Coach Johnston on Shootaround :)

[Pierre_Jacks_Fan]

Re: Coach Johnston on Shootaround

If you live or grew-up in the Dakota's this attitude is passed down from generation to generation. I call it the..."Can't let anyone get to high on themselves Syndrome".

Is it any surprise SD was the last state in the nation to have ZERO D-1 programs?? Again..."Can't let anyone get to high on themselves."
For the next, I would estimate 20 years, SDSU will be wished ill-will by those who thought that by SDSU moving to D-1 alone, they think they're better than everyone else. God forbid we think we actually have a...dare I say...GREAT top 25 women's basketball team.

So I say, go ahead and gloat it up. Dare I say it's might be good for us South Dakotans to think that we can compete with any state in the nation??

Maybe I'm wrong...but I know one thing with these Ladies and SDSU athletics in general...I can't wait to find out!!!

Go Jacks!!

Great point, propar80, about the attitude in the Dakotas and not letting people get too high on themselves. This attitude is reflected over and over - drives me nuts. While not conceited about it, I take every opportunity (as does my husband) to talk about the success of our team and our hopes for the future. I have to laugh when people bring up reasons for how they could be successful (haven't played good teams, refs have been on their side, etc). I could talk until I'm blue in the face to these people but it seems to me it comes down to not wanting to acknowledge that something or someone could be excellent at something here in South Dakota. Anything related to success is suspicious. Even in politics, when it benefits the state, South Dakotans can't seem to bear to see someone succeed. I hope my children never learn this attitude.

[Nidaros]

Re: Coach Johnston on Shootaround

Since the start of the transition period, I have not had many goose pimple moments, but listening two these two pros talk to Aaron Johnston did exactly that. AJ really was our best spokesperson for SDSU and despite the crack up of the cell signal, he came through loud and clear. This was a great day for SDSU.

[Nidaros]

Re: Coach Johnston on Shootaround

If you live or grew-up in the Dakota's this attitude is passed down from generation to generation. I call it the..."Can't let anyone get to high on themselves Syndrome".

Is it any surprise SD was the last state in the nation to have ZERO D-1 programs?? Again..."Can't let anyone get to high on themselves."
For the next, I would estimate 20 years, SDSU will be wished ill-will by those who thought that by SDSU moving to D-1 alone, they think they're better than everyone else. God forbid we think we actually have a...dare I say...GREAT top 25 women's basketball team.

So I say, go ahead and gloat it up. Dare I say it's might be good for us South Dakotans to think that we can compete with any state in the nation??

Maybe I'm wrong...but I know one thing with these Ladies and SDSU athletics in general...I can't wait to find out!!!

Go Jacks!!

One of my favorite courses at SDSU, was a class call social pyschology. One of the things that the authors of the text talked about is how generations though they never met in person, they seem to inherit certain social traits. I believe Propar80 alludes to this as a syndrome, and I think he is right. I am zero generations from an European immigrant since my father was one. On my mother side, there was one in the past three generations. New blood immigrants to America brought along their culture and its one of humility and maybe too much humilty. I wish my dad had put a dollar in a jar each time he chirped about someone being a "big shot". It would have paid my tuition during the early sixties. That anyone that begins to assert with confidence is quickly shot down seems to be a trait amongst small town South Dakota especially when some one accompolishs something good. I think its not just Scandavians, but its all the ethnic groups of Europe. The people who came and came in numbers during the 1880's known as the Dakota Boom, were economically depressed social classes. Very humble people. You put all these non-assertive people together and I think we have this current South Dakota syndrome. Being somewhat isolated and low in populations, these low opinion outlooks have been transmitted for 6 or more generations. When and how will it end? I dont know but our exposure with the SDSU women's team is having an impact. I hope it continues.

[zooropa]

Re: Coach Johnston on Shootaround

You put all these non-assertive people together and I think we have this current South Dakota syndrome.

Don't forget the impact of the depression.

It's my assertion that people with a rural heritage exhibit characteristics that can be seen in many stereotyped minority groups. There is a combination of defensiveness and tacit admission of inferiority that you can see among many minorities. Kathleen Norris commented on it in Dakota.

As it relates to what the SDSU women are doing, it's (IMO) not unlike the UTEP championship in '66. The stakes are considerably smaller, as there isn't the long history of slavery, bigotry, & violence.

However the difference, to me, is merely a matter of degree, not substance. I consider it to be very similar in the fact that these accomplishments are forcing members of that rural minority (at least those members that are paying attention) to rethink the assumptions that they've long held about their place in the world.

Again, not to draw any parallel in terms of severity, merely in terms of stereotyping, one might ask whether the "Do you have cell phones" quip was any different than associating black people with watermelons, Jews with usury, etc. The assumption of inferiority is present in the question, and the repeated exposure to such stereotyping has an inevitable effect on the people subject to it.

