mythology of sports heroes

~inspired~ by lebron jams going to south beach to chill with tpain and play basketball sometimes, this is a thread to talk about the various tropes about pro athletes and the expectations of their fans. namely, lebron has been criticized (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100709) 4 his lack of loyalty, lack of hyper-competitiveness, relying on his mother's input, not being michael jordan or kobe bryant.

ways we can make this a 1000-post thread:
*racial shit
*ricky williams (neti pot, kombucha, where to buy weed, getting through defensive lines)
*talking baout "killer instinct" (ie tiger, federer, jordan, ali held up as platonic ideals)
*ingraining these qualities in sports kidz so they can be best sports guys as adults
*4 many men, sports>>>>stupid gross family

BREAK

we can talk about the moral panic of steroids too if u wanna

also 4 reference see: LEBRON'S DECISION: "THE DECISION" LIVE THREAD

did he really get criticized for listening to his mom? i guess it's not macho enough. >:[

well, there's a combo of no daddy to steer him right plus mommy coddling him.

*in that bill simmons column, he lists a number things to blame for lebron deciding to do that one-hour special. the first two: "I blame the people around him. I blame the lack of a father figure in his life. "
*City: Las Vegas
Name: Duke
The stone-cold assassins that I have witnessed in my life: Tiger, Jordan, Kobe, Federer, Brady. All had what appear to be strong father-figures in their childhoods.

LBJ and his mom agreed that Miami "would make him happy." Need I say more?

mostly when i read sportswriters on this kind of thing i think about how they should get therapy and stop using people like tom brady as a screen on which to project the opposite of what they've internalized as all their inadequacies.

gisele bundchen would never fuck me! that's what makes tom brady the greatest athlete ever!

Can we also talk about the Goldman Dilemma (where half of Olympic-level athletes would take a hypothetical substance guaranteed to both earn them a gold medal and kill them within five years, http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/43/11/871.full.pdf )? I think the first time I heard about this was when I actually understood that a reasonable portion of elite athletes had no other objective in their lives beyond athletic success. And from there all of the "he only cares about one thing: winning" stories got kind of unsettling to hear about.

yeah! that kind of self-sacrifice (of body, of fortune, of privacy, of outside personal interests) is expected.

It's weird the idealism and purity that people place on something that's highly ritualized bloodsport.

Hey man -- boxing is an art, and not just two men committing battering for a large sum of money.

Well, when you think about it, it has to be more than just committing battery. The art consists of figuring out how to avoid damage while inflicting it, while your opponent is engaged in precisely the same attempt.

At the lowest levels of the sport, there is far less art to how this problem gets solved, for exactly the same reason that playing casual chess with your nephew is not at the level of games between grandmasters. At the championship level, the level of ability is so high that both boxers are grandmasters at this game. It is fascinating to see their moves and countermoves.

i would suggest that leaving all the armchair psych aside, nba fans at this rate are not going to remember lebron as the greatest player ever, which is fine w/me and fine w/him, but not according to plan for his handlers, agents, sponsors, etc.

Of interest to the armchair psychoanalsysts (i.e. English majors): http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/how-good-will-the-new-heat-be/#comment-1900961

As far as I can see, the most vocal detractors of Lebron James are naturally the most angry ones. This tends to make the most vehement criticisms the most prominent ones. I'm an NBA fan and his leaving Cleveland for Miami won't bother me a bit.

However, James has a fair long journey yet to go before he can lay any kind of claim to being "the greatest player ever", so at this time it's a moot point. Ask me again in ten years.

He may be somewhat closer to being the most famous player ever, though. Jordan is still pretty unfuckwithable there, too, but the LeBron brand is stronger than it was before July 1. Although I wonder if it's possible to detach "most famous" from "best" in the NBA, since both currently reside with Jordan. I guess you can do it in baseball (Derek Jeter is probably the most famous current player, right?).

The real key to fame is not whether the masses talk about you, although that is certainly a requirement, but rather the extent to which they incorporate your mythos deep into their imagination. Babe Ruth ruled in this regard. So did Mohammed Ali.

