It surprises me that every time an athlete is caught with a
cigarette in his or her mouth, there is always a united public gasp of
disbelief or shock. It usually spurns repeated photo prints, angry and confused
calls on radio shows correlating perceived poor performance to his or her
nicotine habitat, and ultimately, editorials condemning these athletes for their
lack of righteous discipline and honorable behaviour. Even I find myself a
little surprised when I see a photo of a professional with a little cigarette
butt pursed in between their lips or fingers, but why? Why is it so surprising?
Why does it make us so angry?
It’s simple really. It surprises the world because athletes
are larger than life. They defy gravity and preconceived limitations of speed,
velocity, force, and most of the time, they do it with style and they do it
with finesse. Essentially, they make it look easy.
Yet in reality, they’re normal human beings, albeit with
amazing athletic ability, but normal human beings plagued by the same vices and
temptations as everyone else, even though, it should be noted that they enjoy much
more expensive vices and temptations.
The reason people become so angry and disenchanted at an
athlete smoking is because it is a reminder of dreams never lived, and the
evidence that their childhood desires were never realized not because of
supernatural devices, but because of a natural order of biological ability they
weren’t lucky enough to receive.
All professional athletes have worked incredibly hard at
honing their craft in order to ply their trade amongst the world’s best,
however, they were given natural biological abilities. I’m 5’7; 5’8 on a good
day, or 5’8 on a bad day when I’m wearing Timberland boots. I was never
destined have the size, weight, or general physical make-up of the average
professional athlete. I hoped that maybe I could balance that out with ambition
and drive, but I genuinely believe, no matter how hard I worked or tried, I
would never have been able to throw a ball as hard as Roger Clemens. Regardless
of how many hours I spent on the court, I could never play with the speed,
power, and precision of LeBron James. Professional athletes have spent
countless hours painting, but at birth, they were just given a much better
canvas than most of us.
When people see them smoking, it’s a reminder of
sought-after gifts they were never granted, and the lucky ones who were. They
get mad because professional athletes can do the things they dreamed of doing
but can’t. When they see them smoking, there is slight evidence that it may not
be due to a lack of effort, but instead, to a random draw of a genetic bet they
had no say in; a draw that separated the athletic elite from those who toil
with dreams, only to end up in a Sunday beer league; and it makes them angry
and confused because for the millions who fantasize of professional sporting
glory, seeing an athlete who lives that dream smoking, is perceived as an
athlete who doesn’t appreciate what he or she has been given and what others
have not.
They are larger than life because we make them so. We adore
them; we envy them; we wish we were them. We pile responsibility on their
shoulders because we decree that with their talent and ability to inspire and
command admiration, they should use their powers of influence for good, as if we
were Uncle Ben talking to his nephew Peter Parker. They never asked to be the
moral officers of our society and I’m pretty sure the majority of them are very
unfit to be any type of officer, moral or otherwise.
They’re regular human beings who were blessed biologically
and worked incredibly hard at their respective sport. They do unbelievable
things that the majority of us could only dream of doing, but they also fart,
swear, go to the toilet, and sometimes a few of them even smoke. Seeing a photo
of them smoking stinks because it’s a reminder of desires never attained, and
the reality that athletes are not superhuman. We give them that status to make
ourselves feel better about our perceived failures, and when we see them
sucking back a Marlboro, it hurts because it proves that they’re not super beings;
they’re just biologically, physically, and athletically superior to me and you.
The president even smokes but I have never seen anyone get angry
about that. It’s probably because today, few people dream of running the free
world. People don’t want to be like Obama. People want to be like Mike.
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