As a consumer of sports media, I have been rather apalled at how the media is treating certain actions taken by some very high profile sports individuals.
I am not talking about Gilbert Arenas, Tiger Woods or Mark McGwire, each whom doomed their public lives with their excess of arrogance and have recieved treatment fitting their delusions. I am instead attacking two individuals who appear to be just as deluded, but no one seems to have noticed. Where is the media condemnation of these two who have broken the cardinal rule in athletics—team above all else?
I refer to Quarterbacks Colt McCoy and Brett Favre, two individuals who led their teams to amazing seasons that would have been impossible without their contributions. McCoy led the Texas Longhorns to the Bowl Champion Series National Title game, while Favre led his Vikings to the NFC Championship game. Both of them lost these games and they lost on this stage for the exact same reason in my mind: cowardice.
Both of these guys were not fully committed to their team. With Favre, its apparent in his arguments with Coach Brad Childress and mental errors that caused his interceptions that would ultimately doom his bid to return to the Superbowl. I disagree with the assertion that becuase Favre knows more than Childress, he should be allowed to impugn Childress becuase by definition, a quarterback is a player and thus should always at least respect the Coach, no matter the facts of right and wrong. Without that respect there is no team, no synergy that allows the whole to be greater than the part.
And how can we forget the whole Green Bay Packer debacle? Ever since he left Green Bay, I have regarded Favre with growing disrespect. His weenie-whiny, flippy-floppy decisions about whether to come back are embarassingly childish. You’d think a 40-year-old would have a little more diginity, but he doesn’t even think he’s done anything wrong because he’s so arrogant.
McCoy is, I believe, a much more concerning matter. I will be the first to admit that I don’t know the facts of his medical case entirely, but I do know what I saw, and what I saw was someone more concerned with his own future than that of the Glory of the team. I remember distinctly the announcers of the game saying, “He’ll make the decision that is best for Colt McCoy,” and I could not believe my ears.
Sure, McCoy wants to make sure that his NFL stock doesn’t decrease with an injury, but if you won’t play in the National Championship Game, then what game will you play in? In addition, McCoy was not the only player on this team, his value was not so great that he got the Longhorns to the Championship alone. And when he left the game in the first quarter, he sent a clear message to his teammates that he turned away from them: “Your goals are not as important as mine.” Sure other ‘horns will follow McCoy into the draft and end up making a ton of money just like McCoy, but that doesn’t mean that all of them will, or that all of them don’t care about winning a National Championship. And that means that when McCoy left the game, he abandoned his duty to these players who had sacrificed for four years and worked their asses off to get into the championship game.
Above all though, and I know it’s kitchy, but when Colt McCoy left the game to ensure his millions, he left millions of fans out in the cold. Personally, I’m a Mizzou Tigers fan, which is in the Big 12 Conference, the same conference as Texas. And dammit, I want to see the big 12 break the SEC’s dynasty on College Football. This might not have been our year anyway, but McCoy dropping out made that dream impossible. And I’m not even a Texas fan.
All in all, there is no ‘I” in team and even though its boring and old, teams that actually commit to each other and winning are the teams that will have advantage. The most telling statistic that these two Premadonnas have in common is that they’re both losers now. Sure they won a lot in their career, and I won’t knock Favre for what he did in Green Bay, but they cannot, should not and hopefully will not ever win the big one.
