A great basketball coach with a great atheist hero

March 28, 2014 • 1:23 pm

As you know, I’m not much of a sports fan, except when it comes to football (soccer), and I’m really looking forward to this summer’s World Cup.  I don’t follow American basketball, but reader Hugo, who does, sent me this link, which included a surprising video. Hugo’s note:

Probably you are not an NBA [National Basketball Association] fan, but those who are both, NBA and WEIT fans, are going to appreciate this. As it happens you seem to share a trait with current Spurs’ coach Gregg Popovich (considered by most one of the greatest ever). He gave an interview to former Spurs player Oberto (he is from Argentina as I am) and in the middle of it he asks Pop with whom he would like to spend an hour talking if he had the chance. To my initial surprise, his answer was [NAME REDACTED SO YOU WILL WATCH ONE SECTION OF THE CLIP]. That part starts at ~8:45 and lasts about a minute with Pop expressing his admiration for [NAME REDACTED].

I have to say, Popovich made a good choice.

And if you like basketball, you should watch the whole thing. This clip has gotten very few views.

16 thoughts on “A great basketball coach with a great atheist hero”

  1. I’m glad to take the bite to view that minute or so. Superb choice in Hitchens. I used to like to play basketball as a youngster . . . until I tore knee cartilage and had to have surgery, and hardly a day goes by that my knee does not remind me. So, sorry, I tell kids to be safe, be well – it’s just a game. Don’t let some third party socio-cultural demigod jock determine the quality and arc of your life.

  2. I’m “worse” than you: I don’t follow ANY sports at all.

    As for who is mentioned (no spoiler here), I was fortunate to spend a couple of minutes with him on two different occasions.

  3. The problem with basketball is that a good big ‘un is so much better than a good little ‘un. Seems to me that’s a pretty rotten recipe for a sport.

      1. Shaq once visited Athens, Greece. Someone asked him if he visited the Parthenon. He replied to the effect that he had not made it to that particular nightclub.

      2. Amen Mordacious. Basketball is a great game [what else would you expect from a Hoosier], but not the way it’s played at the pro level. Move the hoop up to 12 feet, enforce the traveling rules and call fouls on most forced contact. Nothing much more boring in the game than watching a 6’10” 270 pounder with the ball, butting and pushing his 6’9″ 250 pound defender out of the way under the basket. Most pro franchises don’t understand the word team.

    2. Have you people watched the NBA recently? The most effective and dynamic players today are certainly not the lumbering giants of yore.

      Also, GOAT was only 6’6 in basketball shoes, nimble as a cat, and would have excelled in any sport other than baseball.

  4. I’ve always liked Pop, laid back guy and very successful coach. I’m not surprised that he has excellent taste in authors.

  6. From my iPad this clip won’t execute and a search for ‘Oberto Popovich’ on YouTube doesn’t yield the clip. Do you have a link we could use perchance?

  7. Hey hey! Popovich coached the men’s basketball team at my tiny undergraduate liberal arts college (Pomona College) while I was there; he left the school to coach in the NBA while I was still there. He was a popular figure and widely regarded as an intelligent and inspiring coach; I think he’s been memorialized in some way at the campus since he left. Moving from a small college to an NBA coaching job was quite a jump, but he seems to have done quite well!

    (I admit that I’m not a basketball fan; any game that ends with scores of 104 – 101 hardly seems like a sport to me! I am, however, a hockey addict. And soccer — or football for our non-US friends — is also a great sport.)

  8. I would like to talk to two people for an hour.

    After Christopher Hitchens, I would like to talk to god – so that I’d have an hour on my own to reflect on what Christopher Hitchens has said.

    (;

Comments are closed.