There’s so much more to competitive sports than simply
stepping on the court, playing a game, and going home.
There’s practice, films, team meetings, road trips, those
cute little halftime orange slices and the requisite after-game
Capri Sun.
But there’s also a special little thing called
gamesmanship.
Gamesmanship is the psychological aspect that makes sports fun.
It is what keeps people interested.
Gamesmanship is Gary Payton talking trash every second of his
life. It is Magic Johnson and Larry Bird involved in a never-ending
game of oneupsmanship. It is coaches like USC track and
field’s Ron Allice putting on a routine for the media in an
attempt to motivate his athletes.
And it is UCLA volleyball coach
Al Scates making unfounded accusations about opposing teams.
Remember reading all that stuff in the newspaper about Scates
calling players on the BYU team cheaters? Yeah, that was
gamesmanship.
First Scates speculated about the ineligibility of BYU senior
opposite hitter Joe Hillman, who is in his sixth year playing
collegiate volleyball. Scates later said that he believed Cougar
players Carlos Moreno and Fernando Pessoa had taken money playing
volleyball in Brazil and thus were ineligible to compete as
amateurs.
What ensued was a large outcry in the volleyball community.
Scates was condemned by many fans and coaches for making
unsubstantiated claims regarding the eligibility of other players.
People were demanding that UCLA quit its whining and simply play
volleyball.
But the gamesmanship hasn’t stopped. On Wednesday, UCLA
assistant coach Brian Rofer issued a statement to the Daily Bruin
reasserting the questionable nature of Hillman’s
eligibility.
Regarding this whole mess, I’ve heard Scates called
arrogant, presumptuous and pompous. And maybe he is.
But what I haven’t heard him called is very, very
smart.
Until now.
It’s true that no one really knows what Al Scates is
thinking, but it never hurts to speculate. And my speculation is
that all the seemingly stupid, boneheaded, ignorant statements
Scates made about opposing players were premeditated, a series of
coaching ploys intended to make things easier for his team. At its
heart, it’s gamesmanship at its finest.
That gamesmanship takes center stage tonight as the Bruin
volleyball team faces Long Beach State in the belly of the beast
““ Provo, Utah ““ the home of BYU.
Odds are that only a handful of the fans in attendance, maybe
even fewer, will be rooting for UCLA tonight. And that might be all
well and good. By doing what he has done, Scates has taken the
attention off his players. The attention of opposing coaches and
players is fixed on Scates.
The team, meanwhile, has continued to go on about its business
as usual. In fact, the third-ranked Bruins came out and played
arguably their best match of the season Saturday against
Hawai’i.
And if they are fortunate enough to win tonight, the drama of
another battle with BYU awaits.
If that match were to actually come about, it’s safe to
say that all the pressure would be on the Cougars. They’re
the ones with the No. 1 ranking. They’re the ones who have
had their eligibility questioned. If anything, this is much more of
a distraction for BYU than it is for the Bruins. Assuming
everything is fine with the eligibility of the Cougars, which the
NCAA says it is, this fact has to be weighing heavily on their
minds. And that’s probably what Scates intended.
In sports, it’s a lot easier to play with no pressure or
expectations.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Scates doesn’t really
care either way about the eligibility of these players. I think he
simply saw an opportunity to make things easier for his team, and
he took it.
It’s gamesmanship.
E-mail Regan at dregan@media.ucla.edu.