Forgot to change the name. My son has been posting on my computer. The last post was mine. But you knew that anyway. Sorry.

Ok, ok, I will give you that basketballI IS a man’s game (although it is also played professionally by women). I have also read somewhere that basketball players are the best physically conditioned of all athletes. It has been tested scientifically. Don’t ask me where though.

Effeminate? Really?

Maybe figure skating or synchronized swimming.

I’m pretty sure the participants in the major sports are fairly butch, even the gay ones.

I’ve never played football, but I have played Rugby. That’s rough, but I consider top level basketball is almost as physically demanding. Maybe you will concede that’s a man’s game, just so that I can at least restore some shred of bravado!

The worst rugby game I ever played in was on an icy field and some guy stamped on my hand in the first minute, but because it was cold there were no medics on hand so I had to gut it out for the whole game with my hand pissing blood. It felt like it would never end!

I lke the way you say basketball as a ” non-contact sport is a complete myth because that only applies to the guy with the ball, a lot of the rest of the time you are battling for position”. Battling for for position? You mean with the hips and the glutus maximus?

I would expect football to be more physical, although it probably varies from position to position. As for the complexity of the game of course football is the more complex game, although there are elements of “five yards and a cloud of dust” to the game, just as there are complex designed plays or defensive schemes in basketball for those with a high enough basketball IQ. Some basketball coaches just motivate and that’s about it though.

It might interest you to know that the majority of Brits actually think (and I hasten to add that I disagree) that American Football players are wimps (see examples below) because they have to wear pads. (I always argue that they can also hit harder because of the pads they wear).

http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=american+football+is+for+wimps&meta=&btnG=Google+Search

If I played football, I’d be matched up with guys more or less my size instead of 8 inches and 50 pounds bigger, so I’d probably take less of a physical pounding! I have had numerous injuries over the last few years. Maybe I chose the wrong sport.

Nothing personal Bent, I tend to think that you agree that both games in general are much more affeminate in contact than football and much much more complex in rules, strategy, number of positions, player diversity etc, etc, etc. Don’t you think that footbal (American, that is) is more of a MANS sport?

You aimed that at the wrong guy. I am a basketball player that has never paid football (or baseball) in my life. Maybe it is a sissy game compared to football, but I’ve taken an absolute pounding over my “career”, especially since I’m much smaller than most of my teammates and opponents.

But, I can say that I’ve encountered loads of basketball coaches (at all levels) who have no idea what they’re doing and were just winging it and hoping that if they spouted enough cliches nobody would notice they were just relying on the players to find a way to win. I’d imagine it would be impossible for a football coach to wing it in a similar way!