Once again, a star athlete has let us down.
Nashville police have officially ruled that Steve McNair’s 20-year old mistress shot the retired QB in his sleep, then turned the gun on himself.
As a lifelong wrestling fan, part of me exhaled that McNair was the murdered part of the equation, unlike Chris Benoit.
In this case, McNair was cheating on his wife and his mistress, amid financial problems, thought he had another woman in his life. Let me get this straight. McNair is married to Wife (with four kids, by the way). He has been dating Mistress #1 (just 20 years old, by the way). Wife knows nothing of Mistress #1. Mistress #1 suspects that there is Mistress #2 (who has not stepped forward, by the way). In her over-stressed state, she decided not only is her life not worth living, but that she was going to take McNair with her.
However, we continue to have celebrities and athletes disappoint us with their unfortunate humanity.
Over at CBSSports.com, Mike Freeman has compiled lists of both groups of people who lied, cheated, stole and worse.
It’s staggering, the number of people we put on a pedestal that so often fail in the spotlight.
Just yesterday, we celebrated the life of Michael Jackson, a man who certainly had allegations swirling around him, though he was never convicted of any crime.
In this TMZ 24-hour news network world we live in where EVERYBODY is always “on,” and every detail of everything is eventually made public, I ask this question:
Are you still shocked???
There is very little that is actually shocking to me right now. When public figures die, well, it was coming sooner or later, right? When a famous person does something so illegal, so heinous, so immoral, well…playing the odds, you knew they’d snap eventually, right? When your sports hero is openly derided for cheating, you had a hunch that something just wasn’t adding up, right?
Perhaps its because we have seen the worst things that can happen and we know that we can pull through.
Baby Boomers saw the President assassinated. Gen Yers saw the World Trade Center fall. Across the generations, we all know that life will, indeed, go on.
We’ve seen Magic Johnson diagnosed with AIDS. We’ve seen Michael Vick convicted of murdering dogs. We’ve seen more celebrity mug shots than we can count.
Does a retired QB getting some action on the side really make an impact? Does the mistress turning into a murderess really make an impact?
Unfortunately, we are so desensitized as a society that this story will be replaced by something even more shocking in just a few days.
And while we, as fans and observers, can move on, the real victims are the families who will live with this situation for the rest of their lives. A lying father. An unfaithful husband. A suicidal daughter. How can they trust anyone ever again?
No, I’m not shocked. Just very, very sad.,
Yes, I think people will continue to be shocked. The next great athlete who turns out to be a steroid/HGH abuser will shock them. The next great athlete who turns out to be a jerk will shock them. The next great athlete who turns out to be a drug abuser will shock them. The next great athlete who turns out to be a cheater will shock them.
It’s because we as a society cannot put revere an athlete without revering everything about them, both professionally and personally. Bill James once wrote about this, in reference to Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, how every great young baseball player coming up immediately has all sorts of articles written not just about their great talent but also about how terrific a person they are.
Heck, look at how Nike and Spike Lee *needed* to get the word out that Kobe Bryant was a ‘changed man’ and a true teammate. It wasn’t enough that he was the best player in the NBA and about to win another title. He also has to be a good person again, and there were too many stories out there about Kobe not being a good person.
Evan Longoria may or may not be a good person, but he’s a fantastic ballplayer. LeBron James may or may not be a good person, but he’s the future of the NBA. Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham are most definitely not the best people, but the dudes can sure play soccer.
An unbelievably high majority of athletes cheat on their wives/girlfriends. Apparently, so do Governors of South Carolina. It’s not appropriate behavior, it’s not condonable behavior. It’s just the facts.