Why We Care More About Quarterbacks than Senators

“People care more about their quarterbacks than their elected officials.”

Yeah. And?

It’s Election Day on even-numbered year which means all of the disgusting, condescending, willfully ignorant political ads once again culminate to an evening of poll watching, seat counting and levels of bloviating that make Monday Night Countdown seem like an elaborated game of Telephone.

It’s also a day where people have piled on those who either vote differently or abstain from voting at all. They’ve said things like “don’t let other people decide your future”; though It’ll happen anyway, regardless of if you vote or not. They’ve used phrases such as “vote or die”, “friends don’t let friends vote [insert opposition here]” and attacked the educational backgrounds of the people whose ballots disagree with their own.

Apparently Democrats are full of super-liberal,  elitist, cloaked racists with their fancy degrees in Pig Latin. Apparently, Republicans are mostly white (or whitewashed) redneck, uneducated buffoons who think wanting to have a drink with their elected official is a good idea. And without question, Independents are certifiable loons looking to steal votes and raise their own profiles.


Political Football: Says it all, doesn't it?

A Scribe favorite is when people say that they can’t understand how we put more time and energy with sports and other ‘trivial matters’ than what their governments are doing. To an extent, there’s a good bit of truth in those words. For all the millions of good fans out there, there are lumped with the types that are portrayed in movies such as Big Fan. Those bad fans have obsessions cloud far, FAR more than political visions, but permeate every aspect of their lives.

That conundrum is a favorite discussion topic because it’s born from populist anger that comes from a declining economic state. This has gone on since Americans first invested into sports. We essentially invented the sports industry; discovering that a blend of civic pride mixed with enviable athletic feats, disposable income and political grandstanding make for our nation’s largest and most successful entertainment vehicle.

It’s funny because when the good times are rolling, we pay little to no attention to everything that’s ailing us from within. It’s okay to root for millionaires or people making others millionaires (college athletes). It’s also okay for continue watching all the train wrecks on VH1, MTV, Bravo and the like, but that’s another conversation for another day.

When the money isn’t flowing, however, we scream about those who can live comfortably enough to not feel the day-to-day pinch of a recession. It doesn’t matter that most of those who’ve made millions off their craft actually earned it, it’s having such riches while others are losing meager five-figure jobs that brings out such conversation. This juxtaposition is an indictment on where our priorities are as a country, if you continue to listen to those drumming that beat.

The thing that some critics fail to understand is that there isn’t another vehicle in this country that can bring people together for a few hours in a day to cast aside most of their differences. Even with contrasting fandom and interests, people congregate around sports for camaraderie that doesn’t exist elsewhere on such a grand scale. It doesn’t mean that all the ‘isms’ have disappeared; they do permeate in subtle ways within sporting institutions and in blatantly ignorant manners among media and fans.

We look to sports because unlike most forms of our lives, we see that no matter what resources are available to the participants, they have to adhere to a set of mostly obvious rules that EVERYONE knows. Skirting such rules brings about immediate punishment that ranges from the minimum and momentary boos and catcalls to the maximum of public scorn, even when we could surely move on to another subject. No matter the errors of our favorite sports figures and our own biases, we still revere the games because it’s the only place where the physical confines within the game do not discriminate. Out of bounds is the same for all players, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual preference and political affiliation or indifference.

As Rasheed Wallace once philosophized, the ball don’t lie.

The divisive nature – or the mere existence – of politics is what brings out the worst in a society, not its best. Until we can have that ideal political discourse without condemning each other based on Gallup polls or what cable news network we choose to watch, people will never care more about elected officials more than our quarterbacks.

And by then, would we even need elected officials?

Rage

Since I was a kid – okay, so it wasn’t terribly long ago – there was one person on television that I had strong, but unshared admiration for. It wasn’t so much that I understood the topics or knew where the story began, but I was drawn to the style that he spoke to the audience. Without openly flaunting his knowledge or tossing sound bites to move stories along, his newscasts presented the differing sides of conflicts while introducing unfamiliar issues to a mass audience.

At ten years old, I may have learned as much about the world from Peter Jennings as from any teacher or textbook at I.S. 131 in The Bronx.

