Testosterone Man #2 
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From: parinell@athena.mit.edu (James C Parinella) 
Subject: Testosterone man speaks (well, grunts) 
Date: 3 Dec 1993 23:15:33 GMT

Wow.  I guess this means I'm not invited to play with
Rec.Sport.Disc at Fools next year.

I'd like to explain a little about why I wrote.  I fully
expected to get flamed terribly.  Tross
(lawler@brandeis.something) posted an opposing viewpoint that
was very mild, and got nailed for it, so I knew it was coming.
I can take it, I'm pretty thick-skinned.  I'm enjoying this
whole discussion, even though anyone that dares to say
anything along my lines provokes outcries of "Savage" and
"Kill that aggressive guy".  I would like to thank the people
that wrote in with support.  They really made my day.

I'd like to clarify some things that people may have gotten
out of my post:

1.  I am not an asshole.  The sig was a reference to a
previous post equating wanting to win with being a
"testosterone filled asshole".  How many of you know me?  I
think that I have (at least until this week) a pretty good
reputation (as a person) among this crowd.  I think most
people consider me a quiet, mild-mannered guy who plays hard
but fair.  I'm sure many of those people are now saying, "I
never knew he was suck a jerk", but I was also hoping other
people would read the post and think, "Hmm, Jim's always been
pretty reasonable.  Maybe he's got a point."  I put my name at
incredible risk because I read statements that I considered to
be just plain wrong, and I could not sit and let it go by any
longer.  I've been on teams that didn't make it out of
Sectionals, I still captain a summer league team, I still play
in pickup tournaments.  I like the game.  But it's a sport,
and sports have winners and losers.

2.  I do not think that fights in the game are a good thing.
But nor do I think they're the end of the world.  If there
were an ejection rule, that would help.

3.  Man is an aggressive animal.  Screaming for joy is an act
of aggression.  Wanting to win is a form of aggression.
"(W)hen the disc is crisp, when the flow is kind, I get this
pulsating ball of energy brewing at the base of my skull." Do
you get this same feeling when you're on defense and the flow
is kind?  Isn't this the same as saying, "I enjoy it when I
humilate my defender"?  It's not the same as hitting someone,
but isn't that aggression all the same?

4.  It really is a different game at the top.  This was really
the main point of my post, and it's the point that people
seemed most unwilling to accept.  Do any of your teammates
puke regularly after track workouts?  Do you study game films
of your opponents to know their tendencies better?  Do you
have half a dozen different defenses to throw at an opponent?
Does everyone on your team break the mark?  I was on Earth
Atomizer when we made it to the semifinals at Worlds in 1991,
but I think that this team is really at another level.  I've
learned so much more in the last two years with BB than I did
in my first nine of playing.

5.  Along those lines, individuals play for different reasons.
If you're playing because you like sports but don't like all
the yelling, that's fine.  I don't want you to stop playing.
Just accept that not everyone feels the same way.

I will admit that I focused too much on aggression in my first
post, hence the overwhelming response.  For what it's worth, I
was calm when I wrote it, and even revised it to remove the
personal attacks (unlike others--you know who you are).  It
just irritated me that seemingly most posts had no basis in
fact and relied purely on emotions and feelings (but isn't
that always the case).

Flame away.

Jim Parinella 
Big Brother 
"If you can't open your mind, are you sure you still have one?'