Please note that the title is with a question mark and not a period, although I haven't fully resolved that issue in my head as this is being written on Monday afternoon.
As some of you may recall, Bopper did a really good piece a few months back on how the world has changed in the past 50 years. All of you here, with the exception of Cody, can probably readily acknowledge that statement as fact. The world has changed, I suppose, because of Viet Nam, the assassination of a President, 9-11, and a dozen other events that made us all aware that we no longer live in a world of the 50s and 60s. Oh sure, we had the cold war going on then, and when I was in school, we practiced the drills of what to do in case on nuclear attack (I'm sure most of you can remember the common joke to that drill).
Within the past two weeks, I have observed changes in the world of sports that really draw my attention to the sad state of affairs to which we have been brought. Once I started thinking about how the world of sports has fallen apart, I realized it has been going on for some time. What brought me to my real senses over this past two weeks was the death of a high school senior AFTER a basketball game between two rival schools close to me. Even closer is the fact that I have two grandsons at one of the schools in question and several friends who have their kids in the other school. It was a high school basketball game, yet a 17 year old guy was stabbed to death because of tension between the schools.
Also, just last week, here in Columbia, an issue was raised between two rival schools at another basketball game as to where students could sit. Seems one of the rival schools wanted to sit behind the bench of the players from their rival. Common sense would have seemed to indicate that was a poor choice of seating, but instead, one of the school administrators was dragged on the carpet and threatened with loss of his job for having asked the students to move. There was no blood shed at that event.
Continuing, because the local ABC affiliate was so into televising the baseball game between two rival in-state universities, I did not get to see the Nationwide race . I did, however, get to watch these young men supposedly intelligent enough to deserve a college scholarship continuously spitting through their teeth. Is this some kind of ritual required of baseball players? They weren't chewing tobacco, God forbid, but yet they were spitting almost non-stop. Amazingly, the dugout did not flood. Even with all the spitting and hitting, there was almost a full blown brawl because a player was called "safe" when the opposition claimed he was out. Even the coach of the team who perceived the wrong call was out on the field making a total butt of himself.
Ok, let's talk about my middle grandson, Sam, who is a freshman in high school yet has made the varsity soccer team and gets what I consider a great deal of playing time for a freshman. I went to one of the tournament games this weekend and watched a coach for the other team receive a "yellow card" for his ranting and raving on the sidelines. Now, I don't know enough about soccer, even after 14 years of being around it with the grandsons, so I only know that the yellow card is NOT good. The coach calmed down slightly, but still received a conference with one of the refs shortly after the yellow card. Maybe that's like being called to the big NASCAR trailer. I just hate the thought of high school kids being exposed to that kind of poor sportsmanship.
That, my friends, is the issue, in my mind. Good Sportsmanship, or lack of it. When I was growing up, we were taught to be good sports. To win gracefully and to lose gracefully. Remember the episode of the Andy Griffith show where Opie wanted to win the foot race but lost and really showed a poor loser's attitude? Andy, of course, got his straight, but nevertheless, that is the way we were raised back then.
Now, just look at some of what has happened over the past, say four or five years:
1. Lance Armstrong, someone I admired and I always wore the yellow "Livestrong" bracelet lied over and over about doping. Seems he won all those Tour de France races illegally.
2. All the outright lying baseball players claiming they never used Performance Enhancing drugs and yet they have been proved to have done exactly that.
3. Football players in the NFL abusing teammates in such a manner that it requires an investigation by the NFL, as if that is the answer to anything.
4. Professional basketball player traveling to North Korea, one of this country's sworn enemies and hanging out with and making a hero out of someone who has violated every protocol of human rights.
5. The continuing practice of fans, both college and professional, who find celebrating a championship or a big win by burning cars, buildings and whatever else they can get their hands on, acceptable. That just makes no sense to me.
To just these five things, add the fact that now Northwestern University has a football team that is trying to organize into a union to gain rights and privileges to which they feel they are "entitled" without considering the free college education they are receiving, to which, by the way, they agreed when they signed on to play football.
Another thing that got me really analyzing our society today is this past weekend's Oscar ceremony. I didn't watch, never do. After John Wayne died there are no real actors anymore, just fakers. However, I could not get away from the advertisements about the ceremony and the "red carpet". Over and over I was inundated with what it was going to be like on the "red carpet". This morning my newspaper had several pictures of the celebrities who graced that red carpet. All of the women appear as though they have just been freed from a Nazi concentration camp and put in dresses and gowns worth thousands. Sort of like putting lipstick on a pig. Since there were no pictures of male celebrities on the red carpet, I assume there were none, or that the newspaper just doesn't consider them worthy of print. Even so, I have to wonder what has happened to society that we honor these folks and call them celebrities. I just can't see it.
The bottom line here, or borrowing from last week's Legendtorial "at the end of the day", I am having a difficult time understanding how society determines a hero today. A celebrity, say Justin Beiber for instance, gets arrested and it makes front page news around the world and television is inundated with the news. A service man dies defending his country and outside of the local hometown newspaper, it is hardly noted.
My entire purpose with this Legendtorial tonight is to say that I am proud of what the early pioneers of the sport of stock car racing accomplished. I am proud that our sport, albeit troubled from time to time, is not likely to spawn building burning and car trashing when Junior wins the Daytona 500. I am proud of the sport because most of the folks involved in the sport have a true sense of values for God, family, and country, which seem to be missing in so much of the world today. For that I am thankful.
I still may have issues with NASCAR and some of the things it chooses to do, but I have had issues from as far back as the 50s but I still support it. I guess today, as I write this, I am just overcome with the absurdity of the overall sporting world and, in fact, the world in general. I see much more nastiness than I do kindness. I have tired of those wanting to make something appear what it is not. I am tired of the fakes, the flakes, and the fortune seekers who change history to the benefit of themselves.
These Legendtorials have been a fun thing for me to do for the past three and a half years, but I have to wonder, at times, whether or not those listening have tired of hearing my thoughts and opinions each week. I know Jeff put me in the slot to fill up the time of a two hour show and I appreciate the opportunity to have been a part of the show for this long. I am just really concerned that the events of the past few weeks have allowed me to become jaded and unbalanced in my thoughts of sports in general and what is happening to our young people by the heroes they choose to emulate. Things just don't seem to be the same and I'm sure that's exactly what has happened. Good sportsmanship is a thing of the past.
I would like to think, above all else, that the sport of stock car racing has given us, and continues to give us, heroes worth the adoration of young folks. NASCAR would have us believe that and, to a degree, it is believable. One advertisement shows the impact Danica has had on young ladies and bringing them into the sport. Then, if you have a mind to, go to You Tube and watch the in-car camera and radio transmissions of this young "lady". Some of the language she uses I had never heard until I got on board ship in the Navy. I've said it before, but maybe I'm just too much of a prude to consider that lady-like. But then I recently read the story of Smokey Yunick in "The Best Damn Garage...." and as disjointed and wandering as his story was, he never missed an opportunity to brag about his "manhood" or throw in a string of four letter words that would make a sailor blush.
The race in Phoenix this weekend, showed a great deal of sportsmanship, I thought, and perhaps it was for that reason I choose the topic for tonight. Or, perhaps, it was because after all the events of the past few weeks I was fed up with the sporting world in general and much of society in particular. The "Last Legendtorial"? Maybe. But if you're a betting person, bet on me being back next week with another one, but, quite frankly, I have tired of the importance of being earnest in what I say here on Tuesday nights. I truly appreciate the support of those of you who have left comments on my Facebook page and who have e-mailed me with comments, good or bad, almost every week. It is because of you that I get real enjoyment out of these minutes.
Thank you.
