Saturday, August 21, 2004
Vitale Goes Negative
I've long believed Dick Vitale's popularity is due, in part, to his willingness to praise and hesitancy to criticize. Game after the game, I hear him hype players and lavish praise upon coaches. His few disparaging comments are couched in favorable undertones, often about future potential or past success.Until now. His latest about USA Basketball takes no prisoners:
- "The problem is, we don't have a team. It is a group of individual stars."
- "They don't understand roles, and they cannot shoot 3s."
- "You can't play without 3-point shooters and without legitimate point guards. It is humiliating so far."
- "It comes down to hunger as well and I have to wonder if the foreign countries have more of that than we do! How hungry is our team?"
- "I don't know how much pride they have. It hurts to watch these countries humiliate some of our best."
Etc. Wow.
