Athletes: They're Just Like Us - An Introduction

The clip above is from an amazing show you may have heard of called Mad Men. One of the show's main themes is identity; who we really are, who we present to be, and the many versions of ourselves that reside in the gap between the two. In the scene, the older man shares some wisdom about determining the identity of other people: "When you hit 40 you realize that you've met or seen every kind of person there is..." I'm 39 years old so I can almost officially confirm that you do, over time, meet all different kinds of people, and no matter how many identities they employ you begin to notice some familiar patterns.

I realize it sounds an awful lot like labeling people, which can be dangerous. Everyone really is unique so you want to be careful when you categorize or label someone. Mislabeling a person can lead to long-lasting negative and even dangerous outcomes. But there is a reason we do it so instinctively. Our more primitive ancestors would instinctively categorize or label things as "safe" or "unsafe" to stay alive. We still do that today, but we also use this evolutionary skill to quickly assess new situations to get comfortable enough to learn more and go beyond the label. In his book "Blink" Malcolm Gladwell refers to this as thin slicing.

That brings us to a recurring feature for this blog which will be "Athletes - They're just like us!" The thing is Bert Cooper is right! There are a lot of recurring patterns in the behaviors of people who may appear to be very different. One of the strangest things to realize as an adult is that athletes represent all kinds of people in ways you may not expect. It's easy to label all professional athlete's as jocks. This isn't incorrect. They all live in a jock culture, they all grew up playing sports or at least had relative experiences with sports before becoming professionals. But what happens when everyone is a jock? What happens when your jockness no longer makes you stand out?

What happens is other aspects of your identity start to stand out in different ways within the culture. This is when you find out who, among the jocks, is a dork. Who among them is an artist? Who among them is a nerd? Who among them is kind, or gentle, or aggressive, or mean. Just like any other group of people, jocks have layers and layers of interests, preferences, and personalities.

So in a series of posts titled "Athletes: They're Just Like Us" I'm going to explore some of America's most famous professional athletes and talk about who they are beneath the identity that makes them famous, beginning with a soon to be published post about Lebron James.

Homeroom

In Homeroom yesterday I wrote about what a mess Major League Baseball's attempt to start up has been. Evidently the NBA decided they would not be one upped in the drama department...

In a recent chat group with Nets players, Kyrie Irving lobbied for skipping the bubble, the Daily News has learned. In that chat, he also proposed that the players can start their own league, according to a source. https://t.co/SqC0wcccPJ

— Stefan Bondy (@SBondyNYDN) June 16, 2020

Sources tell me that Kyrie Irving never stated that the Nets should begin their own league in response to the bubble.

I'm told that after that report came out, he left the group chat.

— Taylor Rooks (@TaylorRooks) June 17, 2020

• Shower curtains are something schools can afford. Will our gyms look like this next year?
• I'm glad fellow body building legend Arnold Schwarzenegger understands how important masks are. It makes me furious to see people out and about without a mask. The masks don't keep you safe they keep other people safe!!! Nobody wants to, nobody likes it, it's uncomfortable and it sucks! But people wear them anyway to be a good neighbor and look out for others. And the thing is, they work! Two hair stylists in Missouri were symptomatic for COVID-19 and did not infect any of the 140 customers they saw because they wore masks.
• The Knicks are in need of a coach and I would bet that it's going to be Tom Thibodeau. There's some buzz about Kenny Atkinson but I think it's just smoke screen to avoid getting roasted for only considering one guy.

Homeroom

Update: As soon as I finished writing this baseball decided to swallow itself. I’ll post about it once the dust settles.

