Paul Shirley

white tornado

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Paul Shirley has a blog where he talks about his life in the nba after reading some of his blog I thuink he would agree with this site. He always talks about how he dosent fit in with his teamates (blacks).

from his blog.

(I tend to like my foreign teammates more than my American ones. They're usually more likely to be capable of an intelligent conversation.) And then I looked at their pictures. I've learned one important thing over the years: there's usually a reason that a basketball player's picture looks like a mugshot.

Initially, anyway. I felt a lot like I have after being cut by NBA teams: strangely relieved. (Of course, in those situations, my relief often stemmed from the realization that I would no longer have to deal with a bunch of humans whose presence I could barely tolerate.)

[url]http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=shirle y_paul&page=Journal-41[/url]


My agent, Keith Glass, has written a book that was released by a major publishing house on Feb. 27. This puts him in the 95th percentile for weirdness among current basketball agents -- the difference in percentiles directly related to the difference in average intelligence between the two populations. I can imagine a book written by Leigh Steinberg a lot more easily than I can one by Shawn Marion.

My writing "career" has wreaked havoc on my basketball "career." Some general managers now question my dedication to the sport; they seem to think the 21 hours each day that I am not working out would be better spent in nobler pursuits than writing. Like fathering illegitimate children or shooting at my illegally procured pit bulls.

In fact, before some cowardly middle manager took control of the situation, his book was called "Seven-Foot Man-Eating Chicken," an allusion to an advertisement that P.T. Barnum would run in advance of the circus coming to town. When audience members would get under the big top, they would find a seven-foot man ... eating chicken.


(The title was abandoned because the NBA is predominantly black. As if white people don't eat chicken. And as if the title had anything to do with race. Don't be surprised when I kill myself, fed up with society in general.)



[url]http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=shirle y_paul&page=Journal-42[/url]
 

guest301

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Wow! Maybe he has seen this site. He will pay a price for that blog, in and outside the locker room.
 

Alpha Male

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I looked for his blog but only found the other article about his writing caree. Someone should email/post him this website to show him that he is not alone.
 

referendum

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I just read his book, Can I Keep My Jersey, and while he doesn't concentrate on the racial aspects of things too much, there are three intresting passages for CF people.
On page 8 he mentions that his agent tells him that "life as a white professional basketball player would be a constant struggle."
On page 79-80 he recounts the confession of sorts of a Spanish team's assistant coach who tells him that that team had scouted him and considered signing him but went with a black player who would be "exciting". Shirley mentions that white players are "viewed as physically inferior and so should be thankfull we are allowed to set foot on the court".
On page 122 he recounts how Tiny Archibald said that if he won the huge jackpot in a lottery (it was 140 million) he'd buy the NBA and turn it into the Negro Basketball League. Shirley asks rhetorically, "can't we have something?" in view of how the NBA is of course already black dominated.
Shirley also recounts several episodes of cluelessness of black NBA players such as the player who buys 40 dollars in lottery tickets because if he wins it, "he'd be set for life", this from someone who already had a 3 million dollar guarenteed contract.
The book is well worth reading. Shirley played 07-08 season in Spain, and I don't know what his latest plans are. He does have a myspace page.Edited by: referendum
 
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