Leading up to the presidential election this year, one of the major topics of debate was entitlement programs and the general feeling of entitlement amongst many Americans… I’m not touching that subject with a ten-foot pole. However, I believe there is another issue regarding entitlements which needs to be addressed: the entitlement of professional athletes. Now let me be clear about this before I begin; I do NOT believe all athletes fall into this category! In fact, I feel that many or most professional athletes are hard-working, dedicated individuals who earn everything that they accomplish. I love sports and athletes (heck, I once was one), so I hate the idea of stereotyping all athletes as the same. In my dream future, I would be covering sports as my job- so I obviously have nothing against athletes in general. However, there is a minority that abuses both the power we bestow upon athletes as roll-models and the lifestyle we provide them as being ‘above’ the rest of us.
If you’ve ever been a part of a sports team or hung around one for long enough, you know that there is one constant on all teams: starting at a very young age (often as young as pee-wee football) we treat the best athletes differently than the rest. Because of one’s ability to run fast, throw far, or hit hard we raise them above their teammates; it is almost natural now for coaches, teachers, and even peers to give these players the benefit of the doubt and make life easier for them. I’m sure every former or current athlete can think of at least one experience like this off the top of their head, and each instance can have a very different effect. Many of these superior athletes end up going on to do great things in other fields besides sports, but, unfortunately, some carry on through their lives riding this wave of entitlement. That is, until they run into others of the same or greater talent than them…
Last summer I was sitting in a warehouse, sweating in the oversized football pads I had been given for the shoot. I was an extra for the show Sports Science, and, like most extras, I was largely ignored when I was not being told where to go and what to do for the shoot. Meanwhile, on the other side of the warehouse, two players were sitting in a cool, air-conditioned movie theater waiting for their time to come out, get the shoot over with, and go home. This was a pre- NFL Draft edition, so both players were rookies getting ready to find out where they would be playing for the next X amount of years. One of the guys was D.J. Williams, a tight end coming out of Arkansas who was extremely productive in college but little-known to the casual fan. The other? Titus Young, a slightly better known wide receiver, likely because he was coming out of America’s darling Boise State. Boise had already been on the map thanks to the likes on Ian Johnson and their Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma years ago, but Young was one of the first Boise products to turn into a legitimate NFL prospect. The two could be seen walking in and out of their waiting room laughing and conversing quite casually; they seemed to get along fine and be fairly similar. Then they came out to do the shoot, and they couldn’t have been any different.
(As great of a talent Titus Young was coming out of Boise State, it hasn't been his on-field play that has hurt him with the Lions. Personal issues stemming from a culture of entitlement have hurt Young's career so far.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101223181352/collegefootballmania/images/5/52/Titus_Young.jpg)
D.J. was the first to do his segment, and he was as nice and down-to-earth as you could imagine. He made it easy to work with him. He was so good in the drills that he rarely missed a pass; and when I made a bad pass he even took the blame for it! I distinctly remember one pass sailing a bit high (a pass that would’ve been tough for Yao Ming to catch) and, as D.J. jumped as high as he could just to get a fingertip on the ball, me immediately feeling bad about it. Instead of getting upset or even not saying anything, D.J. walked over and apologized for dropping the pass. Really? You just made one of the most athletic plays I’ve ever seen just to get close and you’re apologizing to me? This was just one moment, but between takes he would ask me simple things about my life and actually made the effort to connect with me. He could have gone back into the waiting room, but chose to interact with those he was working with.
