Last night, I got free tickets to a Washington Wizards game. I’d never been to a NBA game, so I invited the DC Roomie and her boyfriend to the event.

First of all, I’m not the biggest basketball fan. I like free tickets, and I like sports. However, to me sports=football. Nothing else really exists. Thanks to the rigors of Berean Academy physical education classes, I at least graduated from high school understanding the basics of all major sports.

I’m not sure that I watched much of the game. There’s so much other stuff going on at NBA games that it was hard to focus. Must give props to the Verizon Center’s corporate sponsorship department. There’s hardly a surface in the arena without a corporate logo. Most of the game, I watched in fascination as ads changed on the jumbotron and the two projectors that lined the concourses. At some points, I was convinced that I’d have a seizure like those cartoons triggered on kids in Japan.

Then there was the dance squad. When the DC Roomie and I are together, we usually sit and mock the things around us. The dance squad was an easy target. Over the course of the night they went from the dance team to the dance ‘hos to the whore corps.

First, they came out with these 60s style unitards and white go-go boots. It wasn’t the worst dance team costume ever. The Roomie, a former dancer, noted that most of them were off count. We attributed that to dancing in those go-go boots.

Then, we wondered what they were called. Most teams call their dancers some feminine form of the team name. However the feminine form of “wizards” would be “witches.” Unless this was quidditch and we were playing at Hogwarts, that probably wouldn’t fly. I noticed today on the website that they’re just called “dance team.” Rather boring and unoriginal.

We then contemplated the pros and cons of the DC Roomie trying out for the dance team next year. What are the benefits of being a Washington Wizards’ dancer? Do you get free tickets to Verizon Center events? Her boyfriend didn’t really seem thrilled with the concept. There also might be some ramifications with your professional career if your employer found out you moonlighted as a scantily-clad dancer for a professional basketball team.

Which leads to my next question. In a town like DC, where 50% of the population has college degrees and 25% graduate, who tries out for things like the Washington Wizards dance team? It just doesn’t seem to fit the image of the typical DC power woman.

Then they emerged in the second-half wearing costumes that must have come from a sale at a strip joint. The short black and white striped skirts were predictable. However, the full abdomen-revealing shirts emblazoned with “I can’t feel my face,” were a bit over the top. I think that’s the point that “whore corps” were used. When the G-man came out to launch t-shirts*, the dance team proceeded to act out strip teases with the t-shirts. It didn’t really help their image.

I don’t want this to turn into a feminist “I can do anything I want with my body including turning it into a sex object” discussion, but there is sexy dancing and then there’s raunchy. The Washington Wizards dance team was definitely on the raunchy side. Was the “I can’t feel my face.” t-shirt necessary? It seems so unprofessional, especially when most of the audience were families with young kids.

It’s also a bummer that the Wizards lost as the buzzer went off. The adorable two-year-old sitting in front of us, who was wearing a miniature Wizards track suit, was disappointed.

*I really want a t-shirt launching gun. I’m guessing that it works similar to a potato gun, but I’m not sure. Sadly, I got rid of all those t-shirts that I used to have, or I would have had a justification for buying one.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 am and is filed under DC adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.