SI

I just read an article in Sports Illustrated from last week (the one with Brady and Moss on the cover) Called “Worlds Collide” by Tim Layden , in which the abstract (I assume sports columns features have the same words that APA writing does) read like this “The NFL’s 2010 season will be a conflict between button-down traditionalism and media-amplified showmanship-a culture clash embodied in the opening week matchup between the staid (or maybe he meant stained) Patriots and the brash Bengals. Round 1 goes to the old guard. “


Layden talks mostly in the first few paragraphs about the world’s greatest and second most handsomest football player (Wes Welker) and his heroic Wolverine healing power-like come back from an ACL tear to play a full NFL game in only seven month. In contrast it took the pedestrian looking Bengals QB Carson Palmer almost two years to fully recover from the ACL tear he suffered in 2006 at the hands of the unapathetic Steelers, who that season would go on to literally steal the Superbowl champions (with help from the Refs) from the Seattle Seahawks. I know what you’re think right now, “Quinn, Carson Palmer is a nobody…you should be embarrassed to have used his recovery from a torn ACL as an example of how Wes Welker’s recovery was so quick and so great.” And to that I say you’re right. So how about if I use the NFL’s most handsome man’s recovery time from an ACL, MCL, PCL, DCL, FCL and the dreaded GCL tear as a better example. In 2008 Tom Brady tore all those and more when he was cheaply hit by Bernard Polland of the Kansas City Cheats…I mean Chiefs. Anyway, it took Tom Brady a full year to recover from all those injuries and he doesn’t even have to run all around the field like Wes Welker does. But all this gushing is getting away from why I am writing a blog about this article.

After Welker’s amazing game, he went to the interview podium (after Randy Moss’s 15 minute-scary as hell to all Pats fans diatribe about how is unhappy with his lack of a new contract.) Welker took the stage and answered question about how it was to play again after coming back from such a gruesome injury Welker called it “a cool thing.” And then quickly resented that and called it “just another game.” Layden then compared Welker and all his humility in his awe-inspiring comeback to that of the other locker room, where the Bengals receivers (Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens) would soon be tweeting to their fans about their loss.

What got me about this article is when Layden used the good vs. evil metaphor comparing the two side, with the “let the work on the field do the talking” work of Welker being the good and the we are going to talk: before, during, and after the game of the Ocho and Owens being the bad, however I disagree with him, (although, I think this might be the first article I’ve read since 2004 that included good vs. evil as a metaphor and Bill Belichick, in which Belichick was on the side of good).

This might be an example of the different era’s me and the writer grew up in, but I enjoy that now, more than ever, athletes are able to talk to the media and interact with their fanbase.

When I was a kid, wearing an Oakland A’s hat in the yard and pretending to be a World Series hero, more than 25 percent of my imagination went into my interviews and my abilities to connect with the fans not just through my World Series winning RBI single (I wasn’t so brash as to believe I would hit the world series home run…which at that point had only been done twice). But by talking about myself, my life growing up with depression, my self-effacing sense of humor, and I always imagined I would make as many if not more fans doing that than I would with my ten gold gloves at second base and 8 silver sluggers (damn that Carlos Baega for beating me out in 2007 by .003, in the last season in his hall of fame career). My point is this, I wanted to talk, I had a story and people were gonna listen to me until no one was around to hear me talk. I wasn’t going to be mean, I was gonna be funny like an actor talking to Conan O’Brien on late night TV, which would be one of my venues to do it.

I think in an era in which blogging (hello reader),talk radio, tweeting and youtube are such easy vehicles to get in touch with fans, that its more self-fish not to use these venues, people don’t just care about what people do on the field, it’s how they handle themselves off the field that matters, and some people approach this with a less is more attitude, I tend to believe that more is more…talking to fans and using media does not make you a bad person. Constantly throwing your quarterback under the bus, makes you a bad teammate, and while there is no doubt that TO would be much more admired for his on the field actions if he had played in the 80’s when the NFL stars did cocaine with such a reckless abandonment, that if a reporter was told about it, he would just shrug it off because it was a nonstory. And weren’t interview too much unless they were a coach, quarterback, or larger than life persona.

There’s an old adage that I think I have seen attributed to Abe Lincoln “It’s better to be quiet and thought a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” And I think it is great these days the many athletes that for better or worse don’t buy into that. As a kid that grew up a Patriots fan, I can honestly say it annoys me to no end the lack of media time the Belichick and his team give us. I often think athletes forget that at the heart of it all are entertainers, and are getting paid as much to entertain people as they are for their ability to throw a ball around, They are playing the same game that 8 or 9 year old children do. I think because most of the people who play sports professionally grew up playing the sport and know no other way of life. They often feel like they are at a job just the same as someone who works at a desk from 9-5, they don’t know and don’t care how blessed they are. That 90 percent of the rest of the world would trade spots with them in a heartbeat. And because they think the only job they are being paid for is the work between the lines. That talking to the media without any extra money, is just like a guy who gets paid to work a 9-5 office job going to an apple orchad and picking apples without getting paid for it. And because of this way of thinking, they hate talking to the media.

To get back to the article though, later on, while trying to show that the new school athletes that talk all the time are somehow the bad guy. The writer writes about how the first time T.O. and Ochocinco’s names were announced as attended receivers, the New England crowd Booed loudly while other Bengals were just ignored. But the reality is that they were booed loudly because of their jersey more than anything, had one of them had a flying Elvis (the pats logo) on their helmet they would have been cheered the most loudly. I think the fans love these guys much more than they dislike them, (especially Ochocinco, who was never called a “clubhouse Cancer” like T.O. has been.) And I think fans appreciate players more that show real personality to their fans then they do players don’t show any personality or even worse have a “Kellen Winslow Jr.” like personality. One thing Charles Barkley proved is that if you are funny and have charm you can be beloved, I would say that Charles Barkley, a guy who once spat on a fan, is currently the second most beloved player of his generation, and that’s only because Michael Jordan is untouchably beloved. I am pretty sure people could find Nazi paraphernalia in his house, and more fans would believe it is not his or chose to look the other way then they would be to vilify him, he is just that much beloved.

Anyway, I am just gonna wrap this up and say that I am a much bigger fan of athletes that show personality and interact with the media and fans than the ones that don’t. and think that media interaction is the good of the two sides.