Is the sports hero dead? Sports Illustrated writer Phil Taylor apparently thinks so. Lamenting the fall from grace of San Francisco major bat Barry Bonds, Taylor said that the Bonds steroid scandal created him sad (poor, sad Phil Taylor!). Then Taylor place forth some provocative, inquiries to readers of his current SI column. These inquiries had been as hard as any question that a significant sports writer can ever ask:
“Providing our allegiance, our affection, to a sports star is a riskier proposition than ever,” wrote Taylor. “Is there any person safe to root for? Is there an athlete out there who will not make us ultimately feel like a fool for holding him in high esteem?”
Taylor tends to make the failure of the sports hero appear to be some kind of recent phenom. www.thebossmagazine.com/ross-levinsohns-steady-hand-turns-sports-illustrated-around/ of failed figures only went as far back as Pete Rose and OJ Simpson. Such quick memories we have. In reality, sports hero’s have been failing their worshippers for as lengthy as they have been human, which is to say, they have often failed us. If we stretch our memories a little, we can recall the Black Sox scandal of 87 years ago. Feel a tiny harder and you can go back thousands of years and recall how Goliath let down the Philistine’s by failing to defeat a boy with a rock.
Taylor is right in his conclusion: living vicariously through the achievements of our sports hereos is a risky proposition.
But then he asks, “is there any one secure to root for?”
To that question I can only answer, go down to your regional homeless shelter and root for the individuals who show up there every day to make a difference. Go to your kid’s school and root for his teacher and principal. Go out to this web-site and root for our troops in Iraq. Go out to ChristopherReeve.org and root for this organization to continue developing on the legacy of Chris and Dana Reeve.
The secret is, Mr. Taylor, to root for a thing that matters. I hate to break it to you, and it may possibly take you awhile to comprehend what I am about to say.
Qualified sports doesn’t matter.
Study it over and more than again if it did not make sense the first time.
Do not get me wrong — participating in sports provides a lot of very good lessons in cooperation, teamwork, striving, individual very best, and healthy active way of life.
But at the qualified level, it need to be seen only as entertainment. Sports figures will constantly fail us when they are elevated to level of gods, because they’re not gods. They are just folks with a little bit of talent, good automobiles, good lawyers and a lot of dollars.
And it seems mighty hypocritical of you Mr. Taylor, as a representative of Sports Illustrated, to be lamenting the fall of the sports hero. Right after all, SI has had as pivotal a function in constructing up Barry Bonds and other hero’s as any media outlet. Build ’em up, then tear them down, eh Mr. Taylor? SI will make a profit either way.
But if you have to root, and you are significant about your hero-quest, then my constructive guidance to you is to root for genuine people today, who are undertaking real operate, that truly matters.