really. It's more of an anxious feeling; a desire to know what's coming next. But I've always been taken care of, and I know this situation will be another example of that. The combination of my faith in my work ethic and, more importantly, my faith in my God, allows me to believe that.

One of my favorite quotes is, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” But the thing is, God promised me success. So really, I can't fail. Where we sometimes get mixed up is when his definition of success and our definition of success are not the same. I always thought my success would come from basketball. I wanted the Lisa Leslie type of success. And I've had some, but not nearly at the level I dreamed of. But after all the injuries and mishaps, and now with my basketball career ending at 28, it's obvious that "Lisa Leslie success" wasn't in the cards for me. God must have meant success in some other way. Another thing I’ve always wanted for my career is to have a choice in when I walked away. And that's what this is. In coming to play in Lebanon, it was my declaration that no one, not the Atlanta Dream, not naysayers, not even my own body, was going to tell me when my career was over. I wasn't going to be forced to retire because of injuries or lack of options.

My time in Beirut has been amazing. I've played well, stayed healthy, and felt what it was like to be part of something bigger than myself again, which is hands down, the best feeling in sports. I was flattered and grateful when my team here offered me a multi-year deal to come back and play for them. But as much as I would love to, I can't take it. It's time to move on. And God has given me too many other talents to stop right here and settle for some job I don’t love. I just have to figure out how to use them.

I will always be an athlete. It's the mindset that has made me a fighter my entire life, and it won’t change. I will always speak up for female athletes and try to represent them well, because they deserve it. But I'm looking forward to this new adventure in this transient experience we call life. I'm up for the challenge.

So here I am, jumping off the ledge - figuratively speaking of course. You’ll know when I land, because like everything else, I'll blog about it! Lol.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:7

Now I know...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:19:55 -0500

I wrote this for someone. I'm sure we've all felt like this at one time or another. So figured I'd share...

Your presence has no more power over me. Your eyes are void of the magnetism that once drew me into you; I now know the true nature behind them. Your potential and hunger for greatness excited me, and I once admired the spirit I saw in you. I gave you so many chances to prove me right, to be the wonderful person I knew you were. But no more. I can finally see what is and not what I wish to be. I see a spirit marred by corruption and greatness accompanied by arrogance. I can now continue on, eyes open.

The only thing I ever asked you for was honesty. I could have forgiven anything short of willful deceit. Now that I know the truth, you're not welcome in my life. I refuse to preserve friendships that don't meet the requirements of the title.

Regardless of the situation, I know I was always genuine, and treated you with respect you did not earn but deserved just the same. I did not let who you are change who I am. For that, I can feel good about how things turned out. And for the very first time in our relationship, I got what I needed: closure.

You give him one more chance
Just like the time before
But he already knows
You'd give a hundred more
Until that night in bed
You wake up in a sweat
You're racing to the door
Can't take it anymore
I was burned, but I called it a lesson learned
~ Alicia Key, Lesson Learned

Now I know...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:55:02 -0500

I wrote this for someone. I'm sure we've all felt like this at one time or another. So figured I'd share... Your presence has no more power over me. Your eyes are void of the magnetism that once drew me into you; I now know the true nature behind them. Your potential and hunger for greatness excited me, and I once admired the spirit I saw in you. I gave you so many chances to prove me right, to be the wonderful person I knew you were. But no more. I can finally see what is and not what I wish to be. I see a spirit marred by corruption and greatness accompanied by arrogance. I can now continue on, eyes open. The only thing I ever asked you for was honesty. I could have forgiven anything short of willful deceit. Now that I know the truth, you're not welcome in my life. I refuse to preserve friendships that don't meet the requirements of the title. Regardless of the situation, I know I was always genuine, and treated you with respect you did not earn but deserved just the same. I did not let who you are change who I am. For that, I can feel good about how things turned out. And for the very first time in our relationship, I got what I needed: closure. You give him one more chance Just like the time before But he already knows You'd give a hundred more Until that night in bed You wake up in a sweat You're racing to the door Can't take it anymore I was burned, but I called it a lesson learned ~ Alicia Key, Lesson Learned