Additional stone-cold assassins that I have witnessed in my life: Floyd Mayweather, Lennox Lewis, Manny Pacquiao, Patrick Roy, LARRY BIRD

Second Tier: Agent 0 (those nights where he hits threes from half court in succession were amazing), Alex Ovetchkin, D Wade (controversial becuz of Jordan Rules in effect for his finals run. Having seen him live several times tho I can assure you that when he is healthy he can score AT WILL).

yea this seems most interesting 2 me in non-team sports actually. what are fans xpectations of federer (lol tennis fans) or, i guess, mayweather/pacquio ? ppl obv still talk abt and incorporate the "best ever" myth but it is really way less contentious in a way

id like to construct a pantheon of ricky williams-type heroes--could be all dudes who routinely piss of sportswriters for not being white working-class hustlers (i.e. barry bonds) or could just be weird dudes (i.e. t.o.) or could specifically be guys like ricky who are world-class athletes who just dont really give a shit about intense competition

*talking baout "killer instinct" (ie tiger, federer, jordan, ali held up as platonic ideals)

Poker's not a sport, but Phil Ivey to thread anyway.

xp

does rasheed wallace count, too? he's had this "omg he had the tools to be all-time but he didnt give a fukk" story around him 4ever. also when the pistons won the championship, he made a wwe style title belt he carried around with him.

yeah i think, tho sheed always had a rep as a "hard dude who didnt give a fucc" and ricky had a rep as a "soft dude who didnt give a fucc"--i like the soft dudes better cause usually it turns out that theyre wacky stoner/hippie types

this is obviously/usually a heavily racialized discourse btw--90% of "gamers," at least in baseball, are white dudes, while 90% of guys who have a reputation as lazy or whatever, across all sports i think, are black

One of my longstanding observations about sports leagues is the 'cult of the average player.' This is seen in hockey more than anywhere else -- you have bigtime fans of low-level grinder talents, not even tough guys like Probert (RIP). There is no cult of the average player in basketball -- if you're a bigtime Varejao fan, say, you might be considered retarded. There DEFINITELY isn't one in USA Football because the league simply doesn't advertise anyone besides the skill players. There might be one on baseball but I think it's more of the revisionist Cardboard Gods archness or melancholy that comes with the game. I dunno, just something I noticed.

i'd say it exists is baseball. in particular it reminds me of the 2003/04 red sox, when a lot of the role players, guys like trot nixon and kevin millar, became real cult figures, dubbed dirt dogs

i'd guess it has something to with these players being more relatable for most fans, whether thats because of race, skill/income level, or a combination of both

I think dudes like Sheed (and probably also Ricky) are necessarily frustrating for a lot of diehard fans, since it's just weird to see a player who seems like he cares less about what happens than you do watching it.. I am kind of prone to get to a place with UCLA basketball where I am just unhealthily invested, to a point where it upsets me to lose, and ruins my whole day. (This was especially the case coming off the Final Four in 2006 and continuing into the Final Four years in 2007 and 2008; I was also probably not in the happiest emotional place at this time and was using basketball as a release for it, really.) Like, when you are watching your team with that mentality, there becomes this weird sense of entitlement, like "You guys should want to win this game AT LEAST as much as I want you to win this game, since you guys can actually do something to affect it." To watch a guy half-ass it on defense and take crappy shots becomes really frustrating. To watch the team come up against adversity and just collapse is kinda devastating, because it's like, you did everything you could do as a crazy fan, and all that effort and energy and emotional investment just vanishes because of Joakim Noah and his stupid face. There are probably some threads in the archives of Bruins Nation (a scary, scary place sometimes) that are like this x 10.

But like, I get where the anger from Cleveland people is coming from, since they went all in for LeBron, and it ended with him saying "I care more about me winning championships and building my brand than about Cleveland having a championship to celebrate". Which is a totally legit thing to do, but the way he did it made it seem like he thought that NE Ohio was going to be loyal to the LeBron brand above all else, which is...really stupid.

d like to construct a pantheon of ricky williams-type heroes--could be all dudes who routinely piss of sportswriters for not being white working-class hustlers (i.e. barry bonds) or could just be weird dudes (i.e. t.o.) or could specifically be guys like ricky who are world-class athletes who just dont really give a shit about intense competition

would love to see this pantheon, but surely Williams is also of another order in that his weird public vulnerability is sort of what drew all that ire in the first place--it's almost as if no one could recognize that the guy was in a lot of confusion and emotional pain at all and immediately scuttled the whole story into the "selfish athlete" narrative. there's a lot of complexity and gross overtones in how Barry Bonds and T.O. are treated in the media, but they are sorta unsympathetic characters. (tho I do remember being sorta moved by T.O. crying while defending Tony Romo at a press conference...I guess Williams never learned to adopt that bravado that these guys develop to deal with the media and protect themselves emotionally.)

williams was also clinically depressed, wasn't he? i mean i appreciate that he has this outsider status and i'm a big fan of his, but i thought that some of his ish was based on the fact that he had an illness.

Yes at the very least he suffered from a lot of anxiety.

Another candidate for this thread: Ron Artest

In that vein: rodman.

tbh i dont know if there are any white sports nonconformists left

a-rod has shown flashes of this kind of weirdo/possibly depressed nonconformism at certain times in his career

are soccerball fans allowed on the thread, cos we gots pigs heads?

http://quiron.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/vuelta_figo.jpg

In that vein: rodman.