As great as it was working with D.J., it was equally terrible having to work with Titus. He never came out of that room except to do the shoot, and even when he did he didn’t interact with anyone. In fact, he actually told his agent (a white haired, elderly white man who I couldn’t help but think Young wouldn’t be caught dead with in the street) messages to relay on to the workers, on multiple occasions. It was as if interacting with ‘commoners’ was beneath him. When it was time to shoot, my job was to lob the pass over Titus’s head so that he could dive onto a bunch of pads and catch the ball- essentially the exact same thing I would do with my Dad on our couches when I was five. However, this proved to be more difficult than one would expect- timing up the pass with his route perfectly so that he could catch it while fully extended was easier said than done. At first, he kept stopping just before the pads, jumping off two feet instead of in full stride. Once he finally got the jump down it took him a couple tries to be able to locate the ball and make the catch in the air. Now, I don’t mean to insult his ability to do the drill- it was tough and he eventually got it beautifully. However, his attitude the entire time could be described as abrasive, at best. He was, in every way, the complete opposite of D.J. Instead of telling me where he wanted the ball thrown, he would simply look at his agent and give him a look of disgust; at which point the agent would proceed to bitch at me about the throw. While a couple of the passes were admittedly bad(we are all human, after all), there were many others that Titus simply dropped. Nevertheless, this old man kept blaming me over and over (to the point that I wanted to tell him to get off his old ass and do it himself if it was that easy). I left that day with a bad taste in my mouth; how could a future NFL player, one about to get paid millions of dollars to play a game and be a roll-model for thousands of young kids everywhere, be so anti-social? In a fateful outcome, D.J. Williams was drafted by my favorite team, the Green Bay Packers, while Titus Young went to their division rivals, the Detroit Lions.
I quickly moved on from this experience, putting it in the back of my mind but not completely forgetting about it. Then, I ran into an article about the Detroit Lions calendar for next year. While the title was innocent enough, this article provided tons of evidence to support my experience with Young. I found the following passage immensely revealing about the person Young is, regardless of his on-field play:
“Young started his downhill slide when he sucker-punched safety Louis Delmas -- his own teammate -- in a May minicamp practice. In the team's Week 11 loss to the Green Bay Packers, he was actually lining up in the wrong places and running the wrong routes ... on purpose. Last week, center Dominic Raiola summed up his own feelings about Young very succinctly.
‘It's not a distraction, because we have moved on from him,’ Raiola said. ‘If he wants to be an [expletive], let him be an [expletive]. It's not my problem. What we can control is the guys who want to be here. I want people who want to be here and I think everybody else wants the same thing.’
Young was recently placed on season-ending IR with a knee injury, and Schwartz said that he would undergo surgery ‘if he shows up for it.’” (Farrar, "There are a Few...").
Wow… that was my initial thought after reading that. How does someone like that survive in the world? There is only one conclusion I could come to: entitlement. People like Young grow up having everything handed to them and being able to get away with whatever they want because of one redeeming quality (in this case, athletic ability). Coaches, administrators, and teammates do players like Young a disservice by allowing them to skate by because of their selfish reasons: coaches want to win to keep their jobs, players want to win so, they sacrifice to their more talented teammates. But then, one day, Young was no longer looked at and treated the same way- he was just another player on the team. No longer being handed everything that he was used to, Young had no clue what to do- leading to the incidents mentioned above.
Titus Young isn’t the only NFL player in this situation, either. Let’s look at a much bigger and well-known name: Cam Newton. There is always a bunch of buzz around Newton for a variety of reasons, but no one really knows much besides rumors. Here’s some hard evidence:
“‘[Cam] was a total [expletive],’ one AFC player told Prisco. ‘Who did he think he was? He acted like the big [expletive]. Here he was at his first game and he acted like he was the star. Guys didn't like that.’” (Farrar, "Cam Newton’s…").
Players don’t say these kinds of things about other players without reasons. Multiple players don’t make comments like these unwarranted. But why don’t these players realize what is being said about them? Do they not care? As humans, we are not built to simply ignore the fact that most of the people closest to us hate us; we want and need companionship. So are these players all just sociopaths? That’s one idea, but I have another solution: they have so many fans they choose to look at them as determining their worth rather than what those closest to them think. For the average person, we value what our closest friends and relatives think about us more than what strangers may think. But what if you have millions of strangers that called you their hero? A little easier to forget what your friends think and be happy about the strangers’ opinions, huh?
By allowing these kids to get away with whatever they want when they are young (however little it may be), we are encouraging a culture of entitlement in which these young men grow up thinking they can get away with anything. It may seem like it’s not a big deal at the time, but it can snowball so much that they take everything for granted- not appreciating anything they have and not wanting to put in the work to achieve anything more.
References:
Farrar, Doug. "Cam Newton’s Attitude Didn’t Win Him Any Friends at the Pro Bowl." Web log post. Shutdown Corner. Yahoo, 5 Dec. 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. <http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/cam-newton-attitude-didn-t-win-him-friends-225644136--nfl.html>.
