Pay attention all of you basketball fans, Gonzaga's Morrison is the real deal. I was on the scorer's table at the USF/Gonzaga game on Monday night and I watched as this guy made shot after shot after shot look easy. He completely Kobe'd our time - and could have easily had 80 points had USF not realized about 12 minutes in that the Refs were watching some other, more genteel, game where fouling didn't exist. They manhandled Morrison after that and he only scored another 17 points on his way to 41 for the night. It was the best shooting performance I'd seen in years on, apparently, a routine night for Morrison. Gonzaga may only be #7, but this guy could take them to the Final Four with ease.
USF was absolutely packed from the floor to the roof. I've really come to appreciate the fact that I have seats right on the court and that I'm close enough to the players to have to cover my nose in the fourth quarter when they pass by the table to check in to the game. I'll be that close for the NCAA Sweet 16 as well and I can hardly wait. My proximity to the game has given me a front row seat into college players attitudes and coaches commentary - Bobby Knight is still the best to listen to - and for the most part I'd say that that has been a great way to witness the game. It feels great during an incredibly tight game to feel the pressure of all those fans yelling, screaming, stomping their feet and knowing that you have to yell above all that to make sure that the scoring is done correctly. Its work, sure, but its also pleasure. When a game ends, it sometimes takes a short while to come down off of that high.
Not so on Monday night. As soon as the game was over, Morrison was ushered across the court to the ESPN interview. He was surrounded by about two hundred fans forming a little prayer circle around the ESPN crew and Morrison. I don't know what he said. I just sat and watched in amazement as adults and children alike all pushed in close to be a part of Morrison's glory. I bet half of them couldn't have found Gonzaga on a map.
After the interview, Morrison was escorted through the crowd by a team of handlers for more interviews downstairs. As I gathered my things, a kid walked up to me and asked to borrow my pen so that he could get autographs. I didn't have a problem with it, so I handed him my pen. I watched as the kid went from player to player looking, searching, for Morrison. Morrison wasn't around and the kid was dejected. As I went outside to wait for my car from the valet, I overheard a couple of parents talking about Morrison's bodyguard and about the fact that he wasn't signing autographs for anyone.
The whole thing just struck me as sad. The mad frenzy to see some 19 year old kid who can shoot the basketball incredibly well and then to be a part of that by collecting his autograph, by basking in his glory. I couldn't understand this frenzy. I've seen fans before - I've been a fan before - but I've never seen behavior like this; like children eager for the gates to open at Disneyland. Have we finally reached that point in society where our heroes can move us to do irrational acts on the basis of what they do and not who they are? We've all heard about Hitler's almost hypnotic power of speech over the masses, but who cares about that - all we'd ever hear is soundbites anyway. If he could shoot a three-pointer, however, he's golden.
I wonder what affect our attention deficit education is having on the future of this country. I wonder what sitting kids down in front of TV's and DVD's instead of sending them outside to play is doing to their view of the world. I wonder what our glorification of sport and entertainment is doing to our values - putting first and foremost our ability to be cool, or to play sports. I wonder what our simplistic approach to heroics is doing to our sense of a person's qualifications.
I may be making too much of one little game and one tiny player, who in the grand scheme of things means almost nothing - his playing career will be over in the blink of an eye and his statistics will join the fabric of a sport that will long outlast him. But I still worry over the fate of a nation that seems more worried about whether the Superdome can be rebuilt in time for next season's football games than whether there will be anyone in New Orleans to see those games.
We all need to get our priorities straight.
5 comments:
You know, its funny that you would post this today. I am a sports nut, always have been, yet I admit to a certain detachment from sports and entertainment in general.
It's not that I don't enjoy movies, TV, baseball, football, etc...but I think I've changed my priorities a bit to where it doesn't command the level of importance to life that I once attributed to it.
Why do we attach ourselves to celebrity? They're all flawed humans like the rest of us - they just happen to have a profession that makes them a little bit more well known to the general public than you or me. Sure it gives them some measure of fame, some measure of additional material goods that you and I don't have,
but after it's all said and done, it doesn't matter.
What matters is that our souls are cleansed, and saved.
Oh Will, oh Will, please let me answer that one… Lemme, lemme, lemmee!.
Speaking as *your* (first?) fan, I believe I have the authority to respond to this :) .
I think we are all born with a void within us that needs to be filled. Often this manifests as the need to connect with people. We are social creatures but most of don’t know that the “void”, the longing to connect with others, is our need to connect with, be *one* with, God. When we admire another person’s skills or talent, it is like how hunger makes us eat, thirst makes us drink and sexual arousal causes us to procreate. We need these inclinations to survive. Our admiration for others gives us the inclination to “connect”. In order to love God, we must also love each other. Therefore, only by connecting with others can we survive spiritually.
For those who don’t get their void filled by God, these inclinations get warped and can morph into obsessive behavior such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sexual dependence etc. Sometimes even fans get obsessive as you well know, considering what happened to John Lennon. However, like most things, if taken in moderation, they are relatively harmless.
So Will, I wouldn’t worry too much about Morrison’s fans but I will continue to worry about our education system that doesn’t seem to be working very well.
Sue, as Will's good friend, and hopefully his financial advisor when he strikes it big with the novel ;-) - I would easily say that you are not only his first real non-childhood friend, non-family member fan, but perhaps his biggest fan as well.
May we give his ego a little jumpstart on this fine Friday afternoon.
I'd like to think that I offer my fans more than just a pretty looking 3 pointer, but I admit a certain connection to Morrison as an entertainer. I realize from being in his shoes that the adulation in nice, but the reason I do what I do. And so, perhaps, an alternative reason why Morrison does not sign autographs. Perhaps it is his way of saying, "I am not a hero. I play basketball. Go find someone worth praising. But thank you for your consideration."
I reached an important milestone in my book last night and so, soon, perhaps I will have to deal with these issues in real life. But I strongly suspect I won't have kids racing after my autograph like I was the ice cream man handing out free ice cream cones.
Now, I wouldn't mind if I was swarmed by a dozen cute redheaded fans who wanted me to sign... er, nevermind. This is a Christian blog... ;)
A dozen cute redheaded Christian missionaries and youth leaders, is what I think you meant to say... ;-)
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