― Clay, Monday, July 12, 2010 12:32 AM

Welcome to Love AFL!

tbh i dont know if there are any white sports nonconformists left

http://www.theheckler.com/news/articlefiles/647-07-02-15-Adam-Morrison.jpg

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/events/blog/adam-morrison.jpghttp://www.slamonline.com/online/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/AdamMorrison1.jpg

tbh i dont know if there are any white AMERICAN sports nonconformists left

srs i guess i should just not get involved with this thread. plus aren't the majority of people in american sports just... not white in the first place? Makes it a lot harder to be both white and noncomformist.

id be interested in hearing about euro sports weirdos/nonconformists

Does looking like the kid from Dazed & Confused and getting busted for weed make you a nonconformist?

http://5toolblogger.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/tim-lincecum.jpg

haha i think licecum maybe should be in this thread. has he really pissed off sportswriters enough though?

i'm pretty sure ilh really needs an "itt: pictures of adam morrison" thread.

oh wait, we already have one! ADAM MORRISON: FAVORITE PLAYER!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Avery

fuckin sean avery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_Dele

jake plummer was a good white sports nonconformist imo

john rocker? sort of

bill lee

The connection here is pretty much weed, right?

i think this discush is digressing from the fact that many men place an undue amount of importance on athletes meeting their expectations wrt doing whatever it takes 4 tha ~team~, a kind of bloodthirsty fealty to athletic glory and civic pride

Lambeer wasn't a non-co, he just liked to punch people! xpost

xp i mean, w/team sports, isn't this kind of a natural reaction?

::jsut trying to get us back on track tbh::

mike bison, a lot of expectations are also strictly bound to ideals of masculinity, too, though, and I think communal beliefs take a back seat to that, esp. regarding how conducive the figures of athletes are to hero worship/role model discourse.

how natural is it for grown-ass men (tm) to be crying over another grown-ass man's (tm) employment decisions?

xpost

there is manliness issues 4 sure, but it has almost martial qualities, too! like, field of battle, fighting with honor, not deserting your men, whatever.

i wish jesse jackson would post on this thread, someone shd email it 2 him

wanted to mention Vince Young earlier in this thread, because of the way his behavior was received by the media and especially by former football player commentators, back when he got booed and disappeared for a little while. ade linked to this article on ilnfl back when it happened.

in case y'all don't remember, his behavior was received badly.

That a gifted 24-year-old athlete would voluntarily abandon a career in the glamorous NFL might make little sense to fans. After all, who wouldn't jump at the chance to play pro football—let alone to grab one of the eight-figure contracts that veteran starters often earn? Ask a player, though, and you'll likely get a different reaction. I'm willing to bet that more than a few Colts privately admire Quinn Pitcock for having the stones to walk away from the NFL—and wish they had them, too.
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Professional football is an absurd proposition. Players collide, physicist Timothy Gay reports, with a force equivalent to the weight of a small adult killer whale. Injuries are constant, and players live with the knowledge that they may wind up crippled, depressed, or with Alzheimer's disease in their 50s. Coaches are merciless jerks. Contracts aren't guaranteed; you can be fired any minute. The media say a lot but know little. Fans scream and curse. The surprise isn't that a player like Quinn Pitcock quits the NFL. It's that it doesn't happen more often. "When I tell people that I left after five years on my own, you should see the looks on their faces," says Ed Cunningham, an offensive lineman with the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks from 1992-'96 who's now a college-football analyst for ESPN. "Well, hey, man, it sucked. It was not fun. And oh, by the way, I was getting beaten up every single day at work."

i grew up in Houston, and looking back I think the way Hakeem's Islamic faith was treated was pretty remarkable. he himself rarely made a big deal out of it, but everyone in Houston knew when Ramadan was because "Hakeem was fasting."

I'm willing to bet that more than a few Colts privately admire Quinn Pitcock for having the stones to walk away from the NFL—and wish they had them, too.

Any time someone speculates like this, big grain of salt, but overall, yeah, bison's martialness thing really comes into relief with football and all the stuff coming out now about NFL players' radical brain damage. (See also Pat Tillman.) xpost

Awww, I miss the Dream! But that brings to mind Chris Jackson, converted to Islam (Mahmoud Abdul Rauf) and refused to stand for American anthem.

yeah. the bulk of his career was pre-September 11th, right?

there's a yearly conference put on by the Islamic Society of North America that my family sometimes went to when i was a kid. one year everyone was all excited because he apparently came. i didn't see him, though.

xpost

Fatsis definitely has a POV on pro football, but he says later in that article that he's spent a lot of time in locker rooms and observed a lot of miserable players.

