So Angelus, I understand this notion that you don’t want to cheer for bad people and bad human beings, which begs my next question...why personally bother cheering at all? I don’t for a minute believe that you haven’t cheered for or rooted for a team with what you describe as bad people on it. The fact that we’re human means that we’re all flawed. Athletes get their stuff publicized because of the public nature of their work. I still don’t get what makes Kobe such a “bad person” that he can’t be on a team that you cheer for…
Selfishness? Adultery? Slightly immature at times?
Hell, I bet we can find any number of people here at JTJ who have been guilty of any one or all of these at some point in their lives...but daily we come to JTJ, and we interact and we share, and for the most part we don’t judge.
Hell, just look at the names we come up with for Mariotti...and some of the statements we make about his personal and hypothetical sex life that we would be embarrased to say to our mothers...it’s one thing to denigrate his writing, point out his journalistic flaws, identify perceived hidden homoeroticism, and even question his character and moral compass, but sometimes the attacks become so intensely personal and nasty, that I’m embarassed and disgusted to read them...and I run a daily contest featuring naked women.
This forum is chocked full of passionate sports fans who want to see their team win, not who are mildly entertained. No one is saying that the pain of losing or the elation of winning is life critical, or that it lasts forever, because it doesn’t. But one’s team winning is meaningful for a moment, or maybe (in the case of the 1985 Bears) for a lifetime. It certainly helps unite people in ways that other forms of entertainment don’t...the common bond here isn’t our disdain for Jay Mariotti as a person, it’s our disdain for him because of the way he treats the teams that we follow and love.
I’m confused because it’s easy to say, “I don’t root for bad guys” whom by and large we don’t know. You joined a sports forum (not a music, or movie, or musical, or theater forum), which suggests to me that this is more than just a passing interest to you. It’s easy to say that I didn’t cheer for the Bulls once they acquired Dennis Rodman, or that you didn’t cheer for Jordan, but what about before then or after then? Because if you EVER cheered for any professional sports team, I guarantee you can find “bad guys” on it…
Tank Johnson, Ricky Manning, and Michael Vick did bad things...they may even be bad people...certainly they’ve lacked some moral decency and direction...but, if you judge whether you can cheer for a team based on the moral fiber of it’s players, then you cannot cheer for professional sports franchises, college sports teams, or even high school for that matter (some of my teammates were the biggest racists and womanizers I knew). And, it is a contradiction in terms to say that you can cheer for the collective and not its parts, for it’s the parts that make the collective succesful.
I imagine that when you go and see a movie, you don’t do background checks on the actors before you go and watch, and then only watch movies with “good people”. However, if you know a “great actor” is in a certain movie, you’ll go and see it even if that actor has a checkered past.
Jay Mariotti and his drivel being in the paper every day affects people personally.
This really effects me the least as a part of my entertainment day or week. See, I don’t have to read his work, and for the most part, I’ve stopped. But, as a fan of the Bulls, Bears, and Cubs (and sometimes White Sox), I watch because I’m a fan, and I want them to win. If it didn’t matter to me, then I surely wouldn’t waste my time watching, nor spend my day on a forum discussing it with other fans…