Over the weekend the Major League Baseball Players Association (their union) rejected an offer from team owners that included a 72 game season that would pay players 70% of their full pro-rated salary. That means 70% of 44% of their salary. In other words, under normal circumstances there are 162 games in an MLB season; a player making $1 million dollars would be paid about $440,000 at what is called the “full pro rata.” Under MLB’s proposal that player would instead make $308,000 or $132,000 less than full pro rata. The highest paid player in baseball, Mike Trout of the Anaheim Angels, was set to make $37.7 million this season. His full pro rated salary over 72 games would be $16.6 million. Under ownership’s proposal he will make $11.6 million which is a $5 million dollar difference. Finally, a player making the league minimum gets $563,500 in a full season. A full pro rated salary for this sort of player is $247,940. The owners would pay this player $173,558, a difference of $74,382. So obviously the higher your salary was to begin with the more money a player is leaving on the table and while even $173,558 seems like a lot of money keep in mind that the guys across the negotiating table are BILLIONAIRES who have the wealth to pay those salaries. Further, the average length of a major leaguer’s career is 5.6 years, while owners hold on to teams for generations so players have a stronger incentive to make as much money as they can. The owners claim that they are trying to negotiate lower pay because of the revenue they’ll lose if fans aren’t allowed to attend live games. This is bogus for a number of reasons:

1. While it may be true that teams will generate less revenue without fans there is no rule that says owning a professional sports franchise must be profitable every single year. If we were taking Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts seriously when he claims that he’s having a “cash-flow problem” or Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt when he talks about not being able to make money in baseball then I have a simple solution for them: sell you team! Why would you hold on to something if you’re losing money on it and you know you can sell it to someone else at 10 times the purchase price? Simple!
2. Owners refuse to prove how much they’ll be losing by showing their financial statements (called “opening up the books”) with the players. If you’re going to lose as much money as you say then why wouldn’t you share your finances with the players? The owners and players are essentially “partners” in a collective bargaining agreement anyway. Is there something to hide? (Answer: Yes)
3. Billionaires are very good at avoiding paying their fair share. It’s why they’re billionaires.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred recently said he was 100% sure there would be baseball this year, but the reality is it’s kind of a coin flip right now. The players have stopped negotiating with ownership, so their next move is to release a schedule that could set off a legal battle between the two sides. I’m on the side of the players here, but ultimately professional baseball is in danger and it’s their own fault. For a sport that can be rather sanctimonious about records and the hall of fame they dig themselves in a hole far more often than they cloak themselves in glory. The last thing they needed after the Astros cheating scandal that more or less delegitimizes the last couple of seasons is an extended labor dispute. We’ll see...

Final Bell

• ESPN aired the latest installment of their 30 for 30 documentary series last night. The episode focused on the 1998 Home Run explosion lead by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Looking back it’s another example of how baseball tends to eat itself alive. That was an awesome season and if you didn’t realize these guys were juicing you didn’t want to believe it. I’m not saying pro’s should be encouraged to take steroids but not having either of these guys, or Barry Bonds, or Roger Clemens in the hall of fame is insane.
• Several college football teams, including my Buckeyes are having players sign waivers acknowledging that they know the risks of playing during the COVID-19 pandemic. I love Ohio State football almost as much as I love my own child, but this is a total disgrace. First, there is a total absence of integrity when Athletic Director Gene Smith claims that he doesn’t look at the waiver as a legal document and calls it a “Buckeye pledge.” He tries to describe it as a reminder of responsibility. It’s a Buckeye Waiver Gene, that you will 100% use in court if you need to because you are absolutely exposing unpaid labor to dangerous conditions so you can line your pockets.

Is Nikola Jokic okay???

When I first saw this picture I thought something was going on between Kristaps Porzingis and Nikola Jokic. Then I found out that Jokic turned into Porzingis! This guy lost A LOT of weight!

The Mayo Clinic tells us that a healthy weight loss rate is about 1-2 pounds per week. The Denver Nuggets played their last game about 13 weeks ago so Jokic's maximum weight loss should have been 26 pounds, which looks about right from these pictures. While that may technically be healthy I'm not so sure it's a good idea for the Nuggets center who could find himself playing in meaningful games again in a little over a month!

I don't think it's possible for anyone to maintain all of their strength after dropping that much weight. But even if the 7-foot Serbian star only shed fat and kept all his muscle his body type is completely transformed. He'll have to learn to move in different ways and get used to his new shape. The transition is going to be difficult and it's going to have to happen fast!

Zombie Confederacy

I've never really been a NASCAR fan. I had a friend in college who was pretty into it and occasionally he'd try to sell me on it, but what he never understood was that if you take away the tailgating that goes on before, during, and after the race it's just a bunch of cars driving around in circles for hours, and hours, and HOURS. And look, there's obviously more to it than that, these drivers are exceptionally skilled. They're driving, maneuvering and turning at incredibly high speeds. But it's not that fun if you're just two dudes sitting in a living room watching it on TV.