That's more reasonable, just one of those peeves of mine and doh, I've actually read that article before.

Craig Hodges' Muslim faith was always treated as a bit of a curiosity but still with a good deal of respect.

"Hakeem was fasting."

ha yeah i first heard of ramadan from this

the broadcasters were kinda cool about it iirc, especially if hakeem was having a down game was when they would stop to explain the fasting and cut him a little slack.

xxp craig hodges' nonconformity got him blacklisted dude! to hear him tell it at least, but i remember it being conventional wisdom at the time also. his case dovetails with the thread v. nicely:

Hodges also criticized his Bulls teammate Michael Jordan for not using his fame to draw attention to social and political issues, and said Jordan was "bailing out" for not being politically outspoken. - wiki

craig hodges' nonconformity got him blacklisted dude!

^No it didnt. They guy won multiple rings with the Bulls as a player and with the Lakers as an assistant coach, where he currently is employed. IF that's blacklisting, go ahead and blacklist me.

he sued the league about that yeah, and even if it were true, I was referring to how the media and (most) fans viewed it.

do other sports besides baseball have the same sort of "scrappy" effect where players who look like they're struggling and giving 150% all the time are lauded over the better players who are so good that they make everything look easy and thus aren't flashy?

John Daly-non conformist:

http://www.weiunderpar.com/post/somebody-get-john-daly-a-beer

xp not really--every once in a while a white football player at a skill position will get this.

oh, i guess this is big in hockey too but somehow it's less bothersome there.

scrappy football player that comes to mind immediately is Tom Waddle. there must be others.
happens a lot in basketball w/bench guys

i don't feel that scrappy bball players are "lauded" nearly as much.

scrappy football player = wes welker

in hoops, the role player kinda guys that get hella kudos are guys with "high basketball IQ" aka white ppl with no athleticism who know their physical limitations

i think part of it is in baseball each player's performance is fragmented into a lot of small moments and so it's difficult for casual fans who aren't into statistics to add it all up and make a quality-of-performance judgment that way. so they're more likely to just follow the judgment calls of the announcers/sportswriters and to pick favorites based on the characteristics that show up in a single at-bat or defensive play, which comes down to composure and personality mainly rather than baseball skill...?

wes welker wasn't particularly popular before he was *good* though, so I don't think that works

the problem with baseball that no other major team sport has is that your level of effort is not really evident in baseball.

i dunno man there's a certain subset of NBA fan who values "hustle" over almost anything else. and coaches give a lot of praise to guys who "go hard everynight" etc.

the PE coach demographic

ie ppl who think guys called up from d-league should get 20 min a game to "develop"?

nah iatee it totally works--he's always lauded for his toughness, fearlessness, especially for a guy his size (always a huge red flag). and he's got this big underdog thing and barely got recruited for college and stuff. so i always hear about that before i hear about his superior agility and quickness, excellent route-running, and good hands.

I guess, but still, he only can be a popular scrappy white dude because he's good, ya know? like there are plenty of equally 'scrappy' (white) position players who nobody cares about.

Shane Battier is an interesting example of someone with supposedly small athletic ability who gets kudos for using his intelligence. (also sorta nonconformist in his intellectualism...)

did he really get much press before the michael lewis article?

No only local press. They would joke about him running for president one day and stuff like that.

There are sort of two conversations here - "sportspeople who aren't conventional jocks" (count Battier here for sure) and "sportspeople for whom winning isn't the only thing" (not sure who's here, still, besides ricky williams and maybe plummer)

has bode come up yet?

no, and shockingly, i don't think this guy has either:

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2009/06/Manny-Ramirez-drugs-suspended.jpg

omg bodeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

There are sort of two conversations here - "sportspeople who aren't conventional jocks" (count Battier here for sure) and "sportspeople for whom winning isn't the only thing" (not sure who's here, still, besides ricky williams and maybe plummer)

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Wednesday, July 14, 2010 7:38 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

theres a lot of overlap here though isnt there? i mean isnt the latter category a subset of the former?

love bode btw

yeah Bode is pretty prototypical example of what we're looking for here i think.

and white to boot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMzdAZ3TjCA

^reminds me that I still haven't been able to find derrick coleman's "eat right, practice hard...and I'll still kick your ass" commercial online.

^No it didnt. They guy won multiple rings with the Bulls as a player and with the Lakers as an assistant coach, where he currently is employed

uh first of all, blackballed as a player

" While a Bulls official said Hodges was waived as he was getting old and could not play defense, head coach Phil Jackson said, "I also found it strange that not a single team called to inquire about him."

and probably the most powerful person who gives credence to the theory is the person it 'took' to hire him back in the nba. not proof of anything but i would use your gotchas more wisely in the future