First Pick Blog

Wanna hear a secret? Sometimes…I hate sports.

For all the success stories, the underdogs, and the unsung heroes finally getting their due there are millions of others with failed dreams, false realities. Kids, myself included, grow up worshipping a man or woman because they can throw a ball 50 yards with pinpoint accuracy or shoot one through a nylon net from 15 feet away with a hand in their face. Sports can ruin lives. A missed shot, a bobbled grounder, can cast you into the shadows of infamy for eternity. A simple mistake and one can go from hometown hero to outcast. How did we get here? How did we reach this point?

The nation just recently witnessed what can happen when coaches, a position of authority can fall very far off the path of righteousness. A coach is supposed to help, to nurture, to protect. But they are humans, and no human is perfect. We build up coaches to the point where they are no longer people, but gods. They can control the children they teach, and teach them evil. They can teach them that their opponent is not just another kid like them, but an enemy, who needs to be beaten. They can teach them that “Winning is not everything, but the only thing.” They can teach them whatever they want, for they are coaches, and whatever coach says goes.

This is the last I will ever speak of the terrible events at Penn State, but no matter your feelings on the matter know this: Joe Paterno was more than just a coach in Happy Valley, he WAS Penn State. When in reality, he was a man who won football games, and was damn good at it too. The spotlight turned from the children and the monster who destroyed their lives, to the aging coach who didn’t do enough. But if there was more to be done, information to follow up on, there is only one man who could have found the answers. One man whose opinion mattered the most. Joe needed to do m0re, had to do m ore. But sadly it seems the program was put above the welfare of children…

But it is more than just the coaches but the athletes themselves who sometimes forget what they stand for. For it is the athletes, not the coaches, who we pay 80 dollars to see. It is the athletes for whom we sacrifice sleep for, relationships for. It is their names who we don on our backs and wake up wishing we could be. We long for the ability to stand up on top of a podium, in front of the world, and call ourselves champions. We invest our hearts, our souls into people and teams. I’ll be the first to admit that the fans share much of the blame. I base my life on how the teams I like are doing, a simple loss can ruin my day, or week. I have to step back sometimes and remind myself that there is so much more out there, so much more matters, than whether or not the Tigers lost the pennant. But it’s so hard to separate, and sometimes we choose not to.

Sports can kill. It can kill dreams, the kids who were told they weren’t tall enough, fast enough, strong enough. The kids who had empty promises whispered into their ear by recruiters, who all along were waiting for someone better to appear. The kids who said all the right things, did all the right things, worked as hard as their body could, and were not even close to being drafted, to make the next level. Meanwhile there are athletes who are blessed with the height, with the body, who barely has to work or do anything for themselves their entire lives and make it by a long-shot. They are lazy, but it doesn’t matter. They are rude, but it doesn’t matter. Sports, like life, are not fair.

Sports can kill people too. Through concussions, through the tireless bone-crushing of body into body. Through that one line drive, that one right hook. The retired athlete who is too proud to admit something is wrong, that his mind is turning into mush. The coach who continues his stressful lifestyle, despite the anxiety and the cold sweats that keep him up late at night wondering if he’ll have a job in the morning. The gambler who uses sports to make his living, despite his family’s pleas to stop, who finds himself in a ditch off the highway for failure to pay his bookie in time. It sounds silly, sounds like television, but it happens. Sports can kill.

This is an entire website based around sports and entertainment. We write about sports because we want to, because we feel we have to. But even we need to stop ourselves every now and then and remember that this is for fun, that sports are played to entertain. But sometimes even we forget…

99.99% of the time I love sports. I feel they inspire hope, bring people together, and help us escape from our problems. But after the final buzzer, after the last inning, we need to remember that our problems are still there. It’s only a game, and yet, its so much more…

By Ben Simpson