Now I know...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:33:00 -0500

I wrote this for someone. I'm sure we've all felt like this at one time or another. So figured I'd share... Your presence has no more power over me. Your eyes are void of the magnetism that once drew me into you; I now know the true nature behind them. Your potential and hunger for greatness excited me, and I once admired the spirit I saw in you. I gave you so many chances to prove me right, to be the wonderful person I knew you were. But no more. I can finally see what is and not what I wish to be. I see a spirit marred by corruption and greatness accompanied by arrogance. I can now continue on, eyes open. The only thing I ever asked you for was honest. I could have forgiven anything short of willful deceit. Now that I know the truth, you're not welcome in my life. I refuse to preserve friendships that don't meet the requirements of the title. Regardless of the situation, I know I was always genuine, and treated you with respect you did not earn but deserved just the same. I did not let who you are change who I am. For that, I can fee good about how things turned out. And for the very first time in our relationship, I got what I needed: closure. You give him one more chance Just like the time before But he already knows You'd give a hundred more Until that night in bed You wake up in a sweat You're racing to the door Can't take it anymore I was burned, but I called it a lesson learned ~ Alicia Key, Lesson Learned

Clips From Chennai, India

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:48:33 -0500

Hey guys! I'm here in India playing in the FIBA Asian Championships. Here is some video from our day off. Hope you enjoy. And let me apologize ahead of time for my squeaky voice. I've been yelling a lot on the court. Hope it's not too annoying, haha.

Keep it in the Closet

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:04:09 -0500

No, is not a post about homosexuality (maybe next time, haha). I want to talk about Caster Semenya, the South African runner who made big news in the track world a couple weeks ago when her sex came into question. I realize I’m a little late on this one. But I’d read both my fellow Yardbarker athlete’s blogs on this issue and at first, I didn’t have an opinion on it. And I still don’t, about the track angle of whether she should be allowed to compete or not. I don’t care if she runs against women, men, or goes back home and works at McDonalds. No matter what she does, the situation should have been handled differently from a media standpoint.

Almost as soon Semenya found success on a national stage, her (lack of) femininity caused people to start asking questions. What was the deal? Was she on steroids? Was she a “real woman”? As subsequent (leaked) tests revealed, she was born with characteristics of both sexes. She is (again according to leaked reports) considered intersexual, which includes the more known classification of being a hermaphrodite. Given that this, condition, affords her more testosterone – similar to acting as her own natural steroid – than her fellow female competitors, I understand why many believe she should not be allowed to compete. But did people really have to come out and tell everyone the details? Out of respect for her privacy, there should’ve been a standard bland answer like, “she was deemed unable to compete at this time and we have no further comment on the situation.” Also, the people that leaked the story in the first place showed very little regard for any human angle on this issue (as is not surprising considering most people’s disregard for others they don’t know anyway).

And don’t tell me about journalistic integrity and the public’s right to know. Some things should not be reported. There are more buried stories about Jordan in his glory days than there are bodies in the nearest cemetery. You don’t actually think CNN or Fox News or even ESPN gives us the entire story, about anything, ever, do you?

For many of us, the issue of sexuality is blue and pink, boy and girl, man and woman. But that is not true. In reality, as many as one in fifty people are born with some variation of sexual characteristics. Where required, most are “dealt with” at birth, and as a vagina is easier to form than a functional p*nis, around 90% are assigned as female. Where the complications are internal, as in Semenya’s case, the doctors may do nothing, including tell the family. I won’t get all technical on this because I don’t understand it all and it’s beside the point anyway. The bottom line is that determining someone’s sex is way more complicated then asking them to pull down their pants.

She, like the rest of us, can’t help what she was born with – or without. You may argue she made the wrong choice in choosing to compete in a sport in the public eye. But the thing was, she didn’t know! Yes she is more masculine looking than most, but some women just are. She’s only 18 years old and had no reason to think the differences were sexual or unfair. And because some selfish people wanted to make news without first considering and/or respecting how this would affect her, she had to find out at virtually the same time as the rest of the world.

