An excellent column on sports and the individual athlete, Sree. But there's another issue I've very seldom seen anyone take note of, and it's an unspoken, but amplified concern in entertainment culture, which is the community and the individual athlete. And it's a weight the begins, naturally, with versions of what I'll call the Mother's House Syndrome. You know it. Elvis had it, too. It goes, "The first thing I did was buy my mother a house." Nothing wrong with that, yet, too commonly those with strong talent and some good luck, feel a whole family and community looking to the working- or middle-class person's success (and possibly later failure) to bolster the economic status -- and stability in their lives -- that governments never quite provide. Think of all the public school teachers who have to buy books and supplies for their kids because of chronic underfunding and so on.
Too often athletes and entertainment stars are asked to carry entire sections of their community on their shoulders. A few major stars, like Drew Breeze, earn so much that they set up a foundation, but too many follow the beaten path you outline ending in a short line in the sports stats. I'd love to see someone develop an investigative or in-depth analysis of what happens to the bright star from lower-income America around the fringes of this kind of spotlight. That's not at all to blame those friends or family member -- and certainly not their mothers -- but to shed light on the quest for pro fame (and now, potentially lucrative college stardom) ands the community live looking omn so hopefully in the shadows.
Many thanks for your thoughtful reply, Zach. Your point on personal taxes and, you might add, expenses of athletes provides an important economic frame to this discussion. What I believe is not being discussed enough -- and could be a powerful foundation for a book-length exploration of the aspirational elitism of American culture, something massively, if not grotesquely on display in Sunday's Super Bowl game, is the human impacts on a community. Then all of your financials fall into place, that is, to strengthen, and not supersede in dollar-sign minutia, the emotional and ethical effects of what passes for sports culture. I'm thinking of how every time a young star seems to suddenly rise with success, media will go to the standouts home town or neighborhood for spot interviews with the high school or college coach, friends, neighbors -- you know the drill. But I'd love to see someone really dig into the actually personalities and social-economic structure of the place. What does the wide-eyed hopefulness around the young star expose about the lives of his or her community? Well, yes, I'm thinking of early Joan Didion piece for The New Yorker, and so on. But just for your work, have you spent time in a community like that to talk to people about what their new beacon's success means to them and the place where they live?
Great column, and you make an excellent point: Football players work really hard.
A comment on the lighter side: My 5 and 8-year-old grandsons are fixated on football right now and dream of being football players. No other sport really interests them either to play or watch. (The 5-year-old did say this weekend that he wants to be a football "commenmentor" more than a player.) When the 8-year-old talks about all the money football players make, the adults around him tell him he'd make more money as a baseball pro, so maybe he should consider doing little league instead of another session of football.
An observation that's not funny at all: Pro football players choose to do this. They go into this knowing they're likely to get hit and that every game can be punishing. The best get tremendous rewards for doing something totally brutal. The crowd loves all the hits and the drama of injury. Maybe there is something wrong with us that we shell out money and that networks shell out money so that people can watch grown men beat each other up. I feel the same way about boxing, btw.
Also about minor league baseball players: They are such heroes. I have never seen so much devotion to playing a sport as I see when I attend minor league games (which is pretty often). Up close . . . well, sometimes the players make, from a viewer's vantage point, pretty dumb plays. But then all you have to do is take a breath and it comes to you that these guys are amazing athletes, so much better than 99.9999999999999999% of us could ever be.
One more thing: Didn't the basketball leagues have a tournament early on this season, and the reason the tournament meant so much to the highest-paid pros was that everyone on the teams, the bench warmers, etc., made something like 800K? And doesn't this happen in pro soccer also?
BTW, there was an essay in the Little, Brown Handbook Grammar in the 1970s that was about how pro athletes worked for their money. I'll scan it and send it to you.
An excellent column on sports and the individual athlete, Sree. But there's another issue I've very seldom seen anyone take note of, and it's an unspoken, but amplified concern in entertainment culture, which is the community and the individual athlete. And it's a weight the begins, naturally, with versions of what I'll call the Mother's House Syndrome. You know it. Elvis had it, too. It goes, "The first thing I did was buy my mother a house." Nothing wrong with that, yet, too commonly those with strong talent and some good luck, feel a whole family and community looking to the working- or middle-class person's success (and possibly later failure) to bolster the economic status -- and stability in their lives -- that governments never quite provide. Think of all the public school teachers who have to buy books and supplies for their kids because of chronic underfunding and so on.
Too often athletes and entertainment stars are asked to carry entire sections of their community on their shoulders. A few major stars, like Drew Breeze, earn so much that they set up a foundation, but too many follow the beaten path you outline ending in a short line in the sports stats. I'd love to see someone develop an investigative or in-depth analysis of what happens to the bright star from lower-income America around the fringes of this kind of spotlight. That's not at all to blame those friends or family member -- and certainly not their mothers -- but to shed light on the quest for pro fame (and now, potentially lucrative college stardom) ands the community live looking omn so hopefully in the shadows.
Many thanks for your thoughtful reply, Zach. Your point on personal taxes and, you might add, expenses of athletes provides an important economic frame to this discussion. What I believe is not being discussed enough -- and could be a powerful foundation for a book-length exploration of the aspirational elitism of American culture, something massively, if not grotesquely on display in Sunday's Super Bowl game, is the human impacts on a community. Then all of your financials fall into place, that is, to strengthen, and not supersede in dollar-sign minutia, the emotional and ethical effects of what passes for sports culture. I'm thinking of how every time a young star seems to suddenly rise with success, media will go to the standouts home town or neighborhood for spot interviews with the high school or college coach, friends, neighbors -- you know the drill. But I'd love to see someone really dig into the actually personalities and social-economic structure of the place. What does the wide-eyed hopefulness around the young star expose about the lives of his or her community? Well, yes, I'm thinking of early Joan Didion piece for The New Yorker, and so on. But just for your work, have you spent time in a community like that to talk to people about what their new beacon's success means to them and the place where they live?
Great column, and you make an excellent point: Football players work really hard.
A comment on the lighter side: My 5 and 8-year-old grandsons are fixated on football right now and dream of being football players. No other sport really interests them either to play or watch. (The 5-year-old did say this weekend that he wants to be a football "commenmentor" more than a player.) When the 8-year-old talks about all the money football players make, the adults around him tell him he'd make more money as a baseball pro, so maybe he should consider doing little league instead of another session of football.
An observation that's not funny at all: Pro football players choose to do this. They go into this knowing they're likely to get hit and that every game can be punishing. The best get tremendous rewards for doing something totally brutal. The crowd loves all the hits and the drama of injury. Maybe there is something wrong with us that we shell out money and that networks shell out money so that people can watch grown men beat each other up. I feel the same way about boxing, btw.
Also about minor league baseball players: They are such heroes. I have never seen so much devotion to playing a sport as I see when I attend minor league games (which is pretty often). Up close . . . well, sometimes the players make, from a viewer's vantage point, pretty dumb plays. But then all you have to do is take a breath and it comes to you that these guys are amazing athletes, so much better than 99.9999999999999999% of us could ever be.
One more thing: Didn't the basketball leagues have a tournament early on this season, and the reason the tournament meant so much to the highest-paid pros was that everyone on the teams, the bench warmers, etc., made something like 800K? And doesn't this happen in pro soccer also?
BTW, there was an essay in the Little, Brown Handbook Grammar in the 1970s that was about how pro athletes worked for their money. I'll scan it and send it to you.