[NoVaJack]

Re: Coach Johnston on Shootaround

Don't forget the impact of the depression.

It's my assertion that people with a rural heritage exhibit characteristics that can be seen in many stereotyped minority groups. There is a combination of defensiveness and tacit admission of inferiority that you can see among many minorities. Kathleen Norris commented on it in Dakota.

As it relates to what the SDSU women are doing, it's (IMO) not unlike the UTEP championship in '66. The stakes are considerably smaller, as there isn't the long history of slavery, bigotry, & violence.

However the difference, to me, is merely a matter of degree, not substance. I consider it to be very similar in the fact that these accomplishments are forcing members of that rural minority (at least those members that are paying attention) to rethink the assumptions that they've long held about their place in the world.

Again, not to draw any parallel in terms of substance, merely in terms of stereotyping, one might ask whether the "Do you have cell phones" quip was any different than associating black people with watermelons, Jews with usury, etc. The assumption of inferiority is present in the question, and the repeated exposure to such stereotyping has an inevitable effect on the people subject to it.

Norris got it half right. First, in a practical sense, the isolation syndrome has been obliterated by the global media village. What's left is a complex amalgam of inferiority/superiority; inferiority in how South Dakotans view themselves in size and trends vs. the big, bad, bustling world. Superiority in the oft-expressed "we're sparsely populated and live in the open, and we don't have the problems we see so often elsewhere" ....

I'll bet all of us have dealt with the inevitable, "I've never met someone from South Dakota before." That dumb cell phone comment by the ESPN interviewer was such an old saw, but it's no different than the dumb riffs leveled at people from New Jersey or West Virginia or La La Land. Think the best response was AJ's, to treat others' self-expressed ignorance as an opportunity for genuine pride and education.

To me, the perfect expression of this complex sense of place and self is in those salsa ads where a bunch of cowboys sit around and join in a chorus of derision about a salsa made in "NEW YORK CITY"! As in, "they may be Big City, but they don't know salsa. And if they don't know salsa, how can they know us?"
But the truth is, I've also had some mighty fine salsa in New York City.

[Nidaros]

Re: Coach Johnston on Shootaround

Don't forget the impact of the depression.

It's my assertion that people with a rural heritage exhibit characteristics that can be seen in many stereotyped minority groups. There is a combination of defensiveness and tacit admission of inferiority that you can see among many minorities. Kathleen Norris commented on it in Dakota.

As it relates to what the SDSU women are doing, it's (IMO) not unlike the UTEP championship in '66. The stakes are considerably smaller, as there isn't the long history of slavery, bigotry, & violence.

However the difference, to me, is merely a matter of degree, not substance. I consider it to be very similar in the fact that these accomplishments are forcing members of that rural minority (at least those members that are paying attention) to rethink the assumptions that they've long held about their place in the world.

Again, not to draw any parallel in terms of severity, merely in terms of stereotyping, one might ask whether the "Do you have cell phones" quip was any different than associating black people with watermelons, Jews with usury, etc. The assumption of inferiority is present in the question, and the repeated exposure to such stereotyping has an inevitable effect on the people subject to it.

Very good points. When I lived in suburban Chicago, I used to wear a SDSU light jacket and often never got a comment. People seemed too busy to be curious. One day on the train to the loop and on my way to write the CPA exam, a lady came up to me at the terminal and said she was shocked into the next world when she spotted my jacket several rows back in the same car train. It turned out the lady was orignally from Highmore SD and a SDSU grad. So that made her day. Everyone else probably thought very little about the jacket and that it said South Dakota State on the back. So in a way, the image of South Dakota is not familar to the great portion of the population of the USA. We got our work cut out for us in getting the word out about who we are. Yeah the pundits no doubt have their misconceptions and preconceptions of what life is like in the Dakotas. These two ladies seem to prove my point when they talked about cell phones.

I had almost forgotten the comments and questions about cell phones in the Dakotas. I thought AJ really handled that very good by mentioning the first ones with an antenna and a brick on top of the car. Good one AJ.

[zooropa]

Re: Coach Johnston on Shootaround

I've also had some mighty fine salsa in New York City.

Exactly.......... Because there are noooooo Hispanic people in New York City.....

[zooropa]

Re: Coach Johnston on Shootaround

no different than the dumb riffs leveled at people from New Jersey or West Virginia or La La Land.

Meh.... I'm divided on that...... in that regional stereotyping against, say, LA promotes a certain sense of inferiority that can be observed.

New Jersey, on the other hand---I can see that, at least as it relates to the Jersey suburbs of NYC. There, I think you see something similar, where there's this insistence that they have nothing to prove opposed to a drive to prove themselves.