And then there's the racism. No, not all NASCAR fans are racist but it's not a good look that the sport needs to implement a ban on the Confederate flag in 2020! All things considered it doesn't feel out of line to say that NASCAR and their fan base skew racist. But the times they are a changin' and on Wednesday NASCAR finally implemented a ban on the hateful symbol. The wheels were set in motion by Bubba Wallace, the only black driver on the circuit. Last Sunday, Bubba wore an "I can't breathe" Black Lives Matter t-shirt and had the artwork on his car changed to a Black Lives Matter design. He's also been doing a number of interviews including one with CNN's Don Lemon on Monday night. By Wednesday, shortly before a race in Martinsville, Georgia, NASCAR announced it was banning the Confederate flag, effective immediately.


While it should seem like common decency for a national organization, or even an individual person, not to display a symbol of oppression and hate at their events, this is a big deal. This is going to upset a lot of fans but NASCAR and their sponsors have obviously decided that they're going to endure whatever backlash they face. It also means that they think they'd lose more money if they didn't ban the flag, which means public support for Black Lives Matter must be pretty strong all over the country.

Are We Nuts???

What are we thinking? How can we possibly think we're going to see a normal football season this fall? I'm talking NFL, College, and High School. What is everybody thinking?

Max Olsen of The Athletic wrote a piece about Oklahoma State's attempt to to get football started and it sounds like they're doing an amazing job but this is going to be impossible to replicate for most schools. Of the 150 people who checked in which included 30 players and 120 staff, three tested positive. Among them is All Big 12 Linebacker Amen Ogbongbemiga who believes he contracted it at a protest that he attended. We know this because he tweeted the results as a public safety warning to his fellow protesters.

After attending a protest in Tulsa AND being well protective of myself, I have tested positive for COVID-19. Please, if you are going to protest, take care of yourself and stay safe.

— Amen Ogbongbemiga (@closedprayer) June 3, 2020

Oklahoma state has the advantage of an on-campus COVID-19 lab that provides results within 24 hours at a capacity of 2,000 tests per day. That's obviously useful but it doesn't change anything about the process that follows. Anyone who tests positive goes to a quarantine dorm (which sounds like that title of a B movie from 1988) for two weeks. Meanwhile staff initiates a process of contact tracing and retesting. This is at a time when there are very few students on campus even under normal circumstances, and the Cowboys don't have a game for another 3 months!

Let's also not forget that Oklahoma State received a $165 million dollar donation from T. Boone Pickens in 2005, the largest in NCAA history. Before his death last year, ol' T. Boone had donated about a quarter bil to Cowboy athletics. So this joint has resources.

Oklahoma State isn't the only program that has had players test positive. Alabama, Auburn, Texas, Florida State, UCF, and Boise State have all had positive tests. Not a lot of poverty on that list. This comes as no surprise either, almost 2.5 million Americans have tested positive. Programs are having players return now to troubleshoot when there are no upcoming games. But there's no way every program in the country will have nearly enough resources keep their unpaid players safe.

Meanwhile, COVID cases are on the rise in 21 states including Florida where the NBA is set to resume play at the end of July AND the GOP will now hold its National Trump Rally. Despite all this some programs are talking about having fans at their games even at a reduced capacity.

So I ask, have we all lost our minds? How can we think it's possible that all these things are going to happen when this is the "good news" of the day:

Deaths below 1,000 on a mid-week day, which is good news (that didn't used to happen very often). But otherwise... not so great. It's really looking more like a plateau than a decline.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 11, 2020

I think it's awful to ask student athletes to be guinea pigs for sports to come back, especially when the interest in them as a student isn't even being considered. This is obviously about money, everything is. The NCAA generated $804 million dollars in TV revenue last year using college students as unpaid labor, and they'll do what it takes to get them on to the field.

When it comes to high school however there is far less money at stake, and far fewer resources at most schools. Connecticut and New Jersey recently announced their guidelines for school sports in the summer and fall, with New York holding out until the end of July. I don't think New York will have any regrets about slow rolling this.