| Authored by Forrest Wilkinson - 19th July, 2006 - 5:37 am
 Once and again, professional athletes are pressured by the media and fans to perform sensational acts and stir such incredible controversy to entertain and enthuse fans from around the globe. They are held to high standards and, in the said pressure, expected to maintain professionalism and uphold these "comme il faut" morals. Many of these athletes are also assumed to do so at very young ages.
Michelle Wie is 16, and also considered/expected, by Time Magazine, to be "one of the 100 people who shape our world."
Fernando Martinez is also 16, and currently being moved from his previous home in the Dominican Republic to a New York Mets minor league affiliate, being paid $1.4 million dollars, which, according to the New York Daily News is "unprecedented" and "believed to be the most a major league club has ever paid for a player from the Dominican Republic."
Freddy Adu was 13 when he signed a contract with Major League Soccer and joined the Bradenton Academy, where Wikipedia.org describes a "typical day" as consisting of "classes in the morning followed by athletic training in the afternoon. Students at the academy take accelerated courses and graduate high school a year early." But, "a year early" would seem to be misleading as Adu graduated in the year 2003, at age 14.
LeBron James, raised in a poor area, constantly moving and without contact with his biological father, burst into the national scene at age 17 and signed a massive contract with Nike in his NBA rookie season worth $90 million. From having no attention and few who cared about his actions in the slums of Akron, Ohio, to having preternatural news coverage, uninterrupted attention, and a myriad of pecuniary incentives -- LeBron James was presupposed to stay out of trouble and handle unheard-of amounts of money, and if he did not, his newfound fame would quickly turn to a plethora of opprobrium.
These, friends, are few of many stories of young athletes, people with astronomical amounts of talent being thrown into the media pictures -- money they never dreamed of making, force-fed to them via long-term contracts and massive ad campaigns. Terrell Owens was the exception to this rule.
An outsider to the national attention that many of the aforementioned athletes received at young ages, Owens was a non-factor in much of his high school career -- putting up less-than-extraordinary numbers and being picked on, humiliated, and discouraged by fellow classmates. Despite this, he played several different sports, and selected his college based on the criteria that it would allow him to engage in all of them -- a hard worker, he was. Idolizing Jerry Rice, Owens fought his way through college, earning a spot on the University of Tennessee's squad and further proving himself worthy as a football player and an individual.
His efforts paid off when he was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 1996 -- not a first-round choice, not an instant star, but nevertheless, a spot on a professional sports franchise alongside his life-long idol, Jerry Rice. While his career appeared to be unfolding as expected, Rice was injured and Owens was thrown into the spotlight and, subsequently, performed at higher standards than could have been asked for. Finding himself in a frenzy of fan-adoration after being on the receiving-end of "The Catch II," all of Owens' insecurity developed in his high-school career began to be seen.
Finally he had the attention that he had craved in his high school and college years -- and without preparation, or someone to talk to, Owens simply didn't know how to respond. He let his emotions cave-in upon himself and finally let out all of the childhood self-consciousness he had been longing to unleash. Not knowing with whom he should speak, Owens feared his fame was to be short-lived, and sooner, rather than later, his fifteen-minutes-of-fame would elapse.
He attacked quarterbacks, destroyed franchises, manipulated coaches, involved himself in physical altercations -- but, when all was said-and-done, he was the same high-schooler, trying to hold tight to the notoriety which he had entangled himself in. He didn't care what kind of publicity it was, he wanted it; Terrell Owens didn't want Terrell Owens' fifteen-minutes-of-fame to end, so he extended them in any way possible. And finally, something I have been anticipating for the past year has occurred. He has exposed, ever-so-slightly, an adolescent life of ignominy, yet the media refuses to understand. And the more fire-power the media gives him, the harder it will be for Terrell Owens to, eventually, find help for reluctance to allow himself to be unspoken-of for long periods of time.
When I watched Terrell Owens on his front lawn, apologizing to the Eagles' staff, I saw an honest demeanor and a troubled man whose wrong-doings had finally caught up with him -- pleading for the chance to play the game he loved. And then, there was Drew Rosenhaus. Suit-and-tie, every answer in-hand
-- and any attempts to reconcile, were lost.
Terrell Owens is nothing more than a victim of his own fear, mingled in between a staff of people who should have never been related to him. A man lost in the evils of fame, fortune, and, predictably, misfortune -- still hoping, that maybe someday, someone will accept him for who he is and not who he appears to be.
Terrell Owens is simply the calamity which should have been recognized earlier with the premature exposure that comes along with young people in sports. And it is my wish that he would find a person who can reveal the inner emotions of Terrell Owens, in hopes that, when the time comes, his record will be pardoned, if nowhere else, in his own mind.
forrest@northsider.net |
