Hi, Everyone.
As you know I'm on vacation but I plan to post a blog occasionally and, well, this sad Steve McNair business motivates me to write.
I'm sorry he's gone and I'm sorry for the young lady who almost certainly shot him and almost certainly was his mistress. This is a tragedy, not because McNair used to be a football hero, but because two people died.
And it brings me to a thought I've long held. We don't know sports stars. I don't know them, not really, and if I don't know them you sure don't either. We see them on the field and we feel we get to know them but we don't. I interview them under controlled circumstances and I think I get to know them but I don't. I know what they choose to project, the person they choose to be in public.
I believe we don't know a person until that person comes into our house more than once, until we know that person in unguarded, candid moments. I'm not talking only about star athletes. I'm talking about anyone.
We didn't know McNair. I am not saying he was bad because he had an affair. I have no idea what went on in his marriage and I don't presume to judge him. But it's clear there was a disparity between the family-man image he chose to project and the reality of his life. We didn't know him. We don't know any of them. Please remember that the next time you want to say an athlete is a hero or a role model. You simply don't know.
That's it for today. Talk to you in a week or so.
It hurts to know that such guys are human. I don't know why. Maybe we imagine that such people, in possession of these athletic gifts, can somehow identify a situation or crossroads and make the judgement better than most can, perhaps in the same way they can read a coverage or spot a zone blitz, but it's not that way. They are as fallible as anyone, and in more precarious a position, in some ways, because of the talent they possess, and the permissiveness and sense of entitlement -a kingly view of the world and your place in it, if you will- that goes along with it. Steve wasn't without his demons beforehand, I believe. His career ended ignominiously in Nashville -locked out of training camp, etc.- and Baltimore didn't pan out either. This is, of course, the worst-case scenario possible. You were a great player, number 9. I watched you play for Alcorn State. RIP.
We have many heros who fail in their personal lives. Kennedy, Washington, Jefferson all had their personal demons and problems (not that McNair was nearly as important or signficant). Our heros today live under the constant scrutiny of the camera lens and scribe's pen. No one is perfect and all are human. We do not excuse or condone their sins but should hold in high regard their accomplishments.
Steve McNair was heroic on the football field. We have lost yet another hero.
nuff said
ESPN SYCHOPHANTS -- The day McNair died the two persons at the microphones for ESPN went on and on about him. They praised him at length, for his athletic performances but also for his life outside football. They called on former teammates of McNair, who also went overboard about McNair the loving husband and devoted father. If all this had been limited to football it would have been sensible, but bringing in unsupported (and now false) information about McNair the husband and father was inappropriate. ESPN needs to improve the quality of its on-air persons.
This is certainly a sad story. I always enjoyed McNair's on-the-field accomplishments.
I watched a fair amount of media coverage, and I started to wonder about all of the "good guy" comments that we heard about McNair. These comments appeared to be sincere, but at the same time I was starting to question why such a good guy could possibly put himself into a relationship with a 20 year old woman.
Things were probably not going well with his marriage and may we never get the correct answers.
It's probably a case of the woman getting some bad news from the man and killing him for it. What produces that kind of emptiness, that you have to kill someone because you don't get your way?
I'm not a conspiracy nut but there is something about this kill scene that doesn't pass the smell test.
A known peaceful woman shooting a man three times at a distance and then walking up close and putting one through his temple? Just don't think so. Not without some history of violence.
it is leaking out that possibly the old boyfriend was with her when she bought the weapon. Again, something is not right here.