It's Our Fault Sports Are Stupid

Joe Theismann, 2-time NFL Pro Bowler and quarterback of the Super-Bowl-XVII-winning Washington Redskins reportedly said:

"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein." 

Maybe Albert had a distant cousin.

There's a lot of stupidity in sports today, but whose fault is it?

Consider three major aspects of modern sports culture: the money, the vanity and the arrogance.

The Money

The average NBA-player salary for the 2023/2024 season was about $9,700,000, more than 24 times that of the President of the United States of America.

The average salary for Manchester United soccer players of the Premier League during the 2022/2023 season was about 7.19 million British Pounds, that is, about 9.1 million U.S. dollars.

By comparison, a cardiologist in the U.S. annually makes on average $351,827, a psychiatrist $224,577, a surgeon $216,248, a NUCLEAR engineer $91,119, a judge $83,715, a police officer $64,505, a high school teacher $59,575 and an elementary school teacher $53,402.

And if you weren't aware, NBA players are often fined close to the annual salary of one of these school teachers for pouting like babies over officiating (please read this line a few times).

These teachers and shapers of young minds are making so little that evidently they are leaving their teaching positions to work at Wal-Mart.

It's no wonder there is a nationwide teaching shortage with 86 percent of public schools struggling to hire teachers, who are mostly deterred by the low-salary offers.

Make it make sense.

I'll try.

The average cost of a ticket to attend the 2024 NFL Super Bowl was $8,600.

Though we'd probably like to pretend it weren't the case, we simply are WAY more interested in paying an NBA player to do what he does than a surgeon, a nuclear engineer or a high school teacher to do what they do.

It's our fault sports are stupid.

The Vanity

Gale Sayers, the youngest person ever to be inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame said something that is almost universally taught and praised in the sports universe of dreams:

"I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it."

Tell that to James "Boobie" Miles who bet it all on football and ended up being recruited by some of the biggest college football programs in the nation until an injury derailed everything.

Today he is heading back to prison for supposedly failing to register as a sex offender (His story is actually more complicated than that—google "Friday Night Lights").

Boobie explained:

"I could never just pick up the pieces. Every time I thought I could get it together, it just fell apart. I just let it happen. I didn't try to stay strong. Whatever happens, happens, is how I took it."

You can tell he's torn between the reality that life often is simply beyond our control and the false sports gospel of 'no matter how bad it is, you can make it.'

But math doesn't lie.

The NCAA reports that of the roughly 19,000 players who make it to the men's college basketball level, only about 1 percent make it to a major professional league.

And of the nearly 600,000 men's high school basketball participants, only roughly 3 percent ever make it to the college level.

Another false gospel of modern sports vanity has to do with winning. 

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi was reported as saying: "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing," and evidently he wasn't the first famous football coach to say that. Interestingly, Lombardi later realized the obvious vanity of that message and insisted he meant something along the lines of: "Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is."

That's deep.

Regardless, almost everyone who plays or takes a sport seriously has a very strong desire to win, and often that desire is undeniably linked with some just-plain-stupid consequences.

From star tennis players beating themselves bloody with their own racket/threatening to kill the line judge to Cristiano Ronaldo spitting in a cameraman's face, the oft-praised 'will to win' creates the most embarrassing kinds of sore losers all the way from 8-year-olds at the park to the literally the greatest athletes in the world acting like 8-year-olds at the park.

Some of these reports are indeed shocking, but these are still our favorite players.   

The Arrogance

In your face! Rock the baby. Too small. Another oldie but goodie, "flex on 'em." Screaming and running frantically around the court/field like a crazy person shouting how great you are.

These things actually happen all the time, not in the pee wee league, but in PROFESSIONAL sports.

Where else in the professional world is this allowed, except maybe for in an episode of The Office? Imagine nailing your business presentation and running around the building screaming like a lunatic. 

Not even bowling is immune. When 5-time U.S. Open winner Peter Weber, sunglasses and all, won one of his bowling tournaments in 2012, he flung his cool sunglasses off and shouted, "Who do you think you are!? I am!"—a quote which 12 years later is still being classed on X as one of the greatest sports quotes in sports history. 

But hey, I suppose if they don't actually believe the things they express, maybe it's all just in good fun and entertainment. Maybe.

What's more concerning to many is modern sports' promotion of culturally-ignorant arrogance.

ESPN's First Take is probably the single most popular sports talk show in the United States of America—THE SINGLE MOST POPULAR SPORTS TALK SHOW. Please keep this in mind as you consider the following facts:    

On February 20, 2024, Stephen A. Smith and his crew spoke about who they think is going to be the next face of the NBA. They struggle to come up with a good answer because they insist on picking someone who is American born. At some point JJ Reddick is forced to mention that the last five NBA MVP winners have all been internationally born and the top MVP candidates this year are also internationally born. He then poses the question: "Is it bad for the league that the best players are internationally born?".  Stephen A. Smith then gives some "clever" answer that avoids the import of the implication of the question, essentially saying he doesn't think it's bad if the international players are just better and that's why one of them becomes the face of the NBA. But he does think it would be bad if the American born players are good enough and they "just don't want" the privilege of being the face of the NBA. 🤔🤔🤔 

Kendrick Perkins added that an international player can't be the face of the NBA because supposedly "he's in the AAU gyms, and he doesn't see the young kids cheering for the international players."  Case closed.  

