Sunday, July 5, 2009

FANS Between a Rock and a Hard Place

You know what's hard? Time's up. It's hard to be stunned by the death of your hero and then find out he wasn't exactly hero material, I mean...that he had pronounced shortcomings. I'll preface by ackowledging the "Nobody's perfect" preamble without actually stating it. It goes without saying. But I remember being 16 and finding out that Magic Johnson had contracted the HIV virus through promiscuous escapades during the Showtime era of Lakerdom.

He was the basketball icon who, for me transcended limitations of poverty and circumstance. I wanted to be Magic but despite the tragedy that befell him on that day in November 1991, I couldn't help but ponder the means by which my hero had fallen from grace.

At any rate, here we are 18 years and one sport removed from the demise of my idol. Today we mourn the untimely death...homicide of Steve McNair. He was loved by so many, more than we Californians can even fathom because sports in Tennessee is larger than life and sports figures, I've been told, assume a much more signifcant persona than we're used to. But what's the appropriate line of conversation at this point? McNair was once 1 yard from taking the St. Louis Rams to overtime, he vanquished naysaying critics who said a D-1AA quarterback would never make a career in the NFL and he played through injuries most wouldn't tolerate at a desk job. But when he was found dead, he lay next to a woman who wasn't his wife and very likely his mistress. She was 16 years younger than him and McNair's wife Michelle was at home taking care of their four children when the news broke that the neighborhood gridiron legend had been found dead. So many questions come with stories like these and they fit like soaking wet puzzle pieces. Get it? They don't fit at all actually because real life seldom fits neatly with romanticized iconoclasm. We all have heroes. But once their humanity is revealed, then what?

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