There are many, many reasons why sports are great. One of the reasons right at the top of the list, is that unlike many parts of our world, sports gives us a definitive outcome.
Compare to something like politics, in which there is rarely a right or wrong, a winner or loser. Even if some legislation was passed, how do we know who the winner was? What if that legislation was so watered-down as to make it completely ineffective? What if that was passed in lieu of more important legislation that couldn’t be passed? There are no winners in politics.
Yet, strangely we are all losers.
Sports on the other hand are much clearer cut. Each game ends with a winner and a loser. Each season crowns a champion that can unequivocally say they are the best at their sport. Well, except the BCS of course.
This black/white view of sports tends to bleed into other aspects of the game as well. I love my team and hate my rival team. When we play, only one of us can be a winner, therefore there is no collective-everyone wins kind of sentiment. For me to win, he must lose. If he wins, I lose. I don’t like to lose, so anyone that causes me to lose, I don’t like. Therefore I love the players on my team and hate the players on the other team. We love and cheer on players or loathe and boo players because of some perceived kinship. I may have much more in common with a player on the Florida Gators than I do with a player on my beloved Seminoles, yet because that player is wearing the nausea-inducing blue and orange, I hate him. To the core.
But beyond the (completely justified) hatred of players on rival teams, why do we hate certain other players?
If you ask me (and probably a large percentage of other football fans) to name the one player in each of college football and the NFL that I hate the most, I would immediately reply Tim Tebow in college and Brett Favre in the pros. But why?
While the Tim Tebow–UF connection is an obvious factor in my dislike of Tim, that can’t be the entire reason. There have been other Gators that have been successful: Danny Wuerffel, Chris Leak, Erin Andrews. I wouldn’t say I liked them but don’t feel an all-consuming disdain for them like I do for Timmy. Ok, I do like Erin Andrews. Not enough to spy on her, for the record, but I do like her.
Favre on the other hand, I had no feelings toward at all for the vast majority of his career. I actually liked the young gunslinger thing back in the 90’s – mostly because he seemed to be an underdog taking on the Cowboy juggernaut. In fact, I cheered him on as recently as two years ago.
Looking at Brett and Tim there is only one thing that explains my current loathing of them both: the media.
One of the longest-running jokes around here is the overwhelmingly, worshipful coverage of Tebow by the media. After last year’s BCS title game the following phrases were plugged into search engines to find this site: ‘why do announcers love tebow’; ‘fox’s fawning over tebow’; ‘announcer crush tim tebow’; ‘tim tebow lovefest on fox’; ‘riley cooper tim tebow lovers’. Ok, the last one doesn’t have anything to do with my argument but it sure makes me giggle.
Announcers of UF games tend to sound more like a follower describing Charlie Manson than analysts announcing football games. The compliments can’t come fast enough. Everything done by his team is a reflection on his greatness.
If announcers were able to actually have some distance and announce with some level of objectivity, would I feel as strongly about Tim as I do? Probably not. I would recognize him as a great player and hate it when he dominates my Noles, but would I find myself unable to watch any of his games, actively cheering for turnovers and possibly injuries or trying to decipher the masturbatory habits of Gary Danielson? I sure hope not.
Favre on the other hand, is the victim of his own narcissism with a significant assist from his willing accomplices in the media. In his repeated efforts to maintain the limelight, he has found partners in the media who use his annual indecision to discuss America’s most popular sport in the quiet spring and summer. Unfortunately, this off-season infatuation for a story turns into a regular season obsession with a player that 99% of the time should not be a big story, yet seems to lead NFL Countdown every Sunday morning. Despite what the members of the media seem to think, the vast, vast majority of football fans do not need to hear about him constantly or think Brett Favre is the most important person to ever play the game (that would of course be John Elway).
This pathetic worshipping at the denim knee of Favre reached a sad new low on Sunday. In the midst of the Vikings return to Green Bay, Fox announced that they had a ‘Favre Cam’, a camera trained on Favre for every moment of the game and streamed online. Why did this seem like a good idea? How pathetic does Fox think the sport following public really is?
Remember how Natalie Maines said about George W. Bush “He makes me ashamed to be from Texas”? In somewhat the same way Fox’s Favre Cam makes me ashamed to be a football fan.
So, who do I really hate? These accomplished players who just happened to enjoy the attention and are (or were once) good at their chosen fields? Or do I hate a media that in a never-ending lust for ratings and ‘the story’ will endlessly hype a player as being more important than the game itself?
Oh, but the Yankees, Cowboys, Notre Dame and UF? I would hate them even if they don’t appear on SportsCenter for the next two years.
