The other side of the game

If you've been reading this blog for some time, you know that it is based on my friendships with guys. (If you haven't...hey there! Welcome and all that good stuff!)

Many people don't understand question (Ok...they ASSume a lot...) why so many of my guy friends are athletes. Either past or present.  For the most part, those were the types of guys I was always around growing up.  I went to a high school that won state football championships. (Charger PRIDE!!)  I matriculated at the greatest basketball university of all time! (Go Heels Go!!)  I've always been into sports.



I played football while the other little girls at school played dress up. ( I did play dress up sometimes too.. S/O to Hasson who was my construction working hubby in kindergarten! LMBO).  My immediate family is full of athletic guys.  We were at little league games on Saturday mornings. High school football games on Friday nights, my basketball games, and my brother's college games on Saturdays.  I played sports growing up.  I do not know life without athletics (even though my own athleticism has been on hiatus...)

Two of my very closest guy friends played football on the collegiate level.  Some of my homeboys played in the NFL.

Which brings me to my point.  Too often people see athletes as a meal ticket, instead of a human being.  It annoys me to no end.  Surely not all athletes are virtuous people...neither are most non-athletes!

When people think because someone has "made it" off of their own talents, they in turn OWE everybody something...I ask why?

How many reps did you do?  Did you juggle a house full of hungry people, yourself included, with the fact that you had to get up and go work out?  Were you there before dude blew up and became amazing?  Probably not.  But you think he OWES you...what HE has earned, and YOU have not? Please.

That Terrell Owens thing disturbs me.  It is the side that people do not see.  The nagging expectations. The overwhelming responsibility.  Living up to a divided image.

Who sees that side?  The side were a guy who loses his dream of becoming a pro athlete?  When all the cheers turn to jeers.  When all of your friends frienemies are nowhere to be found?  The depression that sets in.  The helplessness.  The hurt?

You probably think it's a trade off for the money and the fame... Is it really? As if the fame just magically appears.  No.  They work...grind...kill their bodies and sometimes their spirits to achieve something... A dream they've always had.  We minimize what they do because we devalue them as human beings.  They are called dumb jocks.  Spoken of as though they are human chattel.

I worked for years to become an attorney.  When I hit a major road block and suffered some failures and losses at the very moment that my life was skyrocketing, I fell into a depression that was out of this world.   (Thank God for His grace, mercy and everlasting power to pull me out of it!) Is it okay for me to feel depressed because my dream was academic vs athletic?

When it comes to athletes, we question their intellect because they do not learn the things we learn.  Can you learn a playbook and recognize the defense of another team on any given Friday, Saturday or Sunday?  Probably not.  Does that make you dumb?  

People envy and hate that which they themselves cannot become/achieve.  Be mindful of how people who CANNOT DO try to DESTROY.  Which is why, I always give a number of sports writers the side-eye. Most have never picked up anything beyond a NERF ball a day in their lives.  They rarely tap into the human beings who happen to be athletes. They refuse to see the other side of the game.