We've all been guilty of it; complaining how Pro-Athletes don't care about the game. How they lost their love for the game, and are only in it for the paycheck. It's what makes fans enjoy the college game more than the NFL, NBA, or MLB. It's why the Olympics, although made up of amateurs and professionals, elicit more of an emotional response from viewers than does the average regular season professional game. The fans want to watch a game that has meaning for the players and thus can also have meaning for the fan.
For all of us whiners who ever dared say that the Pro's don't care; just re-watch KG breaking down during his interview while trying to explain what winning the NBA championship felt like. Sure, he said that the interviewer looked hot. Sure, it seemed as if he paid homage to a myriad of places most of us have never heard about, and would never want to go to. He may not be the most articulate man in the world. But, those tears of happiness and joy that spilled down his face... I for one will never say that the Pro game is full of athletes who don't care.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jackson/080618&sportCat=nba
The game of his life
By Scoop JacksonPage 2(Archive Contact)
The beauty and innocence of what this game is supposed to be about when money, power and disrespect are not the guiding forces in your life. His answer, one of the ageless. One for the ages.
"You ever go to school," he said, finding the perfect words, "and you had a bully mess with you every day? I know everybody ain't no tough guy here. It's like that bully that you go to school every day [with] and you know when you get out of your mom's or dad's car, you know you're going to see him as soon as you walk through the doors, he's sitting there waiting to pat your pockets and mess with you. Then one day you say, 'This is going to stop today!' You walk in and as soon as the bully pats your pockets you lay his ass out and you see the expression on his face. You're sorta shook because you know what, you just knocked the bully out and you don't know how he's going to come back. The next morning when you come in and he's not there, it's like a sigh of relief. It's like getting rid of the bully. It's like I knocked the bully's ass out! I knocked his ass clean out. That's what it feels like. For all y'all who ain't been bullied, y'all got no idea what I'm talking about. But for y'all who have, you understand my story."
Scoop Jackson is a columnist for ESPN.com.
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