The sociology of basketball

The making of ‘Shirts & Skins’ brings together the talents of three faculty—and a cast of dozens with hoop dreams 

By Jayne Spencer

Osgood

Gillespie

Pickup b-ball is no spectator sport. In fact, players often outnumber spectators and spectators are usually waiting to become players. Still, participants age 18 to 56 wouldn’t be anywhere else at lunchtime.

Miller began showing up to take his turn on the court in pick-up basketball as a student and has become a regular, primarily trading lunchtime for a regular experience in group dynamics. And yes, he’s a rabid fan of IU basketball, but fanship, as IU psychologist Ed Hirt will tell you, has more to do with BIRGing (basking in reflected glory) than with the motivations that propel a middle-aged man to forgo the noon meal for a game or two of pick-up.

Doctors, lawyers, academics, blue-collar workers, professionals, students and others who don’t fit a category show up to take their turns in a game. A smattering of women comes to play. It’s a level playing field in that there are no “try-outs.” Everyone must wait to become “next.” For Miller, the rewards are immediate.

“If I’m having a bad day, it shows,” said Miller. “I come back from playing and I’m much more productive.” 

Miller has become known for his social style as much as for his playing. He’s a talker. A critic. A cheerleader for others’ performances on court. He’s known for both bending and breaking rules. Although he has gathered at noon for years, he may know other players by first name only. The name of the game is the game. No networking, no work-talk to speak of.  Another pick-up stand-out is Dick Breeden, an industrial hygienist at the IUB Department of Environmental Health and Safety. He’s an “older” player who uses his wisdom to compensate for lesser athletic skill, said IU sociologist Jason Jimerson. Women, too, show a specific resolve—to overcome low expectations and to gain acceptance in this male dominated activity. It’s a sociological tapestry.

Jimerson completed his dissertation on the subject of pick-up basketball and an outgrowth of that experience led to the production and premiere March 28 of a 30-minute documentary, “Shirts & Skins,” on WTIU-Channel 30. Jimerson’s co-producer in the production was Ron Osgood, a telecommunications professor. A companion Web site, designed and maintained by Thom Gillespie, director of the Master’s in Immersive Mediated Environments (MIME) program, will continue to evolve, with audio-video streaming, photographs, poems and other pick-up b-ball information. Others involved in the documentary team were assistant producer Kurt Lawson (telecommunications); composer Kevin Martin (MIME); interviewer Matthew Oware (sociology); and narrator Tom Gieryn (sociology).

Jimerson hopes the documentary and the Web site will be “inspirational,” snagging an audience of pick-up players around the world for “a global conversation.”

“We hope viewers turn off their computers or televisions and go play pick-up basketball,” Jimerson said.

At lunchtime during the workweek, “the players don’t necessarily look like athletes” Jimerson said. “They may be old, bald, short and look to be out of shape.”

It’s an interesting mix. On a given day, the dean of the University Graduate School may be talking to a local heating contractor while a city firefighter will joke with a faculty member. Younger students may try to impress their “elders” and anticipate taking a professor to task on the court.

The sociological term for what transpires is “cooperative competition”—a diverse group of strangers who know each other primarily in one directed context comes together to play against and with one another, Jimerson explained. They must cooperate to compete. The play’s the thing.

“In many ways, the story of pick-up basketball parallels and serves as a metaphor for the story of the U.S.A.,” he said. Pick-up is “democracy in action,” he said, whereby people of different ages, races, genders, classes and perspectives come together without benefit of coaches or referees, learn to get along, get things done and have enough pure fun to be led back to the experience.

Everyone plays. Winners stay. Losers try again.

Jimerson hopes to interest PBS in airing the documentary and adding narrative touches by IU alumnus Mark Cuban.

In the meantime, check out the Web site:

http://www.iub.edu/~pickup