The Big Show
Americans have, since the beginning of our ability to televise sports contests, been fascinated by athletes, particularly those that have excelled beyond the rest of our mortal imaginations. They do things with balls and sticks and, most importantly, their bodies that a great majority of us only dream of. They are so good at what they do that it inspires a sort of reverence that borders on worship. Those who have inspired us since childhood with their athletic feats are held onto and revered with a fervency that in ancient times was reserved for perhaps mythical or religious figures. The desire to excel seems to exist in the hearts of all of us and once we have bumped into our own limits we are buoyed and inspired by watching those whose abilities so far surpass the normal that they are paid to do what we wish we could do.
Some of these barely-mortals are elevated above the rest of their professional opponents and teammates. Our inherent inability to relate to their abilities leads us to use a system of classification based on previous athletes and their successes and failures. We use words like the “prototype middle-linebacker,” based on an amalgamation of the great players abilities at that position and what we would expect of others who would play in that spot. Terms like “throw-back” and “old-school” have helped link the present crop of super-athletes to those that we respected in our youth, a link to the innocent hero worship that filled us with such awe and also such indescribable joy when we watched “our” players succeed with such effortlessness, or sometimes succeed through such obvious distress that linked them back to us and helped us think that even for them what they do is hard.
Athletes that have combined incredible athletic talent, competitive fire, and charisma occupy a special place in our hearts. Some have one of those attributes, the incredibly talented athletes that never quite win our hearts because they lack desire, they appear to succeed simply based on talent alone, they lack the hustle we require of our true heroes in order to at least have one of their talents relate to something we can all do. Sometimes they don’t react well to our desire to worship them and if they appear sullen or surly it is difficult for us to forgive them. They have such gifts that all of us desire so intensely, if they are not grateful and accepting of our fawning, it is easy to hate them. How dare they? We want them to accept our adulation and show some appreciation for the attention we so lavishly provide them with. It is the combination of all these things that we desire most intensely.
One athlete above almost any other has fulfilled these expectations and gratified us to an extent that few if any have ever matched. A creation of the mid 1980’s and a fixation in our eyes until the mid to late 1990’s, one particular athlete shown with such gleaming intensity that everything surrounding him turned to legend. We fawned over him and reveled in his unspeakable grace, his hustle, his incredible talent, and the way he smiled back at us and accepted our worship and even thanked us for it.
The phrase “be like Mike” has become such an ingrained part of American culture that it is hard to imagine someone who would not recognize its inception and the particular athlete that spawned it. Michael Jordan was a revelation, first to the high school coach that originally cut him from the squad when he lacked the necessary skills as a young sophomore, then to one of our all time favorite coaches, Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina. It was only after leaving Chapel Hill and entering the NBA draft (where he still was far from the sensation he would become not even being picked first) that he truly began to captivate us and become the “Mike” that so many of us wanted to be like.
He brought with him unparalleled talent and what became an unmatched desire to win. Originally part of a lackluster squad that rarely lived up to the great talent and competitiveness that poured forth from this one man, slowly his reputation grew, and so also did the team around him. Jordan’s talent was the first thing that grabbed our attention, his ability to “fly” and do things in the air that no one had ever imagined. But right on the heels of those amazing displays his smile followed, quickly wooing any doubters that this was a darling for our public eye, an immensely talented athlete that also made you feel like we could talk to him and feel like he would pretend that we were just like him, somehow on the same level, Even after you saw him sail through the air and take your breath away, he bridged that gap quickly with a smile and a graciousness that left us dazzled and in love.
Over time as the team around him grew and it became apparent that his will to win was second to none, the last part of the puzzle fell into place, and this man became the legend, the darling of our hearts, and the mastermind of performances that were nearly frightening in their intensity, but left no doubt that he was going to “hustle” he had that last quality that endeared him like no other. He fought through years of lacking a skilled supporting cast. He learned that he could do it all, but he also learned how to maximize the talents of those around him and turn water into wine when he applied the skills no one before or since has brought to a basketball court. There have been others with more physical gifts, more talent, perhaps even some with more hustle (though that is a hard argument to win) but no one combined it all into such a dazzling show that brought everyone to the edge of their seats every time he took the court. We never knew when the next miracle would happen. But we did know that we could count on him, through sickness and injury and even the damaging influence of time we knew we could count on him doing everything he possibly could to win every single game. He won championship after championship and seemed to get better and better as time went on, even though he was no longer the spry flyer he was after he emerged from UNC.
We watched him walk away from the game and we all understood why, what more could this man do? How could it appeal to him after he demonstrated so clearly his ascent to a station to which even the greatest before him had never approached? We watched him try and astonishingly fail at another athletic pursuit, and then we watched him come back and demonstrate even greater mastery than before and we cheered louder and loved him more. Even when age was making it impossible for him to take the load and after a second retirement he returned and displayed his unmatched competitive fire, we still watched and knew that just when we turned away that same old magic would happen and we might miss it.
Unfortunately, we realized, that magic may actually have left forever when an aging Jordan finally called it quits for good. We sadly bid him farewell and eagerly turned to the young sensations and waited patiently for his successor. The next Jordan was a title bestowed on many, but as time has passed it has become more and more obvious that there will never be another MJ, never another Mike that we all would love to be like. The reasons why highlight disturbing trends both in the NBA and among so many other parts of our sports crazed culture and perhaps even some of our own failures and the dark side of the worship we so easily gave to MJ and others. Why will there never be another Jordan?
