Urban Thought Collective

My parents never told me not to worship and idolize professional athletes. My parents were educators and taught me the value of a good education and hard work and probably decided that I’d figure things out on my own with respect to athletes and athletics before too long, and I did. It may come as some surprise that this happened by about the age of 12 though.

Since that time, I have never uttered aloud any desire to be a professional athlete, at least not in an end of the world, if-I-don’t-make-it-I-should-just-jump-off-the bridge sort of way. Soon thereafter, I also realized that they put their pants on one leg at a time just like me. I stopped trying to get autographs when at age 14, I realized that I was looking eye-to-eye with my heroes and sometimes being mistaken for them by smaller autograph seekers. My parents never acknowledged my realization, but it probably made them feel pretty good, the way that smiling and not saying “I told you so” does when you are right about something. It probably also reinforced for them that their philosophy on parenting was a good one. I chose to warn my kids explicitly. It’s not that I don’t trust my parenting skills like my parents did theirs, but I think times have changed and it needed to be said.

The world in which I was a kid was markedly different than the one that my kids exist in now. There was no 24-hour total sports network. Shoot, there was no 24-hour NEWS network for that matter. Any news, good and bad, you got on a day-to-day basis came in print in your morning paper or from Dan Rather’s voice on the evening news. We were all content with being updated once or twice a day on the world’s happenings, good and bad. In our warped kid world of the ’70s and ’80s, Dr. J and Joe of Montana were held in almost equally high esteem as Jesus of Nazareth. We wanted to be them and would be rendered absolutely speechless if we ever got to meet any of them. Joe and Julius that is. When Michael Jordan came on the scene, some of us weren’t so sure that Nazareth wasn’t a city in North Carolina. His Air-ness was amazing and he could do no wrong.

As time goes by, it appears that his infallibility was only truly in effect while he adorned that coat of many colors, or red, white, and black anyway. Michael is on my mind today, just having watched him at the podium accepting his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Notice that I didn’t use the noun “speech” or the adverb “graciously” in the previous sentence as neither occurred. There was not so much a speech as a public display of one man’s bitterness and dare I say even some insecurity. There was little grace and even far less humility as he felt the need to remind all of us that he was and is still the greatest ball player ever to have laced up some sneakers. He almost had us fooled as he tearfully made his way to the podium, seemingly overwhelmed by the moment, even adding that he had too many people to thank and that he was going to be unable to stick to his promise of walking to the podium, saying “thank you” and walking back to his seat. He commented that he was made to feel uneasy by being termed the greatest basketball player ever, having never competed against Wilt or Jerry West or Bill Russell. That was the end of any attempt at humility though.

Where John Stockton, David Robinson, Vivian Stringer, and Jerry Sloan had complimentary things to say about mentors and coaches that helped them along the way, Michael made it a point to almost chastise the high school coach that decided to cut him from the varsity team as a sophomore saying, “I wanted to make sure you understood. You made a mistake dude.” Stockton had wonderful things to say about his wife and kids, highlighting traits that he admires about each of them individually, all Michael could muster to his own children was, “I wouldn’t want to be you guys.” I wasn’t expecting Michael to make like Barack at the 2004 Democratic convention and be the brilliant orator. I’m a huge fan. I’ve probably seen every televised speaking opportunity or interview he has ever done. If anything, I thought he’d show up with a prepared speech and just read it. When he chose to go off the cuff and speak from the heart, I figured he would give the customary thank yous and be done with it. Unfortunately, Michael took it as a time to make good on some old debt. If you listened to the speech, you probably agree that the payback was quite petty and only stood to make him look bad in his moment.

He spent far too much time recounting stories about run-ins with Jeff Van Gundy, Pat Riley, and Bryon Russell. In addition to his high school coach, he took shots at Bulls GM Jerry Krause who he famously despised publicly on several occasions. He complained about all of the $1000 tickets he had to buy in order to get all of his guests into the ceremony. He even chose to make his high school friend, the Leroy Smith that was kept on the team when he was cut, look bad by comments that basically said that Leroy wasn’t much of a player. Who does that? We all know you’re the greatest, Michael. We know you’re better than Leroy Smith. He needed to hear you belittle him about as much as the rest of us did, especially after you flew him to the ceremony.

Why am I speaking with such incredulity on this matter though? I started out this piece by saying that I stopped idolizing pro athletes long ago and that I had already urged my young kids to do the same. I should’ve seen the signs. This is the same guy that chose not to speak on behalf of a black democratic senatorial candidate in his native North Carolina running against the often racist Jesse Helms, quipping “Republicans buy sneakers too.” On the issue of Nike using sweatshops in Vietnam to make his Air Jordan sneakers, he pleaded ignorance and didn’t seem overly concerned with using his extraordinary fame and influence to do anything about it, saying, “I don’t know the complete situation. Why Should I? I’m trying to do my job. Hopefully, Nike will do the right thing, whatever that might be.”

I guess I was just like that 10 year old kid again, watching him as a freshman at North Carolina, trailing Georgetown in the final minute of the NCAA championship game, hopeful, believing that he would do something special at the end to emerge victorious. I was thinking that although he never did it as a player, he would get the courage to take a stand like the Tommy Smith’s, Bill Russell’s, Dick Allen’s and Jim Brown’s of yesteryear, when athletes saw themselves as part of the cause and not above it. The truth is, Michael, I gave up that dream and stopped worrying about you when I stopped buying anything with your winged logo on it 10 years ago. Oh sure, you’ll always be the measuring stick of greatness on the court, but I’m not naive enough to expect anything further off it. Maybe it would’ve been better just to give us the ‘Thank you’ and walk off like you promised.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.