Thursday, March 19, 2009

netball

A bit off topic... But outside our window is the local high school and its sports fields. Every weeknight from about 5:30-10:30pm they play a game called netball. It looks a lot like basketball but is largely a girls sport and there's no backboard.

For some reason, there's a whistle blown loudly a couple times a minute during play, especially when they have two courts going. You can hear the whistle from our apartment 12 stories up with the windows closed. 4 whistles a minute for 5 hours a day is 24,000 whistles per month. It's no joke!

If I had to guess, when you get the ball and the whistle blows you can't move, you have to pass or shoot or something like that. I had an epiphany about what it is that's wrong in this picture. Doesn't it seem to make more sense to replace the whistle with a rule and then just blow the whistle when the rule's broken? I mean obviously this isn't musical chairs, the whistleblowing isn't random. But if you can't take three steps without passing, why whistle on the second step just to remind them? Someone needs to kaizen this sport.

1 comment:

  1. Among the many other important unemployed tasks I performed to day, I wrote the people at the Melbourne Netball Association and requested quieter and less shrill whistles be implemented.

    Feels real good to use this extra time as a community activist.

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