When I covered Norm Stewart as a beat writer, I used to wonder whether someone like him — someone whose success in building a great basketball program from scratch stemmed largely from an overactive competitive gland — could dial it back in areas where nobody kept score.
Couldn’t he just let it go when one of his administrators failed to back him on some minor issue, when a reporter questioned his strategy in a postgame press conference or when a random student strolling the concourse of the Hearnes Center peeked in during a practice? Wouldn’t that free his mind to focus on the big stuff?
These were just rhetorical questions to be pondered over beers at Eskimo Joe’s in Stillwater or Barry’s in Lincoln, because Norm wasn’t changing a thing. He has a court named after him and a statue outside Mizzou Arena, so it’s possible he was on to something.
Some of the same questions about choosing battles and avoiding unnecessary drama have followed Sophie Cunningham during her career, including after the Missouri women’s basketball team’s 66-64 upset of then 10th-ranked Tennessee on Sunday. She was called for an unsportsmanlike foul for elbowing a defender in the face on a drive to the basket, and she confronted a Tennessee assistant who refused to shake hands after the game.
I’m not complaining, because this long-running debate about whether Cunningham and coach Robin Pingeton’s team are dirty makes the season more interesting and makes the legend of Sophie more complex. Although opponents have usually avoided using the word “dirty” when asked about Cunningham, opposing fans have been less reserved in their judgments. One person’s “dirty” is another person’s “gritty,” with the Missouri state border serving as the semantic dividing line.
I’ve watched her play a lot, and I don’t consider Cunningham dirty. She plays hard, and she plays with emotion, but I don’t think she tries to hurt people, which is my definition of dirty. She might value possession of the ball more than an opponent’s front tooth when her personal space is invaded, but I suspect that comes from a desire to win rather than malice.
However, it isn’t a coincidence that Missouri women’s basketball games often last five minutes extra because officials have to review the video to see if one of her fouls rises to the level of flagrancy. If you Google “Sophie Cunningham, flagrant foul,” you’ll find quite a bit of reading material. It is reminiscent of the actions of — and reactions to — one of Stewart’s orneriest players, Jason Sutherland. There are some big differences, though. Among Missouri fans, Sutherland was acknowledged as a rascal but our rascal, while Cunningham is unconditionally loved. She is the girl next door who signs every autograph and smiles for every photo. She is the reason home attendance has more than doubled. She is the best player in program history and one of the best players in the nation.
I guess the question is whether she could be just as good if she played any other way. Couldn’t she turn the other cheek rather than escalating the situation when a sore loser — even if the sore loser is a grownup in a handshake line who should be held to a higher standard than a college athlete — is expressing her displeasure?
I have thought it over, and I’ve arrived at a conclusion.
The small percentage of people who are truly addicted to winning don’t see competition as a buffet in which one can skip the steamed broccoli and focus on the fried chicken. For them, competition is an intricate Jenga tower. Any minor concessions to things polite folks might consider important, such as “the opinion of my peers” or “whether I’ll be welcome in a Waffle House in the state of South Carolina ever again” or “the skeletal integrity of that young lady’s nose,” would cause the entire structure to collapse. There aren’t more important and less important battles; there are only battles, and they are all important.
Cunningham could still be a great individual player without alienating giant swaths of the southeastern United States, but I don’t think she would be as valuable to her team without the full Sophie experience. Missouri has a group of players who generally weren’t recruited by elite programs — Cunningham, a McDonald’s All-American, is an exception — and the idea the Tigers belong on the same court as South Carolina, Mississippi State or Tennessee needs to be reinforced with frequent visual aids. If this were a test of size, strength and athleticism, Missouri would never beat those teams. Cunningham, to put it lightly, doesn’t take any crap. She lives the reality show villain’s mantra: I didn’t come here to make friends.
That attitude elevates Cunningham’s teammates more than if she got her 20 points, six rebounds and six assists and hugged everyone on her way out the door. Her teammates borrow from her swagger spillover. They believe in themselves more when they are next to her.
Cunningham certainly shouldn’t commit dangerous flagrant fouls, but she shouldn’t even think about otherwise dialing back her aggression. Not that she was going to anyway. Her jersey — or perhaps her rolled-up shorts — will be hanging in the rafters soon, so it’s possible she’s on to something.
