Appeared in the September 18, 2009 edition of The Cabinet
Unless you’ve been sipping your morning coffee in a cave somewhere for the past couple of years, you’re probably more than familiar with world-class swimmer Michael Phelps. Honestly, even that might not be secluded enough to escape the hubbub and prestige surrounding his eight gold medal winning campaign at the 2008 summer Olympic Games.
Phelps’ heroic efforts captivated and enraptured the world and kept us seemingly on the edge of our seats as we waited in eager anticipation, waiting to see if Phelps could pull out the next race.
But hold up just a second. How much doubt was there in your mind that he was going to pull it off? Phelps had been building up his resume as a world class swimmer leading up to the Olympics by obliterating world records. By the time the Olympics actually rolled around, Phelps ranked somewhere between Hercules and Achilles in terms of hero factor. He was fully dubbed swimming god five or six gold medals into his quest, and when Phelps had his now-famous miraculous pass of Milorad Cavic in the final inches of the 100M butterfly, no one, at least in the U.S., had any doubt that Phelps had prevailed because, well, he was Michael Phelps.
Our minds knit together the ideas of winning with Michael Phelps so closely that to try to separate the two ideas would put our minds into neurogenic shock. This phenomenon of elevating our culture (and especially sports) heroes to the level of gods is not something that Phelps alone has contributed to.
Before Phelps, Americans fell in love with another athlete who was raised to this premier status not only because he manhandled his world-class opponents in his sport for years but especially because he did it after manhandling death. There is little more All-American than the story of Lance Armstrong defying the odds to beat cancer and then going on to terrorize the Tour de France for seven straight years. And yet somehow during that amazing stretch, we as Americans developed a mindset that expected, or even demanded that Lance bring home the title.
Don’t get me wrong, I love sport culture in the U.S. and the way that athletes inspire us and give us hope. Sport allows our best athletes to represent what we stand for and give us a voice on an international level. I also love how Phelps, Lance, USA Basketball, the Williams sisters, and the USA Track and Field 4x400 meter relay teams, among others, have historically kicked tail in their respective fields.
My qualm is with an over-demanding culture whose appetite for success is rarely balanced with appreciation for the athletes’ work ethic, class, and character. There is a fine line between demanding an athlete’s best and unrealistically demanding that they always be better than everybody else. Chalk “the American sport legacy” up on the list in Proverbs 30:16 of things that are never satisfied.
Michael Phelps lost his first major individual final for the first time in four years at the World Swimming Championships this past summer in Rome. Lance Armstrong failed to win the Tour de France this year for the first time in his last eight attempts. While we hate seeing our heroes lose, it is often losing that helps define them as athletes… and as humans. Watching them lose reminds us that even sports gods are human, the famous fail, and the mighty are mortal.
This is not a call to abandon our cultural sports heroes. By all means, have sports heroes, heaven knows that right now our country needs people to look up to and hope in. But please, admire them not for their world records and gold medals, but for the beauty, love, discipline, and passion that they embody in what they do. They should inspire us not to covet their achievements, but to use their successes as encouragement in our day-to-day struggle with life.
The famous runner Steve Prefontaine once likened each of his races to a piece of art. This, in conclusion, begs the question: Are you painting a masterpiece, or something that not even your mom would hang on the refrigerator? Just as we look up to the titans of our day, the next generation of American heroes just may be looking up to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment