| Hero$ Authored by Curtis A. Clark - September 7, 2005 - 4:53 pm
Greed in professional sports has never been more prevalent than in the 21st century. The “Show me the money” generation of athletes have been called a lot. It has been said they don’t care about the game, that they think with their wallets and not their head and hearts, that they are changing sports for the worse. They have been accused of only playing though injuries and up to their potential in contract years. In short they have been told they are ruining the game.
What, if anything, is there to consider when judging these athletes? When judging their motives, talents, and legacy?
It’s hard as a fan to put yourself in the place of the people you idolize. Athletes are heroes to some, role models to others, and entertainers to all. Most cannot fathom catching a touchdown as millions watch on. The pressure of game 7, the agony of defeat, the glory of victory. As fans we are a part of it all, but we cannot imagine how it feels on the inside of the members of our team. How if feels to be the idol of millions.
With that we also cannot understand the pressures of their personal lives. While it is easy to say athletes are just people like you and me, they’re not. Once you reach fame and wealth your life forever changes. Of those rich and famous, the difference between athletes and politicians or actors is athletes’ public popularity changes with each game, each pitch, or each down. Their emotions are broadcast all over the world in their purest form as they are hit by a 300 pound lineman or punched by a 22 year old Russian. You cannot act or spin the emotions of game time. You cannot fake your raw response in the heat of being a top athlete performing for the ultimate goal in your sport. Politician’s words are carefully scripted, actors by trade transform themselves into a new person, the countless business or family made millionaires in America do not step in front of a camera every time they make a smart or faulty business move. Professional sports is the rawest form of real human emotion a television viewer can see. Realer than reality TV, realer than the news.
Could you live your life like that? A camera in your face seconds after you losing a game that ends the season you worked all year for? moments after a man knocks you out cold on your feet or beats you in a Wimbledon final.
So when an athlete asks for more money, as Terrell Owens and countless other athletes have in resent years, can we understand why? Is it impossible to understand their personal lives because they live out so much emotion in front of us? I contend we do not even begin to understand the motivation behind holdouts and contract disputes. How could we? The professional athlete has a most complicated life. Their trade makes us believe we know them, but in fact we only know their passion for sport, not the real person inside. Think for a moment the amount of people that count on you when you are a highly paid professional athlete. Family, friends, communities, all pulling you in different directions. What would a personal life like that entail? We see the blood, sweet, and tears of sport, not of life. Two side of the same coin as different as Clark Kent and Superman. Alter ego’s of one another. We know Superman, often we forget or can’t accept that a Clark Kent can exists in our sports idols.
Could you put yourself in the shoes of a professional athlete?
What if you were so valuable at your work that you could threaten to stop working unless you got a raise. A raise that would ensure generations of your families security and opportunity. I know I would do it in a heart beat. You would be obligated to, to the people that raised you, loved you, sculpted you into the talent and person that made it all possible. When these athletes make that decision, it’s not for bigger houses, faster cars, and more lavish things. Sure those come with wealth, but more importantly it is so their kids, grandkid’s, and great grandkids can attend college, have a future. Its for parents, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, and uncles, it’s for everyone. It’s to bring the whole of a family, that so many times comes from little in these sports stories, out of the little and into the middle class and higher. It changes the very fabric and future of their family. A public holdout or contract dispute is a small price to pay for so much and so many you love.
We may hate Terrell Owens, we may boo him every chance we get. It doesn’t help that he is a cocky disrespectful player on and off the field. But for every Owens, who can make these holdouts and contract disputes a cultural and personality driven argument, there are quiet players that do the same. White and Black, high profile quarterbacks to low profile NHL defensemen. Players in all professional sports, using their sports agent’s systems to try and squeeze as much money out of billionaire owners as they can. Trying to gather as much wealth as they can, for all their loved ones while they can.
Is that so hard to see in athletes, so hard to see in our heroes? A decision we could all see ourselves making.
What do we want from our sports idols? We want them to always show love of the game, to have a smile on their face, to enjoy playing a game for a living. Something as fans we would give anything to do. We never want to see cracks in their being, the weakness of appearing human. Always the winning pitcher, always the star quarterback. Never the athlete squabbling for more money.