Farrar, Doug. "There Are a Few Major Problems with the Detroit Lions’ 2013 Calendar." Web log post. Shutdown Corner. Yahoo, 6 Dec. 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. <http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/few-major-problems-detroit-lions-2013-calendar-134608581--nfl.html>.
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I hope you enjoyed reading! If you have any questions, comments, or other suggestions on how to improve the column or any other topic feel free to contact me at my email address [email protected], on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/adam.colman.9 or on Twitter @AdamRColman.
Thanks for the support!
If you’ve ever been a part of a sports team or hung around one for long enough, you know that there is one constant on all teams: starting at a very young age (often as young as pee-wee football) we treat the best athletes differently than the rest. Because of one’s ability to run fast, throw far, or hit hard we raise them above their teammates; it is almost natural now for coaches, teachers, and even peers to give these players the benefit of the doubt and make life easier for them. I’m sure every former or current athlete can think of at least one experience like this off the top of their head, and each instance can have a very different effect. Many of these superior athletes end up going on to do great things in other fields besides sports, but, unfortunately, some carry on through their lives riding this wave of entitlement. That is, until they run into others of the same or greater talent than them…
Last summer I was sitting in a warehouse, sweating in the oversized football pads I had been given for the shoot. I was an extra for the show Sports Science, and, like most extras, I was largely ignored when I was not being told where to go and what to do for the shoot. Meanwhile, on the other side of the warehouse, two players were sitting in a cool, air-conditioned movie theater waiting for their time to come out, get the shoot over with, and go home. This was a pre- NFL Draft edition, so both players were rookies getting ready to find out where they would be playing for the next X amount of years. One of the guys was D.J. Williams, a tight end coming out of Arkansas who was extremely productive in college but little-known to the casual fan. The other? Titus Young, a slightly better known wide receiver, likely because he was coming out of America’s darling Boise State. Boise had already been on the map thanks to the likes on Ian Johnson and their Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma years ago, but Young was one of the first Boise products to turn into a legitimate NFL prospect. The two could be seen walking in and out of their waiting room laughing and conversing quite casually; they seemed to get along fine and be fairly similar. Then they came out to do the shoot, and they couldn’t have been any different.
(As great of a talent Titus Young was coming out of Boise State, it hasn't been his on-field play that has hurt him with the Lions. Personal issues stemming from a culture of entitlement have hurt Young's career so far.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101223181352/collegefootballmania/images/5/52/Titus_Young.jpg)
D.J. was the first to do his segment, and he was as nice and down-to-earth as you could imagine. He made it easy to work with him. He was so good in the drills that he rarely missed a pass; and when I made a bad pass he even took the blame for it! I distinctly remember one pass sailing a bit high (a pass that would’ve been tough for Yao Ming to catch) and, as D.J. jumped as high as he could just to get a fingertip on the ball, me immediately feeling bad about it. Instead of getting upset or even not saying anything, D.J. walked over and apologized for dropping the pass. Really? You just made one of the most athletic plays I’ve ever seen just to get close and you’re apologizing to me? This was just one moment, but between takes he would ask me simple things about my life and actually made the effort to connect with me. He could have gone back into the waiting room, but chose to interact with those he was working with.
As great as it was working with D.J., it was equally terrible having to work with Titus. He never came out of that room except to do the shoot, and even when he did he didn’t interact with anyone. In fact, he actually told his agent (a white haired, elderly white man who I couldn’t help but think Young wouldn’t be caught dead with in the street) messages to relay on to the workers, on multiple occasions. It was as if interacting with ‘commoners’ was beneath him. When it was time to shoot, my job was to lob the pass over Titus’s head so that he could dive onto a bunch of pads and catch the ball- essentially the exact same thing I would do with my Dad on our couches when I was five. However, this proved to be more difficult than one would expect- timing up the pass with his route perfectly so that he could catch it while fully extended was easier said than done. At first, he kept stopping just before the pads, jumping off two feet instead of in full stride. Once he finally got the jump down it took him a couple tries to be able to locate the ball and make the catch in the air. Now, I don’t mean to insult his ability to do the drill- it was tough and he eventually got it beautifully. However, his attitude the entire time could be described as abrasive, at best. He was, in every way, the complete opposite of D.J. Instead of telling me where he wanted the ball thrown, he would simply look at his agent and give him a look of disgust; at which point the agent would proceed to bitch at me about the throw. While a couple of the passes were admittedly bad(we are all human, after all), there were many others that Titus simply dropped. Nevertheless, this old man kept blaming me over and over (to the point that I wanted to tell him to get off his old ass and do it himself if it was that easy). I left that day with a bad taste in my mouth; how could a future NFL player, one about to get paid millions of dollars to play a game and be a roll-model for thousands of young kids everywhere, be so anti-social? In a fateful outcome, D.J. Williams was drafted by my favorite team, the Green Bay Packers, while Titus Young went to their division rivals, the Detroit Lions.
