Going out on top... and able to walk

Sorry for the day off. I guess I took this bye week thing pretty seriously. Nevertheless, I have been paying a little more attention to football during the past couple days which is a relative statement. I think my ambivalence toward football goes back to those football practices when I was a kid and all the coaches did was scream, yell and carry on.

Was that supposed to motivate me? All it made me want to do was say, “Hey Coach Lombardi, I’m right here. You don’t have to shout. I guess what you are trying to say is that you want me to tackle that guy right there… yes, I can do that. That’s no problem. But in the future say it don’t spray it.”

I doubt football coaches scream like that these days. Athletes and coaches are much more evolved from the hard-assed, clichéd motivational phase. That’s especially true of professional athletes who really don’t need someone yelling at them for motivation. The paycheck does that.

Or at least it should.

But that takes us to the interesting case of Tiki Barber, the yardage-hog running back for the New York Giants. Barber, as everyone has heard or read, has decided to retire from the NFL at the end of the season. Though just 31-years old and leading the NFL in rushing yardage per game while seemingly headed into his prime in his 10th season in the league, Barber apparently believes enough is enough. There’s no sense limping out the door when he can still run.

Needless to say, Barber’s decision has rankled some people. How can Barber quit when he’s still so good and has a few more healthy years ahead of him? Isn’t he going to be a distraction to his teammates? Isn’t he letting them down?

Who does he think he is – Jim Brown?

Well, no. To all of those questions.

Make no mistake, Barber is no Jim Brown, but take that with a grain of salt because I never saw Brown play. I’ve seen a few highlight tapes but that doesn’t explain anything. What does explain things is the way people of that era talk about Jim Brown. In fact, when I was a kid and asked people my parents and grandparents age who the greatest football player of all time, everyone answered a millisecond after the words dropped out of my mouth with, “Jim Brown.”

Then they looked at me like I was crazy for even asking.

Yes, Jim Brown. Who else?

But like Tiki Barber, Jim Brown quit in his prime after just nine seasons. For the longest time Brown was the leading rusher of all time, but when it came down to reporting to camp for the 1966 season or stay and complete the filming of The Dirty Dozen.

He definitely made the right choice.

Barber probably won’t co-star in one of the top 100 thrilling movies of all time, but his plan is to seek work in television. Certainly that’s not surprising because Barber is very polished and comfortable in front of the camera. But that’s not the problem most people have.

You see, most people dreamed of becoming an professional athlete and what could be better than being the running back for the football team in the country’s largest city? But Barber says he doesn’t want to be defined by simply being a football player. There is much more to him, he says.

There lies the contradiction. Most people do not define themselves by their jobs. Instead, regular folks have hobbies or passions that drive them more than just their jobs and work. Why should people whose job is to play football be any different? Why should athletes be held to a different standard?

Why should Tiki Barber have to live out someone else’s dream?

On another note, I always found it curious that sports fans complained about the histrionics of some athletes like Deion Sanders and others who seemed to put a lot of effort into celebrating. “Just play the game and stop all that other nonsense,” went the chorus.

But there was Pete Sampras, one of the greatest three tennis players of all time, simply playing the game and winning like no one ever before. What was the consensus of Pete?

“He’s too boring.”

Not as boring as the double standard.