A Quote by John Edgar Wideman
What I wanted to do in talking about basketball in 'Hoop Roots' was retrieve the game as something to participate in, not to watch.
Related Quotes
Basketball is basketball. And whether it's male, or female, or has any other label attached to it... that really doesn't matter to me. It really doesn't matter who's playing. Hoop is hoop. Game is game. If you have it, I'll recognize it. Period.
If I can't practice, I can't practice. It is as simple as that. I ain't about that at all. It's easy to sum it up if you're just talking about practice. We're sitting here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're talking about practice. I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we're talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last, but we're talking about practice man. How silly is that?
When you're at the basketball court watching a game, one person may be talking about a fight he had with his wife, another is talking about the last hard-on he got, someone else is talking about the presidential election. The language and the tone and the voice - I'd love to be able to capture that spontaneity.
We're sitting in here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen, we're talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, we talking about practice. Not a game. Not, not... Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last. Not the game, but we're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that?.. And we talking about practice. I know I supposed to be there. I know I'm supposed to lead by example... I know that... And I'm not... I'm not shoving it aside, you know, like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I do. I honestly do... But we're talking about practice man. What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man.
My daughter, she loves gymnastics. I take her to gymnastics and watch her compete. It's fun to see something you have rub off on your kids. My son, as much as I love to get away from the game, he really does love basketball. He just wants to shoot on this little hoop I got him. It's just awesome to see them smile all the time.
'Hoop Dreams' brought us back to our roots in veríté filmmaking. What we saw in the powerful emotional scenes within it - at nearly three hours long and with no star power - was an outreach to a different and more important audiences. There were the similarly involved folks who saw it that were part of the struggle, but there was also a new audience that weren't empathetic or sympathetic to the people we were portraying. They would never watch a film about inner city families, but they watched 'Hoop Dreams.'
My brother one time after a little league basketball game, I think he messed up or something had happened in the game, ends up getting in an argument with my dad. Ultimately he gets pushed down and he ends up cutting the back of his head. He had six or seven stitches over a 10-year-old basketball game. That was tough to watch.
It's a heavy duty to try to do everything and please everybody. My job was to go out there and play the game of basketball as best I can and provide entertainment for everyone who wanted to watch basketball. Obviously, people may not agree with that; again, I can't live with what everyone's impression of what I should or what I shouldn't do.
Writing 'Hoop Roots' was a substitute or a surrogate activity. I can't play anymore - my body won't cooperate - so in the writing of the book, I was looking to tell a good story about my life and about basketball, but I was also looking to entertain myself the way that I entertain myself when I play.
For men's college coaches through to the NBA, I think basketball people are basketball people. When you start talking the game, gender has gone out the window, and they just talk basketball with you.
You can't participate in agriculture or redesign of aircraft for making them safer if you know nothing about it. So, whenever a person says 'will I be participating in the new world?' Only in areas that you can participate it. Areas that you have competence in. I'm not talking about self confidence, I'm talking about the ability to solve problems. Electrical, chemical, technical. I don't know of any other kind of problem.
I watch basketball. I got League Pass, so I watch a lot of basketball. Each and every night I watch basketball, so I keep up with the whole league.
It's just something I've always loved to do: talk basketball. It's easy for me to give my perspective, my analyst approach to it, because even when I played, I would watch film, talk about the game.
They call it football, but the object of the game is to bash the other guy so hard that he's eventually carried off the field on a stretcher. I can't watch football anymore. My psychiatrist said it's better that way. I used to watch a game, see the players in a huddle - and think they were talking about me.
I think people tune in to watch a football game because they want to watch a football game. If they wanted to watch a stand-up comedy show on HBO, that's where they'd go
I love the game of basketball. I guess it started with 'Space Jam.' Right after that movie, I went out there to my little Flight hoop and tried to do every dunk in the movie.
Related Authors
Charles Bukowski Quotes
American
Novelist
Charles Dickens Quotes
English
Novelist
Chuck Palahniuk Quotes
American
Novelist
Ernest Hemingway Quotes
American
Novelist
George Eliot Quotes
British
Novelist
George Orwell Quotes
British
Novelist
George R. R. Martin Quotes
American
Novelist
Jane Austen Quotes
British
Novelist
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
German
Novelist
Margaret Atwood Quotes
Canadian
Novelist
Nicholas Sparks Quotes
American
Novelist
Paulo Coelho Quotes
Brazilian
Novelist
Sarah Dessen Quotes
American
Novelist
Stephenie Meyer Quotes
American
Novelist
Veronica Roth Quotes
American
Novelist
Victor Hugo Quotes
French
Novelist