joanna bujes wrote:
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> I never think of spectator sports as sports; I think of sports as something you do because you enjoy it. On the other hand, I can think of lots of perfectly good reasons why someone would want to go watch a baseball game. IT's relaxing, it's social, it's a little soap opera all by itself.
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> I think Chomsky and other leftists have a good point about how sports are used to hypnotize the masses; but there's a good deal more to sports than that, and it's silly not to recognize it.
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Actually, Chomsky is less hard on (organized) sports than the chief sportswriter for the Chicago Tribune. :-)
Stagnant league leaning too hard on teen savior Rick Morrissey
October 24, 2003
As much as it's possible to feel sorry for a millionaire not old enough to order a snifter of cognac legally, I feel sorry for LeBron James.
Before he ever has played in a real NBA game, James has the entire league resting on his shoulders. But if you think about that, if you think about a child leading a group of men, it actually makes perfect sense. James is the inevitable result of a trend that started at least 20 years ago.
Let's take a walk through the muck of big-time basketball, and you might want to consider wearing boots. Over here we have street agents befriending 6th-graders in the hopes of future financial reward. We have high school coaches fawning over 7th-graders. We have college coaches fawning over 8th-graders.
On your right, we have high school players transferring from school to school looking for the best place to showcase their "skills." We have high school games that have no meaning for a star player outside of being the vehicle to get him to bigger things. We have a lot of very bored high school sophomores wondering when the AAU season begins.
On your left, we have some newspapers covering the college recruiting process with more thoroughness than they cover high school games. We have newspapers looking at college players only in terms of how they'll fare at the next level. High school doesn't matter. Neither does college. The pros matter, and only then in terms of playing time, contracts and endorsements.
So here comes LeBron, no last name necessary. Magic, Michael, LeBron. Here comes the future, even if he hardly has been around long enough to have a past.
That a kid has to do all the heavy lifting is an indictment of a stagnant league. And speaking of indictments, it doesn't say much for the NBA that half the buzz of the season is centered on Kobe Bryant's upcoming trial on sexual-assault charges. The rest of the buzz is centered on James. Why? Because the league is about as much fun as non-elective surgery.
It needs new life, but who knew the NBA was going to take the concept so literally? It can't be long before a baby announces: "I'm entering the NBA draft because I have to take care of my family. Now where's my blankie?"
To see James once again gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated is to realize what a strange world we inhabit. That's not to say James isn't a wonderful player or that he won't become the next Michael Jordan. It's to say that it sure would have been nice if the kid had more minutes than Dalibor Bagaric before we coronated him.
But too many people have investments in James, too much of a stake sunk into him. It's pretty simple: If he doesn't live up to the hype, the NBA sinks a little deeper into irrelevance. No pressure, kid, but how about 25 points a game and a few no-look passes?
You wonder if there's any uncomfortableness among league officials, not just in terms of the huge amounts of money tied to James, but in terms of being aiders and abettors in the fast break to turn an 18-year-old into instant Magic.
There is the usual refrain from the powers that be: "If anyone can do it, it's this kid." In other words, if this doesn't work out, it wasn't our fault.
In a way, they're right. We're all to blame for this. We're to blame for allowing everything in life to be speeded up. By the way, it was Sports Illustrated that recently bemoaned that pushy parents are burning out their 10-year-old athletes. Too many of them picture their kids' faces on the cover of SI some day.
I don't worry about James as much as I worry about all the less-talented kids who believe they're the next LeBron. And I worry that all that delusion will blind them to the opportunities life offers outside of basketball.
Several years ago, a promising high school player had a news conference at the Chicago grammar school he had attended. The occasion was the player's college announcement. Children from the grade school sat in the gym and listened to the player talk with reporters about the basketball program he had chosen.
This was a local kid made good, sure, but what did it teach the kids? That if you're blessed with height, skills and doggedness, you, too, can earn a scholarship to college?
Maybe, but more likely it was this: Basketball matters. A lot. Now start practicing.
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