Over the past week, I’ve been reading a book about him that was published last fall called Peter Jennings: A Reporter’s Life. More of an anthology of reflections about the late anchorman than a biography crafted during his career, the book chronicles his career from aspiring to follow his father’s footsteps as Canada’s most beloved newsman in the fifties and sixties to an icon in his own right. You could look to his experience in the Middle East or his news specials featuring children to see that Jennings’ mission was to present as many sides to a story as possible, even if it challenges our sensibilitues and experiences. Yet, in an interview sourced in the book shows, he showed great concerns about the direction of the media industry:

“Maybe it started with the Robert Bork nomination to the Supreme Court. Maybe it was the 1988 political campaign using the image of Willie Horton, or the Clarence Thomas hearings, Whitewater, the Clinton sex scandal, the Clinton impeachment, the 2000 election. Whatever it may have been, the public dialogue today is often rude and vulgar to the point where I begin to think it’s shameful. It is true that we have been through ugly cycles before. But today I think that it is made much worse by the constant need for the drama of conflict that many broadcasters seem to demand. Our national conversation is very often a shouting match – and too much of it is infected with venom.

“I am not naive and I do not imagine a world in which we all get along. And I do not think we need to single out the right or the left, the talk radio ranters or the angry columnists. To some extent we are all culpable – including the staid center,
which if only by its silence is not without responsibility… Our modern communications system and other technologies have increased the volume of public argument to an unholy racket. Our national conversation sometimes feels
impoverished as a result… Civility doesn’t just promote decency; it also leads
to a fairer exchange of ideas and a greater chance of finding workable solutions
to the kinds of problems we face.”

While it would be strange to think that the words from one of the most revered journalists of all time would apply to the sports arena, they struck a chord in relation to the national and local conversations that take place daily. After reading it over and over again, so many questions regarding the sports media industry came to mind. I wondered where the rage came from in sports media. I wondered when did someone’s performance on the field lead to diatribes about his personal life. I wondered when did reporting the goings-on with sports become an athletic-themed version of the Geraldo At Large or the Rush Limbaugh Show.

Much of the venom that Jennings described comes from economics. There is no doubt that the growing divide between multimillion dollar professional athletes and fans has played a significant role. The idea that someone can make more money in a day as an elite athlete than a teacher does in a year keeps the distance fairly lengthy. Yet, when the folks that travel the globe to cover what’s essentially someone’s typical day at work, something more is added to the fray.

Whether we care to admit it or not, most – if not, all – of us wanted to be athletes, playing at the highest level possible. We wanted the adulation, the last name and our favorite numbers on the back of some jersey and the contract offers to go along with the joys of winning and the pains of losing. Some of us may have played at some point, but we’re holding cameras and voice recorders to those who are playing now as a way of life. We learn about the lives of these players and some of us develop relationships with them based on personal interaction and an understood professional agreement between media and subject. As we learn about these players, we begin to find those quarks, those words, those looks that remind us that they are emotional beings as well as physical marvels. It disappoints many in the business, especially those of us who have never played beyond junior high school.

It disappoints because the men and women who look to be above the flaws of flesh and blood are still just flesh and blood. The disappointment turns into judgments on his or her character. The judgments can become a nasty discourse where Terrell Owens, despite his gross shortcomings, can be mocked for anything genuine that he does, such as his emotional postgame comments about Tony Romo. The judgments against the surly persona of Barry Bonds become a near-decade of vitriol coming from coast-to-coast. The judgments become manifestos of the usual “he’s not worth that much money” line of at least half of the players in the NBA.

The judgments make stars out of some columnists like Jason Whitlock, Skip Bayless and Mike Lupica.

Unlike many of the political jousts that Jennings and many past and present journalists have narrated, these subjects aren’t directly responsible for money towards stem-cell research or alleviating homelessness in America’s cities. As much as we love and consume sports, at times, we protest too much. Sure, the media is responsible for much of the tenor towards the players and the business of sport. Yet, it is also responsible for not doing enough to remind fans that there has to be a separation between the job and the person. For as much as athletes do contribute to society in terms of entertainment and community outreach, their job functions do not reflect the human condition as much as those you’ll see on the evening news.

Before playing Game 7 of the 2005 NBA Finals, Rasheed Wallace, the forward/center for the Detroit Pistons who is known for an irascible demeanor on the court, was asked about the pressure of this winner-take-all game against the San Antonio Spurs. Maybe the media at the stadium clamored for him to say something that would invite a fine from the league or bulletin board material for the Spurs. Yet, in the spirit of the day, he said;

“Pressure? This isn't pressure and this is not pain. Afghanistan, Iraq and that other place, Croatia and Bosnia - now, that is pressure. This ain't nothing but a little hoops.”

It was hard to debate the next day on the local sports shows.