I quickly moved on from this experience, putting it in the back of my mind but not completely forgetting about it. Then, I ran into an article about the Detroit Lions calendar for next year. While the title was innocent enough, this article provided tons of evidence to support my experience with Young. I found the following passage immensely revealing about the person Young is, regardless of his on-field play:
“Young started his downhill slide when he sucker-punched safety Louis Delmas -- his own teammate -- in a May minicamp practice. In the team's Week 11 loss to the Green Bay Packers, he was actually lining up in the wrong places and running the wrong routes ... on purpose. Last week, center Dominic Raiola summed up his own feelings about Young very succinctly.
‘It's not a distraction, because we have moved on from him,’ Raiola said. ‘If he wants to be an [expletive], let him be an [expletive]. It's not my problem. What we can control is the guys who want to be here. I want people who want to be here and I think everybody else wants the same thing.’
Young was recently placed on season-ending IR with a knee injury, and Schwartz said that he would undergo surgery ‘if he shows up for it.’” (Farrar, "There are a Few...").
Wow… that was my initial thought after reading that. How does someone like that survive in the world? There is only one conclusion I could come to: entitlement. People like Young grow up having everything handed to them and being able to get away with whatever they want because of one redeeming quality (in this case, athletic ability). Coaches, administrators, and teammates do players like Young a disservice by allowing them to skate by because of their selfish reasons: coaches want to win to keep their jobs, players want to win so, they sacrifice to their more talented teammates. But then, one day, Young was no longer looked at and treated the same way- he was just another player on the team. No longer being handed everything that he was used to, Young had no clue what to do- leading to the incidents mentioned above.
Titus Young isn’t the only NFL player in this situation, either. Let’s look at a much bigger and well-known name: Cam Newton. There is always a bunch of buzz around Newton for a variety of reasons, but no one really knows much besides rumors. Here’s some hard evidence:
“‘[Cam] was a total [expletive],’ one AFC player told Prisco. ‘Who did he think he was? He acted like the big [expletive]. Here he was at his first game and he acted like he was the star. Guys didn't like that.’” (Farrar, "Cam Newton’s…").
Players don’t say these kinds of things about other players without reasons. Multiple players don’t make comments like these unwarranted. But why don’t these players realize what is being said about them? Do they not care? As humans, we are not built to simply ignore the fact that most of the people closest to us hate us; we want and need companionship. So are these players all just sociopaths? That’s one idea, but I have another solution: they have so many fans they choose to look at them as determining their worth rather than what those closest to them think. For the average person, we value what our closest friends and relatives think about us more than what strangers may think. But what if you have millions of strangers that called you their hero? A little easier to forget what your friends think and be happy about the strangers’ opinions, huh?
By allowing these kids to get away with whatever they want when they are young (however little it may be), we are encouraging a culture of entitlement in which these young men grow up thinking they can get away with anything. It may seem like it’s not a big deal at the time, but it can snowball so much that they take everything for granted- not appreciating anything they have and not wanting to put in the work to achieve anything more.
References:
Farrar, Doug. "Cam Newton’s Attitude Didn’t Win Him Any Friends at the Pro Bowl." Web log post. Shutdown Corner. Yahoo, 5 Dec. 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. <http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/cam-newton-attitude-didn-t-win-him-friends-225644136--nfl.html>.
Farrar, Doug. "There Are a Few Major Problems with the Detroit Lions’ 2013 Calendar." Web log post. Shutdown Corner. Yahoo, 6 Dec. 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2012. <http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/few-major-problems-detroit-lions-2013-calendar-134608581--nfl.html>.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope you enjoyed reading! If you have any questions, comments, or other suggestions on how to improve the column or any other topic feel free to contact me at my email address [email protected], on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/adam.colman.9 or on Twitter @AdamRColman.
Thanks for the support!
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