Can you imagine finding out you were not what you thought you were your entire life, and dealing with it in front of the world, when you’re a teenager and everything is already confusing anyway? I’d guess it would be humiliating, painful, and a few other adjectives, none of them good. She is now on suicide watch while trying to deal with this situation on a giant stage. All I’m saying is, how would you like it if the whole world knew a secret about you that is as potentially embarrassing as hers? There are certain things the public just does not need to know. And if they were going to find out, it should have been her choice to tell them.

P.S. Here's a link to a particularly interesting article about this subject.

The Sane Side of Crazy

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:32:05 -0500

Welcome to the launch of my new, all topic blog! While I have enjoyed discussing sports (and will continue to), I have so much more I want to share. I’m still hosting it on Yardbarker because they think you guys might want to hear it, and I hope they’re right.

You may be wondering why the title. Why, “The Sane Side of Crazy”? Well, I believe that we’re all potentially crazy (myself included). Walking around in our sustainably neat lives with our predictable schedules – even if they happen to be predictably unpredictable – merely camouflages it. In truth, each and every one of us is just that one wrong fall away, actually or figuratively, from turning certifiably insane.

So how do we stay “normal”? Maybe living in our pretty boxes, yet outside our own heads, and hoping things will stay tidy is the answer. But for me, life is too transient an experience to settle there and get comfortable. No, I think the only way to assure a full and joyful life, minus a cocktail of psycho pills, is to put on our gloves and rummage through our heads and hearts until we discover all we believe, and why we believe it. That way, when something happens to disrupt our foundation, we know where to tweak without having to completely disassemble ourselves, or rather, we can skip the need for someone else’s attempt at taking us apart and putting us back together.

Yes, assuming there are no medical reasons we should snap (hormones, chemicals, all that good stuff), understanding of self is the only way to assure balance. This is my constant search. I write to express what I think and how I feel about things (sometimes I don’t even know my opinion on an issue until I’m halfway through writing about it). But that’s the blessing of discussion – even with ourselves: it breeds clarity.

This blog will be part journal, part commentary, and will cover relationships, society, perception, and yes, sports. I can’t promise you will agree with everything I write; in fact, I can probably guarantee you won’t. What I can say is that reading this blog will force you to contemplate your own thoughts and beliefs, whether they match what I say or not.

Read along as I keep myself on the Sane Side of Crazy. And come with if you want!

Thoughts from the Middle East

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 05:45:39 -0500

Hey everyone! So guess where I am…(Twitter followers already know)…..Give up?....I’m in Lebanon! Beirut to be exact. Ya, crazy random I know (didn’t exactly see myself living in the Middle East any time soon…or ever).
But I’m here playing basketball for the Lebanese National Team for the next three months. No, I’m not Lebanese by birth but somehow it’s legal so Ima go with it, haha. It’s nice to be back on the court and although it’s not at WNBA level, it’s a good place to get my rhythm back and get some game film to play in Europe afterwards. I’ve been here almost a week and I love it so far. So I figured I’d write and give y’all some initial thoughts and insight into my life over here.

My first reaction when walking out of the airport: OMG y’all have palm trees here! Yay! Second reaction: What?! Y’all got Krispy Kreme?! (upon seeing a billboard for my fav donut place). Yep, they sure do. In fact, it’s so Americanized here I didn’t even have to exchange money. I can pay with dollars anywhere I go. Too cool. In addition to Krispy Kreme, I’ve also seen Ace Hardware, Osh Kosh B’gosh, Shell gas stations (they’re called
Coral here…get it? Coral, Shell, haha), Crocs, GNC, GoodYear, Dunkin Donuts, and Radio Shack. And of course McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC are givens.

