When Sports Stars Need Jeers More Than Cheers

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 17, 2000 | by Rock Newman

I always have liked sports and, as a child, often would stare tranquil-eyed at the TV set, entranced by some athlete striving for perfection. These images would dance through my head, nourishing competitive dreams that later propelled me into the world of professional boxing, where I was the manager of former world heavy weight champion Riddick Bowe. Along the way I saw plenty of athletes, promoters, commentators and writers fattening themselves on personal vanity and egocentricity; I was among them. There was something counterfeit about this life, something that flew in the face of the simple yet sublime pleasures of sport.

There was a period my teen-age life when sports were all my father and I seemed to have in common. It was the currency of our conversation. When talk of politics, education or culture resonated across our dinner table, we at least had Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis to talk about. After all, what relation to reality did "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" have anyway? What relation to reality does it have when a human being's hands and feet move in a divine blur? The subject of sports brought an ease to our relationship because it suggested the infinite -- aspiring for physical perfection that speaks to the secret yearnings of most men. During those precious moments when my father and I talked sports, our shared hurts peeled away like memories.

So, I am deeply annoyed when people suggest that sports amount to little more than a ball bouncing, bouncing, bouncing across a court (as an old girlfriend used to say). For those who so casually dismiss sports for its adolescent kitsch, I would point out: That's the point! Sports allow the male animal to purge a good deal of his adolescent aggressions in a socially acceptable manner. For example, when we watch a 300-pound defensive lineman flatten a quarterback, we hoist our drinks high in the air and cheer. When the same situation occurs on our streets, we do not.

Whether it is for the short, plump man hoisting a drink or the kid in the ghetto who views an ability to bounce, bounce, bounce the ball as his source of dignity, sport appeals because it is human struggle just a few degrees removed from reality. Much like the wish fulfillment of our dreams, sport offers an escape from our daily drudgery by giving vent to our secret desires -- you know, those natural instincts to bite, kick and scream that Sigmund Freud tells us we repress for the betterment of society. From the times of Roman gladiators to today, sport has served as a sort of safety valve to these pent-up instincts. The allure of sport lies not just in its sheer brutishness, but in the fact that we do not feel brutish for playing along.

In short, sport offers an intoxicating substitute for our conflicts. This very source of its greatness, though, may also prove to be an albatross. What I am referring to is just how effective TV companies have become at manufacturing this sports fantasy world. The public has become so saturated with images of athletic striving that they've come to regard athletes as great simply because they are well known. The line then blurs for the athlete, who understands greatness in terms of celebrity, as opposed to striving for character. And this, I believe, can only lead to disaster.

It starts when athletes are young, spotted on the playgrounds by neighborhood street agents who fill their heads with sugary dreams of TV dollars, endorsement deals, celebrity and all those other things that fulfill adolescent desires to be "feared and worshipped" These promising youths (the fittest, the strongest) are then shipped off to sports camp where their talents are honed under the adoring gaze of established stars. They are greedily recruited by colleges which each year graduate a new crop of socially and academically underdeveloped athletes with bright, shiny diplomas tucked under their overdeveloped biceps. Personal responsibility, academic achievement and mature socialization often fall away in a culture infatuated with the macho fantasy worlds that its athletes inhabit.

In their journey, athletes are sent a message: They, as the fittest in the Darwinian sense, are held to a different standard. They need not be neutered by compliance with ordinary social or academic standards. The truly exceptional athletes do not pay for college, do not even have to attend classes and are not made to pine for money or dates. In short, they are not required to struggle with many of the social or academic standards that shape the rest of society's character. One is reminded of Roman Emperor Caligula, who was fond of remarking, "Bear in mind, I can treat anyone exactly as I please." These lessons, learned early on by some superlative young American athletes, too often blight their lives as well as their careers.

Dennis Rodman perhaps best sums up sport's special confluence of personal vanity, hype and counterfeit "greatness." Despite a track record studded with pathologically whimsical -- and, at times, criminal -- behavior, "The Worm" recently inked a deal to play for the Dallas Mavericks. Take note: He did not have to attend practice, and could show up late to games. He lasted less a month with the team. Why was this athlete, with a penchant for destroying team chemistry, allowed such preferential treatment? Because he evoked the adolescent striving of all of us. Instead of dismissing this clown, we empower him with fat paychecks. Rodman continues to reprise his human carnival show for the oldest reason of all: because he can.