Are You a Banger or a Dinker?
A Hump Day Spectacular!
Thanks for subscribing. As usual on Wednesdays, first it's a short essay designed to make you think about a particular topic in a new way. Today's piece begins with a bizarre trip to watch some old people play pickle ball, and a truth I never expected to learn there.
Then, I've compiled the five best "things" -- articles, podcasts, videos etc. -- I found this week, which I think you'll enjoy checking out. Let me waste my time scouring the internet for the best content so you don't have to.
In life there's two kinds of people, "Bangers" and "Dinkers"
In an act of desperate procrastination, in which the deadline for a completed three-minute video story was in less than 36 hours and I still didn't even have a topic, I found myself standing in Maggie Daley Park in downtown Chicago on Monday.
My camera was pointed at 60, 70, some even 80-year olds playing pickle ball. Life is funny like that.
It was the Chicago Senior Games, and these elderly athletes were taking the game very seriously. Though most of the people I spoke with were lovely and I found that the sport was bringing together people from different backgrounds all over the city to become friends, make no mistake that these people wanted to win. After losing a semifinal match, one participant named Steve unleashed a profanity-laced tirade on someone sitting courtside. On second thought, I'm not entirely sure how many friends Steve was making.
But when I first walked up to the courts, he looked like clearly the best player. Every time a ball came his way, he would crush it. Winners were zipping past his opponents' knee braces seemingly every time (I would learn later that he had decades of tennis experience).
Steve De Mar, the district ambassador for the USA Pickle ball Association (yep, a real thing), told me that Steve was one of the best players, but also one of the easiest to beat. This kind of blew my mind. Was it because of his temper? I asked. Nope, not quite.
"There are two types of players in pickle ball. They are called bangers and they are called dinkers," De Mar said. "Bangers hit it as hard as they can, and generally in lesser skilled players, the sheer velocity of the ball will hit them or they'll get out of the way because they'll get scared, and up to a level in the game it's a really good way to play."
Steve was unquestionably a banger. He never met a shot he didn't want to decimate.
De Mar continued: "As you get to the next level the ONLY way to play is dink-ing, which means you're hitting balls that barely get over the net, literally dink-ed over."
This seems pretty counter-intuitive right? If you had to choose between hitting the ball at a high velocity versus low velocity, it seems pretty obvious that harder would be better. But it's not! Because the dink shot is unattackable.
In pickle ball, the area closest to the net is a no-volley zone. So as the dink shot barely drops over the net, the opponent must allow the ball to bounce and therefore has to hit it from very low off the ground. Hitting up towards the net, he or she cannot hit an aggressive shot.
There are two options from that position. A hard shot, which would continue to rise and give the original dinker a high ball to put away, or a dink shot back. The smart choice is the dink, meaning high level pickle ball is much more of a chess match than a test of physical dominance.
Here's De Mar: "It's a matter of patience, where you are willing to wait and wait and wait and wait until somebody puts up a ball that's attackable or high, then you kill it, and that's really a metric of how patient you can be, how disciplined of an athlete you are."
The takeaway is simple. A banger is talented and capable, but does not bother to anticipate beyond what is directly in front of his or her face. See ball, hit ball. Harder is better.
To those that the banger can bully, he is untouchable. But as soon as he meets someone capable of handling the pace, he's finished. On Monday, Steve and his partner bowed out in the semifinals (thus the tirade), and the winners of the tournament were a pair of old women who...not to judge, but...were not in the best shape.
Dinkers think proactively, planning one or two moves in advance. They sacrifice short term gain to anticipate long term opportunity, and then strike at the optimal moment. They sacrifice looking cool or impressive for results. In the end, Dinkers win.
In life, there are bangers and there are dinkers.
Which are you?
The Best Things I Found This Week:
How to Feed an NFL Team
Feature
I'm a big fan of Sam Fortier, a recent grad from Syracuse who's the same age as myself and has been pumping out awesome content this summer for the Washington Post as an intern. This story is a great one, built around one NFL nutritionist and how he goes about feeding the Washington Redskins.
"During one week at training camp in Richmond, which included about 90 people, the Redskins ate 875 pounds of fish, 420 pounds of chicken, 110 pounds of pasta, 54 dozen eggs and 50 watermelons."
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan
Amazon
Ok, I guess this one is a bit of a cheat, since Amazon's John Krasinski-led spy show doesn't debut until Friday night. But here's a link to the trailer to get you pumped. Jack Ryan has been portrayed on screen several times, including by the great Harrison Ford, but Amazon is throwing its infinite amount of money behind this show. I mean this in the best way when I say it looks like a very expensive show. With that kind of commitment, I doubt it will disappoint.
Taylor Swift is About to be a Free Agent
Industry Insider
And no, this isn't about who she's dating (for once).
We don't often get a peak behind the curtain in the music industry, as access is bottled up tighter than just about any other field of interest. But I didn't know that Swift was still under the same original contract she signed with label Big Machine when she was a 15-year-old up and comer. Imagine being locked in to a 13-year contract in the NBA! The label has been raking in 80 percent of the profits on Swift's music for her entire career, a gravy train that's about to end when the contract ends in less than three months.
I've never been much of a TSwift fan, but even I found this article about what she could do next fascinating. Take a peak!
The Late-Round Podcast
Podcast
I shared my fantasy football guru with you a couple weeks ago, but here's one more great resource for you as the NFL season gets set to kick off in just eight days. The great part about this podcast, hosted by a very smart fantasy analyst named J.J. Zachariason, is that the episodes are only 15-20 minutes each. It's formatted excellently with quick-hitter bullet points that get straight the core analysis of a player or situation and then get out. I highly recommend adding it to your queue to gain an edge on the competition!
The Funniest Video on the Internet
Video
Exaggeration? Maybe, maybe not. I can tell you I haven't laughed this hard at a video I found on Twitter in a very long time.
It's a magic trick prank for the ages, with an absolutely priceless reaction. These two minutes will make your day.