One-Stop+AP

Journalism 2773 "One-Stop Shopping." //The New Yorker// 85.15 (25 May 2009), 38-40. Andréa Peters

Oohh, it looks like McPhee did it again: he succeeded in making me read something I thought I had no interest in-- but it turns out I do. I had never read a piece on sports written by McPhee (or anyone else, for that matter), and so while searching for a full text of Annals of the Former World, I fell on this and decided to give it a shot.

To begin with, I thought I was going to be reading a piece about actual shopping, in the sense that you go to one big store and purchase things. However, in this article, McPhee writes about the screening process recommended high school lacrosse players from all over the United States undergo, in order to distinguish themselves and to be picked to play on a college team, if they are deemed good enough by the coaches. Although the title suggests store shopping, and this resulted in temporary deceit when I realized the piece was about lacrosse, this writing technique is more than effective in this context.

Moreover, in the article, McPhee spends a lot of time describing in great details the cryptic written codes, dialogue, and key words the coaches use as a marking system, to evaluate the players on the field without revealing the identity of the particular player being discussed. This was rather fascinating not only because it opens up a facet of lacrosse coaching I never even knew existed, but also because there’s an intricate social relationship between the title, and the systematic choosing of the players, from this lacrosse players’ pool.

What I mean by this, is that by setting the camp attendance fee at $595 per player, only the kids with money get to go to the tryouts attended by reps and coaches, and get to “survive” as future lacrosse players while they attend college or university. In many ways, these coach’s “one-stop shopping” try-outs are quite as undermining of the less privileged or supported players, as big capitalist corporations have been to local shops and merchants. Sure they get to see a lot of players play all in one place at the same time, but by doing so they are still alienating a ton of other players just on the basis of money. Similarly to a Wal-Mart store’s wiping out of about 15 local shops in any town they are built in, just because they hold all the cards and are more resourceful. Yeah, you get a lot of stuff all in one place, but the same stuff is manufactured nation-wide, and so just like with the loss of the local shops, there’s a loss of color, uniqueness, originality, and cultural richness at these one-stop shopping scrimmages.

Though McPhee never speaks of this directly, and there are no clear hints about this anywhere in the text, I think there’s still a parallel subtlety being made between the dehumanization of the sweat-shop workers who make all the cheap stuff sold in big stores, and the lack of compassion or understanding attached to the blunt criticism of all these lacrosse players. I know that’s how most try-outs for just about anything work, but it still isn’t until I read this piece that I made the connection between objectifying food or toys as materials to be sold for as cheap as possible all in one area, and actually acquiring players—human beings—as “objects” or “things” of service for one’s team. Consumerism of manufactured goods is put on the same level or scale as consumerism of the best players, and both are run by how much money goes into the pocket of whoever makes the wheels of this consumption cart roll. Food for thought, eh?

It really does make one think about if McPhee made this connection too, as he became interested in writing about this, because aside from his customary descriptions, insightful quoting, and general organization of things; very little in his writing reveals what he really thinks about lacrosse, and about how coaches pick their players like pieces of meat for a bbq. It’s very interesting to see how McPhee paid more attention to the language used by these coaches, rather than to the actual rules of the game, or a specific coach to profile— both of which he usually focuses on more, in his other pieces.

There’s a certain distance established by McPhee’s quoting of the coaches’ notes, instead of paraphrasing. I got the feeling McPhee didn’t really want his readers to think this were his words or thoughts…Not like in Pieces of the Frame, where he often paraphrased Skeldon, instead of directly quoting him. I found this piece’s writing was more…Uptight, maybe? Reserved, is probably more appropriate.. I may be wrong about this, though.