I hope everyone had a happy holiday.
I wasn't going to write right away, but came across a story about a book written about Walter Payton that made me stop and think. In it, it talked about how like so many other athletes, a false sense of who he was was put out there for the public and the public ate it up, unaware to the things going on in his personal life.
It made me think about how I used to idolize certain professional players as a kid and in many cases, emulated the way they played when I would play a sport. In football, I was Bernie Kosar. In basketball, I was Mark Price. In baseball, well, I grew up with some pretty poor Indians teams but I always liked Cory Snyder and Brook Jacoby.
I would even emulate the broadcasters of the time, Nev Chandler for the Browns and Joe Tait for the Cavs. I loved the players on the Cavs and Browns from the late 80's into the 90's.
I stopped idolizing players years ago though.
Sure, there are players that come around that I latch onto. Usually they're the guys that no one else really roots for or thinks will succeed because I'm a sucker for the underdog. When the Indians were tearing up baseball in the mid-90's, my favorite players were Kenny Lofton, Sandy Alomar Jr, and Charles Nagy. More recently, I was one of the first to mention an idea that Jason Kipnis could become something special and made sure to watch his development.
With the Browns, some of my previous favorite players were Eric Turner, Steve Everitt, Kevin Johnson, Ernest Byner, Kevin Mack, Ozzie Newsome, and Eric Metcalf. More recently, I've counted Mike Adams, Joe Haden, and TJ Ward as some of my favorites.
But I don't idolize them. The one thing I've seen time and time again is that professional sports may entail a game, but they are run as business first and foremost. This means if a player isn't performing or doesn't like where he's playing, he's gone. That player you spent seven seasons idolizing is now playing somewhere else.
Remember LeBron James?
Did I enjoy watching him play when he was a Cav? Absolutely. Did he say all the right things while he was here to the media? He sure did. In fact, up until "The Decision," he was a marketing genius. He had the city and it's fans eating out of the palm of his hand.
We all know how that turned out.
Now he's widely considered a villian, a player that other fans love to boo, not just because of him being on the opposing team, but because of how he went about leaving. Now Orlando Magic fans are facing the prospect of Dwight Howard doing to them what LeBron did to Cleveland on the heels of what Carmelo Anthony did to Denver and Chris Paul did to the Clippers. Some have already said to get rid of him if he doesn't want to play in their city.
Yet for those who've decided the guy is a bum and get rid of him, there are people who will be hurt by that athlete leaving. I remember watching the news after LeBron left and one of the images was a woman crying.
Over a professional athlete.
Which is what leads me to what I'm getting at with this. So many people invest way too much into sports. They live on every game, pay attention to every stat, digest every interview as if it's their job. They call into talk radio shows to tell anyone who will listen what they think the team/player should do.
If the team wins, they celebrate as if they were on the team. When they lose, it ruins their day, week, month, and even year. Next thing you know, someone's producing a video like the guy who did the "Factory of Sadness" thing. No, I didn't watch it and I don't intend to.
From where I sit, there are far too many people who turn watching sports into an obsession. Things like fantasy sports make this worse as in some cases, people don't even care of their team wins as long as the players they have on their fantasy team perform. There are people who literally hang on every play as if the world is going to end.
I don't know how healthy that is.
I love sports. I think there are few things better than sitting back and watching a game on tv or going to a sporting event. It's even better when it's football or baseball because Rachel will watch with me. Do I want to see the Cleveland teams win? Absolutely. But them losing doesn't ruin my day, crush my soul, or make me want to spend the next week spewing venom about them.
Maybe I'm a glass half-full kind of guy with sports, but I can still dig through a loss and see what the team did right rather than just dwell on the negative. Hell, most people can't see the positive after a win, much less a loss. I've heard way too many people call in after a WIN and point out everything the team did wrong. This became especially prevalent when LeBron was putting on a show every night for Cavs fans. They'd win by 30 and people would be calling in talking about how bad the defense was, or how this guy missed 3 shots he should've made, and so on.
It's become disgusting anymore.
The more dangerous people though are the ones who idolize athletes to the point of being obsessed with them. You can have a favorite player and root for them. But when it becomes all you can talk about, all you can think about, you may have a problem. It's fine when you're eight and think that Joe Haden is the best player ever and you want to be like him. It's another when you're 38 and still like that.
It becomes sad though when you find out that the person you root for isn't as on the up and up as you thought he was. The story about Walter Payton talks about how he had a child out of wedlock right before his wife gave birth to their second child, then was worried that his wife and girlfriend would run into each other at his Hall of Fame induction speech.
This after he was named father of the year.
As the story points out, we live in an age where TMZ, the internet, and Twitter expose us to things we'd rarely hear about 30 years ago. Now we find out about every last little incident the moment it happens. If an athlete has an affair, gets caught with drugs or drinking and driving, or has any other kind of incident, they get put on trial with public first and foremost.
Certainly athletes are still on a pedestal, but it isn't like it used to be and it shouldn't be. Take away all the glitz, glamor, and millions, and they are people just like you and me. Athletes, and celebrities for that matter, are often held to a different standard and part of me wonders if it's because the people who adore them are jealous of them. I really don't know. I do know when people ask me about celebrities, I don't really know anything. I don't pay attention to them and could care less about what they do.
As for athletes, sure I want Peyton Hillis to run for 200 yards, Greg Little to catch 3 touchdown passes from Colt McCoy, and Jabaal Sheard to sack the quarterback 5 times, but I could care less what they do outside of the game. Even when Hillis was dealing with public scrutiny and seemed to be making off-field mistakes, I felt it was all being overblown. Guys like Haden are lauded because he's out in the community, becoming part of Cleveland. We shouldn't alienate players who avoid the limelight, stay in the shadows.
Not everyone wants the spotlight.
They just want to play the game they love to play.
So let them and when they're gone, remember them for what they did while with the team, not how they left.
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