Despite the rather recent need for a number of athletes to attract and keep the spotlight shining only on themselves, sports and competition retains the power to teach even the most self-indulged competitors a healthy dose of humility.
In recent times, it appears too many athletes use their moment of notoriety as a stage to promote themselves. Whether it’s posing after a slam dunk, a dance following a touchdown run or dramatic flip of the bat after a big home run, quite a few athletes today are taking advantage of their achievement to up the ante on the attention bestowed on themselves. Certainly at the professional level, we have come to expect these moments as part of the game. But it was not always that way.
If you watch replays of professional sports from the past, it is remarkable the restraint shown by athletes following big plays. In the 1967 NFL championship game between Green Bay and Dallas, Bart Starr, the Packer quarterback, won the game with a touchdown when he plunged into the end zone with just 16 seconds left in the game. It is one of the most famous plays in NFL history. Following the game winning score, the Packers celebrate with handshakes and trot off the field. I know sub-zero weather was a factor in the game, but it does illustrate the moderation displayed by athletes in that generation.
Homer Jones, a receiver for the New York Giants, is given credit for the first touchdown celebration when he spiked the football into the ground following a touchdown in a 1965 game. It was the beginning of performance art in the end zone and has evolved into complicated routines that require the NFL to write legislation to define its limits.
Perhaps individualism in athletes at the professional level peaked when Dennis Rodman walked out of a basketball locker room with orange and purple hair and enough metal skin piercings to start a scrap iron business. At any rate, it’s part of the game now, and I don’t think we are going back to the future any time soon.
I am not really opposed to most of the celebrations, but I do have a problem with athletes who draw attention away from teammates who were a part of the effort but don’t get the credit they deserve because all eyes are focused on the hero’s “moment of Zen.”
My favorite is the running back who scores a touchdown and then struggles to free himself from his teammates, who are trying to share his joy, because he needs space to perform his “look at me” moment. In most cases, the teammates were the very ones who opened a hole in the defense wide enough to drive a truck through in the first place.
I could add the recent display by a Bengal linebacker following what should have been a playoff game winning interception. He strutted with the ball down the opponent’s sideline on his way to an early, abbreviated trip to the locker-room. He should have stayed in there.
The same can be said for the basketball player who prances down the floor following a slam dunk when the harder part of the play was the pinpoint pass from the point guard that led to the crowd-pleasing event.
Governing bodies in college and high school athletics have worked hard to limit exaggerated self-expression in competition, but almost everything that happens in professional athletics has a trickle-down effect.
The good news is that even if humility is not part of an athlete’s repertoire, you can bet it’s waiting for him right around the corner. This is true for anyone who has competed in sports because eventually everyone gets knocked off a lofty perch and sometimes quickly. Dealing with that setback is one of the great gifts athletics can offer to its participants, if they’re willing to learn from the experience. You get knocked down and you rise, humbled, and try again.
It sounds like a simple exercise, but way too many people struggle with the effort. Handling disappointment appears to have become a difficult task for a lot of young people in this new generation. For that reason, the art of resiliency and the blessings of humility may be the most enduring rewards an athlete gains from their competitive experience.
Not their moment in the spotlight.
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