Proper inflation
21/09/16 05:26
I have never shown very much athletic ability. I enjoy playing games and some activities such as biking and paddling, but I am not what one would consider to be a star athlete. As a child, I participated win most of the athletic programs in our relatively small town. I played a bit of little league baseball, but certainly was not the star of the team. I went out for track a couple of years of high school and I wrestled for a few years. I had some agility on the trampoline, but never participated in an organized competition or sport related to the trampoline. And I went out for basketball as a seventh-grader. In those days it was commonly accepted that each student to went out for junior high basketball was allowed to play. We did exercises and played scrimmages in the school gym and when we played against other schools in our district, we got to ride the bus and were called off of the bench and played in the game for a few minutes, even if we weren’t among the best players.
That is how I became the “manager” of our seventh and eighth grade basketball teams. I was recruited to take charge of the score book and a variety of other tasks to assist the coach. Before long, I wasn’t wearing a uniform at games and I wasn’t being sent into the game where it was easy for opponents to steal the ball from me and score additional points. I rather enjoyed the new role. I got to hang out with the basketball team. My mother knitted me a sweater in the school colors that I would wear and I sat on the bench next to the coach with a clipboard and pencil. I looked official, at least to myself. I had a list of chores that included handing out towels and collecting them after showers and making sure that they were put in the laundry, making sure that the team equipment was properly loaded on the bus when we traveled to games and put away upon our return.
It was also my job to make sure that the basketballs were properly inflated. We had a hand pump with and pressure gauge at the base. I suspect that it was simply a slightly-better-than-average bicycle pump. I can still remember that I was to make sure that basketballs were inflated to exactly 8 pounds per square inch of pressure. Because sports balls are inflated by inserting a needle through a rubber valve, a tiny about of air escapes when the needle is inserted and withdrawn. So I learned to add a couple of strokes to each ball each time it was checked and to slightly over-inflate the balls before withdrawing the needle. Mostly I got fairly competent at feeling the balls and gauging their bounce so that they were consistent.
So I have a certain amount of compassion for whoever had the job of inflating footballs for the A.F.C. championship game in January of 2015. You probably remember all of the hoopla surrounding “deflategate,” big controversy in which the New England Patriots were accused of intentionally under inflating game footballs that made it easier for star quarterback Tom Brady to complete passes.
There were a lot of arguments, including passionate declarations that it was part of a giant conspiracy that included specially training the quarterback to throw under-inflated balls accurately. Of course, we are rightly offended at the possibility of cheating in sports and there is a lot of pressure in American professional sports and the temptation to cheat is real.
The research into the situation continues. In the dry desert air of Phoenix, Arizona, there is a huge warehouse with a precisely controlled temperature chamber. They keep the temperature in the chamber at exactly 48 degrees - the same as it was for the playoff game in January in Foxborough, Mass. The floor of the chamber even has artificial turf like a football field. Scientists spent about three months in that chamber examining football inflation and deflation. They were searching for a plausible scientific explanation for why the Patriots’ balls were not fully inflated. They spent a lot of money on that research. After all, there is a lot of money riding on every NFL football game.
The results of the investigation was the Wells report. About half of the report was filled with circumstantial evidence of foul play. The other half was a wonky scientific document filled with equations, table and graphs, experimental methods and laws of physics. The release of the scientific report didn’t stop the controversy and there was even talk at one point of appealing the suspension of quarterback Brady to the Supreme Court of the United States. It didn’t go that fall, Brady accepted the league suspension of four games and we’re preparing to get on with the fall football season.
I have no particular opinion about whether or not there was cheating involved in the inflation of the footballs, but I do have some compassion for whoever had the job of checking the balls. I’ve had that job. In my case, the tools for measuring the pressure were far less sophisticated and less accurate than those employed by the scientists in their specially climate controlled research facility.
I was thinking about that topic a couple of days ago as I checked the tires of all of our wood-hauling trailers, adding air where necessary. I even checked all of the spare tires to make sure that things were proper. I’ve good a good air pressure gauge, but we’re not talking about the kind of tools that race car tire experts use. Fortunately in the business of trailer tires there is some room for error. Still, I don’t want to have tire failure caused by improper inflation.
