The Immaculate Athlete...

Americans live for competition. Look at the merchandising of sports stuff. Sports play a big role in Americans lives, mine included to a point. It's alright to root for your favorite team or a team in which you have a personal connection such as a relative who is involved. BUT...(there is always that word when I speak eh?) When a team or individual consumes your life that's when things become stupid.

While growing up, I didn't really have a favorite player in any sport I played. I played Little League and was a Boxer. I strived to become a good, proficient player. Take a look at the Little League World Series when it is playing on television this year. The kids playing copy the nuances of big league players right down to the Gary Sheffield wag of the bat. Any coach trying to teach you the fundamentals of the game will tell you that that isn't a correct way to swing a bat. It might work for Sheffield but isn't correct for young players. Letting young athletes to copy a player leads to no individuality and style. A copy is a copy.

Back to my point... A portion of sports crazed morons hold sports above all. An athlete can do no wrong by them, an athlete would never do that.. blah blah blah... Well.. athletes are doing wrong. Drug scandals, Forced sex, Lying.... that is the consummate athlete of today. Should we explain to our youths that athletes do wrong things sometimes and that being an individual and having your own method is the best way??? Copying is just that.

I'm not sure how other countries view sports celebrities but America has a twisted view of theirs. I could never live my life through the accomplishments of other men. I believe that most who do are trying to compensate for personal inadequacies in their athletic life, ie: The 36 year old, drunk at the bar praising his own high school glory days with the Dale Jr. bumper sticker plastered all over the back window of same pickup truck he owned in high school. These are the jamokes that usually talk as if they are members of the team... "Yup, WE nearly won the Super Bowl last week." Or they talk as if they personnally know the players... Delusional!!!!!

I just read a news piece about the Duke rape thingy. The Alumni are upset that the University President fired the coach and that the athletes are being treated unfairly who were possibly involved. I see it this way... when did sombody place a game over a person's well being and life? No Alumni are speaking out over the victim in this case. It's all about the integrity of the school. Integrity... now that's a big word. Too bad nobody really understands what it means.

Eric