State Representative Mike Moffett (R-Loudon) is a retired sports management professor and former Marine Corps officer. He chairs the House Committee on State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs.

I recently received a text from an old Marine Corps buddy who now teaches history at Clemson University.

“What’s up with the Celtics floor at the Garden? No more parquet?”

I hadn’t watched much early season basketball, so I went to YouTube to check the look. Not pretty. Then I read a post by @SamLaFranceNBA:

“For the first time in franchise history, the Boston Celtics will be playing some of their home games on a court that doesn’t have a parquet design … [earlier] the NBA officially unveiled the alternate court designs that all 30 teams will use for In-Season Tournament games. Boston’s design features a dark green paint job with a wooden-colored runway down the center. The “city edition” logo for the Celtics is featured at center court, on top of a painting of the NBA Cup trophy. In a statement, the NBA said that the alternate courts will be used for all group-stage and quarterfinal tournament games. The league added that the goal is to make it “instantly clear” to fans when they are watching an In-Season Tournament game.”

The in-season tournament gimmick is grist for a different mill (i.e. material for another column) but the absence of the parquet is a big issue for many Celtic fans. You see, the Celtic product largely involves tradition, more so than any other NBA team.

Tradition.

Holiday traditions are especially sacrosanct. Detroit Lions home games on Thanksgiving. My mom’s Christmas popcorn balls. The Indy 500 on Memorial Day.

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Neighboring landowner objection stalls Steeplegate redevelopment approval

Lawyers and lawmakers assert the Department of Education is on the verge of violating the law

Youth rally against New Hampshire’s bill allowing medical aid in dying

Body of long-missing hiker found, pinned by boulder in Dry River

UNH seeks vandal who accused university of genocide in spray-painted message

As site testing begins on new middle school site, activists file to put location debate on the ballot

Your Daily Puzzles

Cross|Word

Flipart

Typeshift

SpellTower

Really Bad Chess

Don’t mess with tradition. Yankee pinstripes. Throwing hats on the ice for hat tricks. Cutting down the net. The seventh inning stretch.

And the Celtic parquet.

As Henry James said, “It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.”

As Winston Churchill said, “Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd.”

As Woody Allen said, “Tradition is the illusion of permanence.”

Tradition binds together generations, providing common experiences and shared imagery. Mess with tradition at your own peril. (Google “New Coke.”)

Our military services are dealing with terrific recruiting challenges. There are several reasons for this. But a significant cause for the recruiting crisis involves eschewing traditions. For example, Marine Corps female recruits no longer train separately from males. And when veterans no longer sense those traditional ties to the military, they’re less likely to encourage sons or daughters, nieces or nephews, friends or acquaintances, etc. to consider joining the military. There is great intangible recruiting value to honoring tradition.

The current presidential administration now imposes “woke” values onto our military. There’s less focus on war-fighting and more focus on social justice. Now the Biden administration wants to use the military to fight “climate change.” No wonder Army enlistments fell 25% short of goals in 2022.

Hopefully, the next administration will return to celebrating traditional values relating to camaraderie, patriotism, and service as opposed to dreary and dubious woke values relating to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Our enemies must love seeing our military focusing so much time and energy on politically correct wokeness. It’s becoming a national security issue.

Tradition.

Consider the lyrics to that wonderful song from that that Academy Award winning film: “Tradition! Without our traditions our lives would be as shaky as … a fiddler on the roof!”

Truth.

So, may the Celtics bring back the parquet floor and may the military cut back the woke insanity.

Merry (traditional) Christmas!