The Dubsism “White Shadow” NBA Play-Off Challenge
If you’re my age, you might remember this CBS production which ran from 1977 to 1981.
The main character was Ken Reeves (played by Ken Howard) who was a white NBA player who retires from the Chicago Bulls after career-ending knee injury. He then takes a job as the head coach at Carver High School, a mostly black and Hispanic high school in supposedly set South Central Los Angeles. Given that setup, you would expect this show to feature a lot of race-centric story lines.
However, “The White Shadow” transcended that by keeping race in its proper perspective. It did so by showing the effects and consequences of issues like illicit drug use, child abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, gambling, prostitution, sexual orientation, and physical and mental disabilities at the individual level rather than through the broad brush of race. And by featuring a diverse cast, “The White Shadow” had an even greater power to show how those issues really do cross the artificial boundaries of social construct.
But what made “The White Shadow” extraordinary was how it could infuse humor into even the most awful recesses of the human experience. Characters often made light of the darkest moments, and in many cases by doing so it would break two of the cardinal rules of television. “Dark” comedy is deliberately avoided on network prime-time, and shows are expected to bring all problems to a resolution within their allotted sixty minutes. But “The White Shadow” often ended with no resolution, simply because that’s reality.
If I had “television producer” money, I’d love to do a “re-boot” of this show. But I have two problems. Obviously, I don’t have “television producer” money, and the “politically correct” police would bitch to no end about a show that played issues as brutally real as “The White Shadow” did.
That’s why I’m settling for naming an NBA Play-off Bracket challenge in its honor. Just like “The White Shadow” carried a cautionary tales about the evils of gambling, we are here at Dubsism to offer you a shot at greatness by picking the winners in each round of the NBA play-offs, and thus beating the most interesting independent sports blogger on the web. But then when you can’t do it, your hopes are dashed and you wake up to yet another sad dose of reality. You go from dreams of bracket-winning glory to the harsh reminder you are the overnight security guard at a factory which makes rubber dog-shit.
Therein lies the attraction of gambling. It gives you the hope of escaping your godawful life, but it usually only make things worse. And therein lies the beauty of our sports challenges here at Dubsism. We offer the hope; the fleeting glory of beating the most interesting independent sports blogger on the web at his own game. We offer the desperation when you fail. But we also offer this life lesson for the low, low cost of zippo.
So you might as well sign up and play. In the immortal words of John Blutarsky, “it don’t cost nothin.'”
For the basics, each participant in this year’s Bracket Challenge will receive:
- 1 point for each correct pick in Round 1
- 2 points for each correct pick in the Semi-Finals
- 4 points for each correct pick in the Conference Finals
- 8 points for picking the NBA Finals Champion
Highest point total wins, It’s that simple. To get your spot in our challenge just go to https://www.pooltracker.com/join.asp?poolid=147020 and do the usual sign-up thing (you don’t need a password as we are truly all-inclusive).
The thing is you’ll never know if you can beat me if you don’t enter.
Email the most interesting independent sports blog on the web at dubsism@yahoo.com, and follow us @Dubsism on Twitter, or on our Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook pages.
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I look forward to Frank Vogel sitting on the set of Dubsism as he discusses these brackets as they progress and talk dirt about what miserable (&^_@#*$ organization he just left.
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Funny…we made that offer when the Pacers fired him.
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