Always the hero.
Fans are fans because we love what pro sports is supposed to be. An even field of competition, where men and woman do marvelous feats of athleticism all in the name of our city, our state. A world better than ours that can remove us from the stress of our lives. A reason to celebrate. Filled with our heroes, who should never be concerned with pay checks.
To hear a guy like Latrell Sprewell say he doesn’t make enough money to feed his kids makes us despise him. We the averages Joes have money issues, our heroes do not. Sprewell can feed his kids, he could feed his whole block 3 squares a day if he lived on one. That is not what he meant when he made that statement.
His reality, I am a 30 plus, past my prime, perimeter NBA player. I need to get as much as I can before I am out of this league. He wants to make sure he gets as much as he can for all the people he supports from now until forever.
We as fans see a 30 something millionaire grumbling over a contract that he doesn’t deserve, all because he will retire in his 30‘s. It causes us to make assumptions about basketball players priorities and lifestyles. We can’t see his reality, we can’t understand it. We just know that we don’t like to see a guy like Spree complaining.
Does that make him wrong? As fans we don’t take it far enough to find out, we already stopped seeing him as any kind of hero, any kind of idol. Now he is human.
As fans we cannot allow a players personality to create assumptions about his intentions. We may never really know their lives, their stresses, their reality. They are our heroes, our idols. They will always make sense to us when they hit a game winning homerun, they never will when money is involved. So Sprewell, because of his past and because it is a money issue, is now more human than ever. He is a former coach choker who now feels he is being wronged by management. Not a man trying to make what he can, while he can, to support many others. Not a player we would have cheered if he made the game winning shot, not a player who turned one bad night years ago into a solid NBA career. Only the negative.
Does that make Sprewell and other athletes right when it comes to contracts? No, it makes their decisions right for them and theirs. Is Microsoft right when they swallow up another small startup to keep competition down? Is any company right to jack up the prices on consumers when demand goes up? No, it is good business and it is good for them and theirs, not right not wrong. Athletes are no different. Their large contract will mean a smaller one for someone else. Their re-negotiation may cause someone to play in Europe or Triple A next year. Good for them and theirs, good for their families future, they can’t think about the other guy.
Can fans see it that way? Just as business. We don’t like to, fans hate to see sports as business. What it comes down to is money. We just don’t want to hear about it, it humanizes athletes. It’s hard for fans to see their Heroes be humanized. All heroes have a weakness, Superman has his, so too does the pro athlete. Green always seems to be the color to do that to super heroes. Money is the kryptonite of the pro athlete in the eyes of their fans. The one thing that can bring them down to our level, the average Joe.
So there is only one side of the fence for both the hero athlete and the fan. Each having a separate side, the one their on. We cannot see their side and they can’t see ours. I am sure they wish they could conduct their financial issues in relative obscurity like us. Just like we wish we had the opportunity to negotiate for millions. But as it’s said, the grass is always greener on the other side.
So do I, a fan, really understand holdouts, contract disputes, or financial squabbles in pro sports? As any good fan of course not. If I really understood, what kind of fan would I be? I would stop believing in heroes, I wouldn’t be able to jump into the great world of sports to escape. I would lose my passion and my dedication as a fan. Do I fault athletes greed? I try not to. Is that just a cover for hell yes I fault them, they are loaded and scrapping the barrel for more?
You bet.
I am a fan, that is the side of the fence I will always be on. I know that mixing money and sports has never made me want to tune in. Never made me a bigger fan. I like superman flying through the air dunking on the opposition. I don’t want to see him filing taxes or in line at the DMV. I will rescind into my ignorance and ask that sports keeps the kryptonite away from my heroes. That money somehow stays out, no matter how impossible that is.
Why don’t we understand Terrell’s plea, Spree’s need, or any other athletes contract situation? Because we demand that they our superhero’s be better than that, no matter if we can justify it or not. No mater if we would make the same decision they did if we were in their shoes. I cannot say it’s right, but I can say that that is what we want as fans. To have our superheroes. |