The show's arrogance is on full display as they attempt to ignore the truth: international players are the best in the NBA currently. These analysts simply don't want one of them to be the face of the NBA.

It gets worse.

On February 18, 2021, First Take had a segment on who are the 5 greatest athletes of all time. Surprise!  Both of the debaters picked 5 Americans. (On March 14, 2021 two other debaters also picked 5 Americans, and a third picked 4 Americans and a Canadian hockey player). Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Roger Federer and Usain Bolt were never even mentioned as possibilities. LIONEL MESSI.  Let that sink in.

Max Kellerman very confidently said this: "Michael Jordan is the greatest athlete of all time. I think everyone knows that. If the fate of the universe was on the line and everyone around the world had to take a vote, 'Who do you give the ball to at the end?'—any sport, everyone's giving it to Michael Jordan. He's going to win that in a landslide. He's number 1." 

And Max was always considered the most "culturally intelligent" of the ESPN debaters. 😳

If only that were as bad as it gets.

On August 25, 2023 U.S. Olympic Sprinter and Gold Medal Winner Noah Lyles hilariously criticized the NBA:

"You know the thing that hurts me the most is that I have to watch the NBA Finals and they have WORLD CHAMPION on their head. World Champion of what!? The United States!? Don't get me wrong. I love the U.S., at times, but that ain't the world."

Several NBA stars publically took offense. Kevin Durant, widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players in NBA history, said: "Somebody help this brother."  

Stephen A. Smith answered the call on First Take, declaring of Noah: "He just came across as flagrantly ignorant, and that needs to be said."

Well, ain't that the pot calling the kettle black?

He then went on a tirade explaining that since the NATIONAL Basketball Association is the best basketball league in the world and has some international players, it has the right to label its winners WORLD Champions.

Later, however, Stephen A. dialed it back.

On his personal YouTube Channel, he revealed that shortly after the First Take segment, he received a text from a friend, German actor Boris Kodjo. It said in its entirety:

"My brother, I wanted to shoot you this text because you might have gotten one wrong today. I don't believe Noah Lyles meant to discredit any player or their level of play but to draw attention to the uniquely American habit of calling a national contest a world championship. Fact number 1: World championships are global competitions in which individuals and/or teams representing their respective countries compete for a world title—examples—FIFA World Cup, FIBA World Cup, etc. Fact number 2: Los Angeles is a city in the U.S. with a team called the Lakers. It is not a country and therefore couldn't possibly compete in or win a world championship but rather capture multiple NBA titles. Fact number 3: the NBA is an American sports league. The only international aspects are some of the players and the fact that it is watched around the globe. Just because teams compete in the best leagues in the world doesn't make them World Champions. The Premier League in England is arguably the best football/soccer league in the world. Yet nobody would ever call Manchester United a world champion. It would just be incorrect. Brother you're right. The NBA has over 100 international players. Basketball is a global game. Of course they want to play in the best league possible with a chance to compete on the highest level, but that has absolutely nothing to do with calling the NBA champion a world champion. The FIBA World Cup will crown a world champion in the next few weeks, and that title will go to a deserving team comprised of players of the same nationality representing their country. Don't you know that just like apple pie on the fourth of July, promoting winners of professional domestic leagues as world champions has been an American tradition for decades? It goes along with the other very American custom of labeling everything American as the best, greatest, biggest, most dominant, awesomeness—I know this is not a word just like the Warriors aren't the world champions, but just because it's tradition doesn't make it right. It's wrong. Maybe it's debatable, but it's still wrong."

Stephen A. then goes on to say that "from a literal perspective" he must admit he was wrong, "at least" in the sense of calling Noah Lyle "ignorant."

Baby steps.

But who's fault is it?

I think Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy can shed some light.

—It's not his fault he's stupid.

—He's a liability.

—He makes us laugh and he loves us. How is that a liability? All you care about is intelligence and competence.

—(I'm not sure I appreciate this defense.)

—He has sadness, but he's the only one who doesn't hate himself. I don't care if he's stupid.

—You think I'm stupid?

—Yes.

It was pretty bad when Joe Theismann mistakenly said Norman instead of Albert Einstein, but his motive was innocent. He was trying to express the idea that there are others involved in more important aspects of life that should be praised as intelligent rather than football players.

Sports are stupid, but it's not their fault. It's ours. They make us laugh. They keep us entertained. They flaunt a confidence many a depressed soul can only dream of savoring. They distract us from the problems of real life. They give us something to shoot for. They give us something to root for. And whether or not it's real—whether or not it's stupid, we want it. We enable it. We give it time, money and energy, and some, literally give it everything.

Personally, I gave my childhood to basketball, and an injury later, I had one NCAA Division III scholarship offer to show for it.

Pelé, one of the greatest soccer players of all time once confessed, "Football is like a religion to me. I worship the ball and treat it like a god."

I'd hate to admit it, but I knew the feeling.

All things considered, here's what I know now:

(1) Putting a ball in the hoop was fun, and (2) it's not its fault it is stupid.

Go Sixers.