The Appeal of the Professional

I’ve been told that some of the Brooklyn Dodgers lived in Brooklyn among that people who adored them, among the fans. Some also told me that even with product endorsements, players in the NBA used to earn far less than they do today. So when the older folks talk of Henry Aaron, Jerry West and Jim Brown I can’t help but wonder how the greater society viewed athletes in America pre-Magic, Bird and Jordan. I think I ask this question because of the billion dollar stage that arrests the attention of hundreds of thousands of people. But isn’t the only real difference between back in the day and today CP3 Tweets and Facebook Fan page status updates? No, I don’t even believe that.

When money scaffolds and redefines superstructure that is modern professional sports, the attractiveness of, say, an athlete becomes more than merely his or her seemingly ability. Granted, athletes have made more than the average working citizen for at least 40 years but I wonder if the advent of long-term, multi-million dollar contracts with bonuses and extensions have fed an embedded avarice residing in teens. In order of priority, what’s more important to up and coming athletes? If I asked a sampling of burgeoning athletes ages 13-18 to rank fame, fortune and the realization of a childhood dream (playing pro sports) I think fortune would be closely followed by fame. The third one would receive a cursory glance in distant third place.

I’d like to talk to some fans and former athletes old enough to contrast today’s perceptions of our favorite jocks with those of days gone by. And I have one purpose, to find out if the wide-eyed kids wanting to play just like so-and-so want to do so for the sake of mastering something. Did a young phenom in 1955 have eyes set on becoming a demagogue or did he have an unexplainable love for the sport and perhaps even for the good he could do from a venerated position in his community?

Money is in the way, perhaps permanently, but there must be some way to free our minds from the clutches of the tyranny of opportunism. If money makes the world go around it’s because we’ve allowed it to do so. Cars still mostly run on fossil fuel because there’s big money in it and the vehicles keep being manufactured to run on it. If we want athletes to possess a sense of mortality, a down-to-earthness that currently is found lacking, we’re in for the fight of our age. For the time being, cash rules everything around me…