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11-19-2006 Like most red-blooded American males, I am surrounded by sports. SportsCenter, fantasy sports, sports video games - whatever. You name it - I'm down. I'm also lucky enough to be part of the sportscard industry to boot. My office has boxes, cards, and plastic holders piled high all around me, teetering dangerously like Tara Reid after a night out. It's been like this ever since I was a kid. I still had the cards and the video games, but there was less of me watching highlights and more of me actually outside playing sports. Back then, I wanted to grow up and "Be like Mike." Or Barry Sanders, or the Cubs opening day pitcher. But not anymore. The media grants us more and more insight into the lives of athletes all the time, and in doing so, have made those lives a little less glamorous than I used to imagine they were. If you have a "normal" job like I do, I think you'll see that it isn't so bad compared to being a pro athlete. First of all, I don't have to stay in shape to do my job. I do stay in shape (for all you ladies out there *wink*), but it will never be required of me. Unless I put on a couple hundred pounds, I doubt it will affect my job performance or opportunities. But since I do work out a little and eat right, do you know what I learned? I learned that it sucks. Stretching, running, and lifting weights all take time and effort. Not eating what I want takes willpower. And my efforts still aren't enough to have abs like T.O. or guns like Karl Malone. I know, there are offensive and defensive linemen who weigh 350 and tear apart buffets with the ferocity of lions in the wild, but their salaries aren't the ones that get the headlines. The owner of whatever business you're working at right now probably earns an amount comparable to the average lineman or bench jockey on a baseball or basketball team. And there are the Shaqs of the world who start the season out of shape. I'll give you that. But Shaq has made it to that CEO level. He can come in a 10, leave at 2, and smoke a fat cigar with his feet up on his desk at this point. He's put in his time, just like people in the corporate world. Even young ballers like LeBron aren't mailing it in like that yet. He still has something to prove, just like countless young guns in the business world. That's another thing. Not until you rise to the ranks of VP or higher in the corporate world is your salary public knowledge (and only if you're at a publicly traded company). Not everyone in the world needs to be a couple clicks away from finding out what I make. Think of all the ribbing or dirty looks you would get from your co-workers. Now think about millions of people watching you do your job and thinking about what you make. It's not like you're focused on your salary all day; you're just focused on doing your work. But when Randy Moss can't get his hands on a pass, someone is bound to spout, "He's making almost $8 million and he can't catch a ball!" That's the equivalent of being at the office and saying "$60,000 a year and he can't use spell check on his memo!" Who needs that kind of pressure? We also tend to make judgments about athletes' personal lives by the way they act on the field, or court, or what have you. In the corporate world, sometimes people complain about lack of individuality; they feel like a number. In sports, you literally wear that number on your back. Unless Chad Johnson works his way into every United Way commercial, people are gonna think he's arrogant jerk off the field too. Or a guy like Danny Ainge. I'm not sure I could walk by him without feeling like he was going to trip me or take my wallet, but maybe those dirty antics of his were only for the court. These on-field characteristics could be a ploy for Ocho-Cinco to generate media time, buzz, and future dollars, or just competitiveness on the part of Ainge. I'd consider myself a fairly nice person in everyday life, but get me on the basketball court and I'm Russell Crowe fighting around the world. When the steroids issue emerged, another thing we learned was how much fine-tuning goes into the body of an athlete. These guys are constantly taking mega-supplements to bulk up or to recover quicker. I'm not buying into this as a defense against steroids, but I have to believe that many athletes don't know what's going into their bodies, that at some point they have to turn over control of their bodies to doctors and trainers. It's almost as if our favorite sports stars are transformed into pieces of high-performance machinery. And when the machinery breaks down, you just fix it or replace it. How many surgeries have you had? I've had one, and only if you count getting my wisdom teeth pulled. How many have Yao, or Shaq, or Mike Ditka had? I've met Mike Ditka and I've seen him walk across a room. It's painful to watch. You may have seen footage of Jerome Bettis before Super Bowl XL, of how he could barely walk down stairs the day after a game. The Bus was 33 years old when that footage was taken. 33 years old is not so distant into the future for me and I can't imagine feeling like that. One of the things Sandy Koufax said at his retirement press conference was, "I want to retire while I can still comb my hair." That wasn't a figure of speech or euphemism; it was a statement to be taken literally. Now Tiki Barber wants out while he can still walk. I don't blame him a bit. Really, when is the last time you ran anywhere at full speed? In pro sports, you're sprinting all the time: to first base, on a fast break, running a pass route. You're also falling down or getting knocked over constantly. When you see someone fall in real life, it's a little bit scary and it definitely grabs your attention. Or running. You rarely see people run, so when you do, you almost have to watch. You're not only fixated on them, but you're also looking around trying to figure out why they're running. Whether they are trying to catch the bus or a plane or because the cops are after them - there's always a good reason. Now how about if you ran and dove like a center fielder, fell and had a 300-pound lineman (who probably doesn't smell very good either) land on you like a running back, or ran and jumped/fell over five people like a basketball player attempting to block a shot? You'd probably rupture your spleen or break a wrist. But athletes do those thing all the time for half the year. Sure, athletes make the big bucks. But guess what - so do CEOs. And a CEO isn't going to risk blowing out his/her ACL during the course of a normal day at the office. They don't have to be able to study their opposition and be able to bench 500 pounds to beat the competition, probably just the former. It's true that sports HOFers are discussed around water coolers and good CEOs are lucky to get a mention in a Business Management text, but you can stay on top longer in the business world than you can in pro sports, and you don't have to worry about being able to walk when you retire. Besides, do you really think Bill Gates could knock down a 3-pointer? Food for thought. Have fun! -T |
Inside My Brain