Athletes and their Crowd

When Steinbrenner was buried, not a Yankee player was in attendance. When LeBron James weighed his choices he thought not once of the Cleveland fan or his community. Yet somehow the fan feels the athlete has an investment in him and his world, has some concern about him, responds to his cheers and exhortations. He feels they are joined by their common interest in his team, that the fan is the famous "twelfth man."

This identification is a true public relations miracle. How the coddled, babied, egocentric, self-absorbed and money addled athlete could possibly be seen by the public as representative, heroic, outgoing and responsible in his community staggers the imagination. How many local citizens have to be shot, throttled, beaten, thrown up on, wrecked, groped, raped and terrorized before the community figures it out? The athlete is not one of them. He is not a community member, not a local citizen. He is an obnoxious visitor at best, an alien mercenary at worst. And he cynically exploits the community's best unifying hope: To create a common bond and direction among its people.

This world needs achievers and we need to note them. Heroes would be great, too, but we need achievers. We need them to prove the value of distinction, to show the rewards of effort and sacrifice. We need them to emulate. And we need communities; we need the feeling of some occasional unifying point where we can gather, like around a campfire, and share in our commonality and recognize our filial bond.

We ask too much of these athletes. Let them play. It's the game and the audience we are there for.