I think that the language that was used in the report of the NFL footballs was that it was “more probable than not” that the deflation of the balls was intentional and that the quarterback knew about it.
For the record, I want it to known that it is more probable than not that the inflation of the tires of our woodchuck trailers was proper at the time I checked them the week of our first delivery. Frankly, that’s good enough for me. The good news is that the people with whom I work are more forgiving and more understanding of their pastor than they are of their football players.
That is how I became the “manager” of our seventh and eighth grade basketball teams. I was recruited to take charge of the score book and a variety of other tasks to assist the coach. Before long, I wasn’t wearing a uniform at games and I wasn’t being sent into the game where it was easy for opponents to steal the ball from me and score additional points. I rather enjoyed the new role. I got to hang out with the basketball team. My mother knitted me a sweater in the school colors that I would wear and I sat on the bench next to the coach with a clipboard and pencil. I looked official, at least to myself. I had a list of chores that included handing out towels and collecting them after showers and making sure that they were put in the laundry, making sure that the team equipment was properly loaded on the bus when we traveled to games and put away upon our return.
It was also my job to make sure that the basketballs were properly inflated. We had a hand pump with and pressure gauge at the base. I suspect that it was simply a slightly-better-than-average bicycle pump. I can still remember that I was to make sure that basketballs were inflated to exactly 8 pounds per square inch of pressure. Because sports balls are inflated by inserting a needle through a rubber valve, a tiny about of air escapes when the needle is inserted and withdrawn. So I learned to add a couple of strokes to each ball each time it was checked and to slightly over-inflate the balls before withdrawing the needle. Mostly I got fairly competent at feeling the balls and gauging their bounce so that they were consistent.
So I have a certain amount of compassion for whoever had the job of inflating footballs for the A.F.C. championship game in January of 2015. You probably remember all of the hoopla surrounding “deflategate,” big controversy in which the New England Patriots were accused of intentionally under inflating game footballs that made it easier for star quarterback Tom Brady to complete passes.
There were a lot of arguments, including passionate declarations that it was part of a giant conspiracy that included specially training the quarterback to throw under-inflated balls accurately. Of course, we are rightly offended at the possibility of cheating in sports and there is a lot of pressure in American professional sports and the temptation to cheat is real.
The research into the situation continues. In the dry desert air of Phoenix, Arizona, there is a huge warehouse with a precisely controlled temperature chamber. They keep the temperature in the chamber at exactly 48 degrees - the same as it was for the playoff game in January in Foxborough, Mass. The floor of the chamber even has artificial turf like a football field. Scientists spent about three months in that chamber examining football inflation and deflation. They were searching for a plausible scientific explanation for why the Patriots’ balls were not fully inflated. They spent a lot of money on that research. After all, there is a lot of money riding on every NFL football game.
The results of the investigation was the Wells report. About half of the report was filled with circumstantial evidence of foul play. The other half was a wonky scientific document filled with equations, table and graphs, experimental methods and laws of physics. The release of the scientific report didn’t stop the controversy and there was even talk at one point of appealing the suspension of quarterback Brady to the Supreme Court of the United States. It didn’t go that fall, Brady accepted the league suspension of four games and we’re preparing to get on with the fall football season.
I have no particular opinion about whether or not there was cheating involved in the inflation of the footballs, but I do have some compassion for whoever had the job of checking the balls. I’ve had that job. In my case, the tools for measuring the pressure were far less sophisticated and less accurate than those employed by the scientists in their specially climate controlled research facility.
I was thinking about that topic a couple of days ago as I checked the tires of all of our wood-hauling trailers, adding air where necessary. I even checked all of the spare tires to make sure that things were proper. I’ve good a good air pressure gauge, but we’re not talking about the kind of tools that race car tire experts use. Fortunately in the business of trailer tires there is some room for error. Still, I don’t want to have tire failure caused by improper inflation.
I think that the language that was used in the report of the NFL footballs was that it was “more probable than not” that the deflation of the balls was intentional and that the quarterback knew about it.
For the record, I want it to known that it is more probable than not that the inflation of the tires of our woodchuck trailers was proper at the time I checked them the week of our first delivery. Frankly, that’s good enough for me. The good news is that the people with whom I work are more forgiving and more understanding of their pastor than they are of their football players.