Rated PG: Of hoverboards and basketball
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- Published on Thursday, 14 January 2016 15:32
- Written by Paul Gordon
Hoverboards get the heave-ho at Bradley
Do you think the makers of hoverboards ever anticipated that the people most apt to own one would be banned from using it most places?
Today we learned that Bradley University is the latest college of many to ban the contraptions from its any building on its campus because of the fire hazard. That includes residence halls, fraternity or sorority houses and the St. James apartment complex.
Many universities have banned the boards, as have many high schools. They are considered so dangerous that even the U.S. Postal Service has banned shipping them by plane.
Can you imagine coming back from Christmas break, thinking you’re all cool because you’ll be zipping around campus and going class to class, only to find out your hoverboard will be parked? Oh, well.
“There is enough of a fire risk and safety hazard, that we must be sure to do our due diligence before allowing their use, charging, and storage in these areas,” Nathan Thomas, Bradley vice president for student affairs, told students in a letter.
The university said hoverboards still can be used outside on Bradley grounds “but users will be required to follow the same University guidelines regarding skateboards on campus. The use of hoverboards will not be allowed inside any University building.”
Ok, but given what Thomas said about charging and storing the contraptions, I don’t think we’ll see them much around the grounds, either. Where are students going to charge them or keep them?
The university it will continue to study hoverboards and follow research being done on a national level. If the problem with hoverboards being a fire hazard gets resolved, maybe they will be allowed. Then they’ll only be a problem when idiots using them don’t watch where they are going and crash into people.
There seems to be a variety of reasons hoverboards catch fire; some even explode. The most common is that the lithium ion batteries can’t handle the stress of the moving hoverboard and they explode. Or something like that. Another cause is cheap electronics that cause the boards to burst into flames while charging.
Because there is a lot of money involved here, it probably won’t be long before this problem is resolved and these two-wheeled machines will be in use everywhere.
I think I’ll wait until true “hover” boards come out.
The Macker is back!
Just in case you haven’t heard by now, the Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament is returning to Peoria after a nine-year absence from the area. It is scheduled for July 30-31.
While the location of the 2016 Peoria Macker is as yet undecided, this new version will be smaller – with a limit of 400 teams -- than the mammoth tournaments that once shut downtown streets for one weekend a year, bringing thousands of people to watch amateurs play street ball. And some darn good street ball, at that, considering the likes of Shaun Livingston, David Booth, Frank Williams, Marcellus Somerville, Sergio McClain and other local stars played on the main court year after year.
The Macker first came to Peoria in 1990 and it enjoyed a 14-year run downtown. It then moved to Washington for four years before ending its local summer event.
Gus Macker tournaments remain as popular as ever, with more than 200,000 players participating each year in the event that has brackets for many different ages and includes men’s and women’s tournaments.
Scott McNeal, who founded the event in 1974 in his Lowell, Michigan driveway, told the Greg and Dan Show on WMBD 1470 that he was excited to return to Peoria. He said the Peoria tournament will focus more on kids than in the past.
Some things haven’t changed. “It’s still 3-on-3, it’s still half-court. We still match teams up that play for trophies. There’s still a charity at the end,” McNeal told the radio show.
My son played in almost all of the Peoria Macker tournaments before, starting with the youngest age group through college. Seeing that makes me realize now that there will be a lot of men and women like him who will be signing up their own children to play in this new version. His daughter is still too young, but he’s already teaching her how to dribble. (Never mind that she hasn’t started walking yet.)
