{"id":69,"date":"2004-08-22T06:34:24","date_gmt":"2004-08-22T06:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.195.124.246\/~wisecon1\/blog\/?p=69"},"modified":"2004-08-22T06:34:24","modified_gmt":"2004-08-22T06:34:24","slug":"lithuania_and_b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/?p=69","title":{"rendered":"Basketball:  Lithuania Beats the American Olympic Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/tedbongiovanni.typepad.com\/wise_contradictions\/images\/22hoops.1841.html','popup','width=184,height=272,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false\" href=\"http:\/\/tedbongiovanni.typepad.com\/wise_contradictions\/images\/22hoops.1841.html\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"147\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tedbongiovanni.typepad.com\/wise_contradictions\/images\/22hoops.1841-thumb.jpg?resize=100%2C147\" alt=\"22hoops.1841\" style=\"margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; float: right;\" \/><\/a>Athens, August 21.&nbsp; The Lithuanian basketball team <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/08\/22\/sports\/olympics\/22hoops.html\"><br \/>\nbeat the US, 94 to 90.<\/a> I am not a huge basketball fan, but as a returned <a href=\"http:\/\/www.peacecorps.gov\"> Peace Corps <\/a> Volunteer (Lithuania, 95-97) the result made me smile.&nbsp; Basketball is a sacred sport in Lithuania.&nbsp; Vaidas Paulauskas, a student, usually quiet during classes that stressed English conversation, always chatted me up after school about the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan.&nbsp; He&#8217;d go onto remind me that Lithuania&#8217;s best, then Marciulionis and Sabonis, played in the US. Lithuania is a small nation of 4 million, but its presence looms large in basketball circles. <\/p>\n<p>For most of the 20th century <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lithuania\">Lithuania<\/a> was caught up in global power plays&#8211;falling under Russian, German, and then Soviet domination.&nbsp; &nbsp;(The Soviets were kind enough to co-opt the best Lithuanian basketball players for their Olympic team before Lithuania broke free in 1991.)&nbsp; Nevertheless, it&#8217;s not often that a small country goes up against the legendary American dream team and wins.&nbsp; Yesterday, in beating the US, Lithuania showed that passion, practice and persistence can take down a giant. <\/p>\n<p>As an American, I&#8217;m a little embarrassed that we&#8217;re getting trounced in a sport that we invented and where athletes command multi-million dollar salaries.&nbsp; &nbsp;As a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I am overjoyed for my adopted country.&nbsp; In America, we expect to dominate.&nbsp; This reversal, an object lesson in hubris, is refreshing&#8211;if fleeting.&nbsp; &nbsp;My guess is the Americans will be more focused in the finals, but I&#8217;ll still be rooting for Lithuania.&nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Athens, August 21.&nbsp; The Lithuanian basketball team beat the US, 94 to 90. I am not a huge basketball fan, but as a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Lithuania, 95-97) the result made me smile.&nbsp; Basketball is a sacred sport in Lithuania.&nbsp; Vaidas Paulauskas, a student, usually quiet during classes that stressed English conversation, always chatted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-peace-corps-files"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}