I’m fond of Eugene McCarthy’s line about politicians needing to be like football coaches: “You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.”
But having spent a lot of my life competing in athletics, including doing a little coaching, I do understand its lure — or at least one of the lures.
By and large, I think, people are less happy when they’re focused on themselves, more happy when they’re not — when they are able to “lose themselves” in something else.
There were times when I was young and miserable, when nothing could make me forget my unhappiness like a good, competitive game of basketball — in a gym or on a street.
Being “outside of myself” for that time was sheer relief.
Sports offers an arena in which you not only can focus on externals, but also you can easily chart your progress. Want to know how you are doing? Look at the scoreboard. Look at your batting average. Look at your winning percentage. Life — real life — doesn’t offer those clear measuring sticks.
Of course, a life of constant competition comes with a price, a price Florida football coach Urban Meyer says he’s decided he no longer wants to pay, at least for now. One year after resigning following a health scare — only to quickly un-resign — Meyer appears sincere in his decision to step down.
In today’s college game, coaches at Meyer’s level are compensated at absurd levels, but just as absurd are the expectations others place on them. Meyer won two national titles at Florida; yet last year he “disappointed” Gators fans by only going 13-1. The reaction to this year’s 7-5 season? Don’t ask.
Coaching legend John Wooden told the story of a booster who came up to him after his UCLA team had beaten Kentucky to win the 1975 NCAA basketball title.
“It was a great victory, John.” Then the booster added, “After you let us down last year.”
“Last year,” 1974, Wooden’s Bruins had lost to North Carolina State in the NCAA finals, in double overtime — only the second time in 12 years Wooden’s team hadn’t cut down the nets.
That was Wooden’s last season; he knew when it was time to get out. It appears Meyer does, too.
Even so, the break for Meyer, just 46, could be brief.
“I can’t ever see that son of a gun getting out of the game and going into broadcasting,” Notre Dame assistant Tim Hinton said last year. “He’s too much of a competitor.”
Hopefully not.
Meyer already has discovered the health consequences of being super competitive. Competition also can be an addiction. It’s the need to compete, I think, that led to Pete Rose’s career meltdown and to the gambling problems of Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.
Competition is a way to “lose yourself.” The trouble is, sometimes it really happens.
Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment