Greg Hodur: Stall Ball

To the Editor:

Every once in awhile, those of us who are old enough see things that take us back to other places and other times, even if those events are not directly relevant to what’s going on.  I guess that’s what people call “geezer” moments. So if you will indulge a real geezer moment on my part…
 
I look at the excuses the John Hoeven and Rick Berg campaigns are raising to avoid debating Senator Tracy Potter and Congressman Earl Pomeroy and am reminded of the bad old days when “stall ball” almost wrecked college basketball.

For the young and uninitiated, stall ball involved taking a small lead and then running out the clock by having players pass the ball around the perimeter with no intention of attempting to score points unless and until a player was fouled.  Expert practitioners, like the University of North Carolina’s head coach Dean Smith, turned stall ball into an art form and built their careers upon that strategy.

It was effective in many cases, but man, did it make for boring TV.

Happily, the NCAA instituted a shot clock for men’s basketball during the 1986-1987 season (To give credit where credit is due, the NCAA previously instituted a shot clock for its fledgling women’s basketball program). 

It’s no coincidence that since then, interest in college men’s basketball has increased exponentially and the annual tournament known as the “Big Dance” has become one of the biggest money-making and popular annual events in sports.
 
How’s this relate to politics in North Dakota?

Clearly, Berg and Hoeven believe they are ahead and have nothing to gain by putting the political “ball” in play. They know they could hurt their standing with their far-right wing base, or alternatively with other voters if they pander to that base, if they accidentally stray from their carefully crafted campaign ads and say something “wrong “in the course of a debate.

Thus, they are engaging in the political equivalent of “stall ball” as they use whatever excuse they can come up with to avoid the numerous opportunities being offered to them by the state’s major media outlets to face Potter and Pomeroy in a neutral environment and provide answers to questions that are important to voters if they are to make informed decisions about who to send to Washington in November.

I understand that strategy, if they believe their pollsters.  They are probably only doing what all the high-priced Republican consultants sent out from Washington to run their campaigns by Michael Steele and the Republican National Committee are telling them to do.

But avoiding debates is not the custom in North Dakota.  Here, candidates traditionally show voters respect by squaring off against each other and talking openly about their differences on issues important to North Dakotans.

The future of the country and the state obviously are more important than the outcome of any basketball game.  Time for debates is growing shorter by the day. In less than a month absentee voting begins.

The time is now for Berg and Hoeven to quit stalling and to agree to debate their opponents soon.

If you agree, I urge you to please visit makejohndebate.com and sign the petition.
-Greg Hodur
Fargo