The city is absolutely beautiful. Sunny, modern, and right on the water (I can look out my window and see the Mediterranean Sea). And the food here is delicious. Usually when players go overseas they end up losing lots of weight because of the lack of acceptable food options; but I don’t see that being a problem here. We also only have one practice a day so I better not eat too much because I will be spending lots of time in a bikini. Might even post some pics from our team outing to the beach next week ;-)

My teammates are very nice and all speak English. Actually, lots of people here speak English, but French is the most prevalent language, other than Arabic of course. Many people speak all three and it’s not uncommon to hear words from each in the same sentence. I have two tattoos in Arabic and I’ve gotten lots of questions about them. Thankfully they say what I meant them to say because I’m in a place where people can actually read them. The only thing I've found so far that sucks: everyone smokes everywhere. I DETEST cigarettes. If I'm around them too often I get sick, so I have to be extra careful.

I haven’t seen any Black people since I got here. In addition to being tall, I think my skin color is why everyone stares at me. There aren’t exactly a lot of people that look like me walking around here. Actually, I take that back.
I have seen a few Africans here. But the first year I played overseas I discovered that many Black Africans don’t necessarily care for Black Americans. I guess that’s still the case because they rarely acknowledge me in passing or even return my smile. So I just stopped considering them as Black people overseas. It’s funny how when I played in France and some French people didn’t like me because I was American, I didn’t really care. But for some reason I’m more offended at (some) African people’s reaction – or non-reaction – to me as a Black person. Gotta love racial politics.

I met a boy named Abbas the other day. He’s originally from Iraq but was visiting Lebanon from Syria (they share a border), where he’s going to school for engineering. He began our conversation by asking what it was like to live in America. I told him it was cool but I had lived there my whole life so it was just something I was used to. His view of
America: a beautiful country with unlimited freedoms, nice people that readily accept and embrace other cultures, and the best rap music, lol (his favorite artists are 50 cent, The Game, and Eminem). The conversation was pretty
standard until he asked if I minded him posting a picture we had just taken on the internet. I asked if he was gonna put it on Facebook (several of my teammates have pages). He told me no, he didn’t have a Facebook page because the government didn’t allow them. Wait, what? I had never considered such a thing as not being allowed to have a Facebook page. But yes, in 2009, in Syria, sites like Facebook and You Tube are outlawed. And if they find you’re using a proxy to get around it (I didn’t know what that was but Abbas explained it’s a way to trick the system) they will cut off your internet connection. Ya, that was a wake-up call. We take so much more for granted than we realize. It made me think about how I might get shot for some of the things I write here on YB! My next thought was that preventing people from talking to each other, both locally and to those in other places (like America), is the best way to control their thinking. Isolation makes it difficult to aspire to better things and find ways to make them happen. And how much easier would it be to be yourself if you had the freedom to figure out who that was? Man, I never thought Facebook was a big deal. But for Abbas, and those like him, the overall issue is so much more than a social networking site.

One thing that’s really different in Lebanon is that it’s custom for children, especially women, to live with their parents until they get married. One of my teammates thinks it’s funny that we move out at age 18 to go on to virtual adulthood. Living with parents until marriage isn’t required, but if one moves out, people will talk about the family having problems or the child being sexually promiscuous. That is one custom that would never work in America. Thankfully in Lebanon, the families are very close. Many people spend every Sunday with their entire families, extended family included.

Since it seems most of what we (as in Americans) hear about the Middle East is either about explosives or religion (Muslims in particular), I decided to pick my teammates’ brains on the latter. There are two different types of Muslims: Sunni and Shiite. These two groups have been in conflict forever, but according to my teammates, the average person over here doesn’t care about the religious differences; they are used purely for political purposes as an excuse to fight/gain power. Most Christians (there area lot of them here) and Muslims (both Sunni and Shiite), socialize together and don’t care who is what, families and friends alike.

I have noticed that people here are very passionate about how they are perceived by the rest of the world. They don’t appreciate how people on the outside get a one-sided story and then judge them all by it (I know we would all feel the same way). I know there are some crazy places in the Middle East (Beirut has been one of them in the past and you already read my Syrian story). But we must be very careful in judging the people of a certain nationality by the politics of their region. The radicals and terrorists are vastly outnumbered by innocent people that just happened to be born in a certain part of the world, inconsiderate of it’s politics, just like you and me.

I know this wasn't really about basketball, but I've always liked to learn about the places I go, so I figured I'd pass it on. I'll keep y'all updated. Kisses from Lebanon!