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Go Spurs go: a Basketball Primer

Don't be afraid of sports just because you like to think.
Basketball is a lovely, relatively non-violent game which matches
up some of the most graceful men in the world. You
intellecturals out there can also take comfort in the fact that the
San Antonio Spurs are probably the best-educated team in the
NBA. (Those ads which feature David Robinson promoting
reading just make me tingl.) The bios on these guys are great,
too. It's too bad that only the big stars get their stories
published (see accompanying bibliography), but just look in your
local newspaper's sportspages, or invest in a copy of The
Sporting News or Sports Illustrated. This time of eyar is the
best to get into basketball. The league is gearing up for the
playoffs and, with football out of the piture, NBC is running
between two and five NBA games per weekend. (Course that's
nothin' if you have cable.) Austinites can also get many of the
Spurs games on KNVA54, and WOAI 1200 AM ("The South
Texas Blowtorch") carries most games too. The Spurs
announcer, Jay Howard, is the shit. Although the advertising
world has sunken into a deep, unshakable depression over the
financial blow aused by the loss of Michael Jordan, for us fans
this means that the game is no longer dominated by one player,
one team. This makes the race for the championship that
much more exciting.

Opposite, please find a handy bibliography, especially
useful to the novice fan who wants answers to questions such as,
"What did David Robinson major in when he was at the Naval
Academy?" "Why do some fouls result in two free throws, some
in only one, and some in none at all?" and "What unique
qualities have black men brought to the game of basketball?"
All these books can be found at your local library along with the
aforementioned periodicals. They are organized by which
section of the library they would likely be found in. Be careful to
distinguish between the book entitled "Loose Balls" and is
about the history of the ABA, and the soon-to-be-published
book of the same name by Jason "White Chocolate" Williams
of the Sacramento Kings. jason is the Kid Rock of basketball
and his book should be quite amusing, though not as much as
his wacky ball0handling. Just ask at the desk if you need any
help. Librarians love to serve.

-Jennifer LaSuprema
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