as I cheered and cried my way through my favorite old basketball movie (no, surprisingly, not Hoosiers) for what must be the millionth time, (like I don’t know how it’s going to turn out) I noticed something.  Something not important to the true story that this movie portrays, something random and irrelevant, but something interesting if not curious, nonetheless.  And that something is this; the cheerleaders’ skirts were so long while the players’ shorts were so short.  Just the opposite of what we see today.

So what happened?  Is there a connection between these two things?  I googled some pictures of cheerleaders in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s etc. and sure enough there was a gradual but unmistakable shortening and tightening of the skirts over time, with the dramatic end result that we see today. During this very same time period men’s basketball shorts were becoming longer and looser.  The cheerleaders were showing more leg, the basketball players less.

What could this mean?  Was there only so much material to go around?  only  so much money in the budget?  So that what was taken from the cheerleaders was given to the players?  Was this a right-wing conspiracy?  a left-wing conspiracy?  a conspiracy with no wings that never got off the ground?  There was definitely a correlation.  As cheerleaders skirts got shorter each decade, men’s basketball shorts got longer in equal proportions.

But correlation, as any good researcher knows, does not mean cause and effect are at work in the equation necessarily.  It could be just totally random coincidence.  or could it?  hence the mystery of this mundane musing.  No need for all the conspiracy theories and speculation.  Other variables could be at work here.  Maybe spectators just prefer seeing more of the cheerleaders’ legs and less of the players’ legs.  That seems reason enough right there.

Cheerleading has become more and more athletic over the years, requiring uniforms that allow more flexibility of movement.  Makes sense, but does that mean that the basketball players are becoming less athletic in their movements as their shorts get longer?  this is one mundane musing destined to remain a mystery because the answer doesn’t really matter.  it’s just that inquiring minds sometimes want to know the why, the unseen answer to the seen reality.

Because some mysteries do matter.  such as, what happens to us when we leave this earthly life?  “Listen, I tell you a mystery:  We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.”  (1 Corinthians 15:5153)

or where will I spend eternity?  Jesus answered that one saying,  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in Me.  In My Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am.”  (John 14:1-3)

when I am looking for answers to the mysteries that surround me, I recall these words in Jeremiah 33:2-3, “This is what the Lord says, He who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it – the Lord is His name:  Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

that’s more than good enough for me!

sincerely,     Grace Day