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I’m not a famous athlete. I’m not stopped when I walk down the street and asked
for my autograph. I’m not invited to play in celebrity golf tournaments or
to appear on prime-time game shows. I need reservations to get a table at finer restaurants
and only get upgraded on airlines by accident. But I know a few athletes who do receive
“royal treatment.”
Rubbing shoulders with the media “dream team”
My introductions to them usually come as a result of my minor celebrity as a professional
triathlete. By good fortune and fate, I have had the chance to exist alongside bona-fide
superstars and to feel the shameless worship that the public spews forth. It is a unique
phenomenon, this gloating over any small association with men and women made famous by the
media machine. To stand back and watch as fully-grown adults become children, smitten with
a fleeting glance, eye contact, a word, or if all is right with the world, an autograph...well,
it confounds me.
I understand the effect of celebrity upon the everyman. We are bombarded from all fronts with
overt and covert messages: These people are better than we are. Of course, when it comes to
the specific skill that has provided the genius for such elevation, it is true.
Superstar athletes do things we can only dream of. Watching Michael Jordan launch himself
into the air at the free throw line on a flight toward the hoop some 15 feet away and 10 feet
up, one can only wonder how such athletic excellence is possible. Still, when one is
measured on other scales of worth, Michael is no different from the mortician from Knoxville,
Tennessee, or the dentist from Tucson, Arizona. It just happens that superstar athletes are
given a different set of rules by which to play, and a few more chips.
Starring Tiger and McGwire
And why is that? Is it because Mark McGwire can hit more home runs than Joey-bag-of-donuts of
the Chief Auto Parts Chromers? Is it because Tiger Woods can drive the ball 360 yards with a
2 wood and I can’t drive it that far in an ’89 Ford? Well, indirectly, yes.
But the underlying value of athletic skill in the for-profit professional ranks is
entertainment. Talented athletes are entertainers. They allow us to sit back and watch
in quiet awe as they perform their magic night after night. We wonder how they do it, thinking
to ourselves, “What if it was me out there?” And this unique modern-day form of
gladiator competition is brought to us over the radio, television, and cyber waves, all at
the click of a button, sponsored in part by (enter favorite beer). That is how they become
superstars. Talent plus entertainment plus media equals viewership.
Of course it takes an innate skill and years of hard work even to get a shot at “the
show.” Thousands try, few are chosen. And many are the disillusioned young men and
women who dream every night of playing for thousands of adoring fans. But sad though it may
seem, sadder still is the aging athlete who can’t help himself from wondering how he
might have done. I shudder at the thought of lost chances.
Hunting for heroes
I don’t think many of the top players realize the role they play. Here in the year 2000,
heroes are hard to come by. There are no more war heroes or honorable captains of
industry—and fewer still politicians—whom men and women of high standard can look to
as models. Indeed, the modern-day hero is a dying breed. But athletes still hold a special
place in the hearts and minds of the everyman. They may be rude and obnoxious off the
court, they may earn $10 million a year and still feel it’s too little. They may even
realize that they exist for a brief period in the limelight merely to work their special brand
of entertainment. But if they pull off a move that would impress the gods of civilizations past
and make us feel something special, then we hold them up high and gladly pay the $23.50 ticket
price to have witnessed such greatness.
And you say glibly to yourself, “Only in America.” Shame on you. The modern myth of
the sports hero is a global phenomenon. Wayne Gretzky may have played in Los Angeles, but he
was born in Canada. Greg Norman may list his residence as Florida, but he is fully Australian.
Bjorn Borg moved from Sweden to Monte Carlo to avoid his country’s high tax rate.
Athletes go where the money is. The scent of green is strong indeed when one considers
that a lineman in the NFL’s average career lasts just under four years.
Borders? What borders? Ever see how athletes find last-minute ties to small countries they may
have visited as a kid—eight months before the Olympic Games? So-and-so from the United States
can’t make the Olympic volleyball team so he or she will be competing for Mozambique or
Nicaragua. Is there another set of rules altogether for those people?
I guess the truest thing that I can say about the state of today’s superstar athletes is
that I understand how it all works, but I still don’t
buy into it.
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