The vicarious athlete

When I was six years old, my brother took me to my first hockey game. It was 1987, and the Leafs were playing the Chicago Blackhawks. My brother could only afford standing room, so I watched the first period hanging over the railing, trying to keep up with the action. By the end of the first period, an usher took mercy on us, and let me sit in an unoccupied seat a few rows down.  Of course, because these were the Harold Ballard Leafs of the mid-80s, we lost 6 - 3. But it didn't matter, I was hooked. From that day on, like every young adolescent male, it became my dream to be a professional hockey player.

Or basketball player.

Or baseball player.

Or soccer player.

The sport itself of course was irrelevant. What was important was the glory; the idea of winning in front of thousands of adoring fans. To lead your team down the field down by six, with only two-minutes left. Or going up to bat, bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, down by three.

Of course, being 5'8, a 160 pounds soaking wet and the lung capacity of a sixty-year old smoker put an early kibosh on any realistic hopes of playing for the Raptors, but like every other guy sitting in a cubicle ten hours a day, someday hitting that winning shot still occupies a healthy amount of my daydreams.

If it sounds pathetic that an out of shape, grown-man to still dreams about someday making the big leagues,  well, you're sort of right. I mean, these fantasies were a lot less sad when I was a kid, and players were significantly older than I was. Imagine how depressing it is now to watch the 2009 NHL draft, and see that the #1 pick was born in 1991 (and somehow still manages to have much more convincing facial hair too.)

What's more depressing than seeing players too young to remember the release of The Phantom Menace? How about when athletes that are your age start to enter the twilight of their careers? Newsweek ran a story today about Roger Federer, arguably the greatest tennis player of all time, and how his astounding dominance is slowly becoming a thing of the past. To hear a fan of tennis talk about Federer's game at its peak, is to hear someone talk as if they were in love:

In boxing, there was Sugar Ray Robinson and, later, Muhammad Ali. In baseball, there was Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays; in football, Joe Montana. In basketball, Julius Erving did so, as did, more emphatically, Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods does it for people who watch golf, Pelé used to do it for soccer fans. All these figures add a touch of poetry to the games they play, and thereby elevate their sport to something greater than itself.

The author of that quote, Joseph Epstein, recently wrote a biography of Fred Astaire, so you know he knows a thing or two about the beauty that can be found in physicality.

And yet, Federer, who has won 13 Grand Slams so far in his career (and if not for his chief rival Rafael Nadal, another top ten player of all time, the total could easily be at least sixteen) has started to lose to players other than Nadal. Federer has even started to lose to mortal players, getting knocked out of tournaments earlier and earlier, in non-descript tournaments he would have won blind-folded in the past.

As if it's not depressing enough, watching someone of Federer's unmatched athletic brilliance start to physically deteriorate, imagine how I felt once I saw that he was four months younger than me. Good grief.

Of course it's one thing to be a tennis player and see your body start to go; other than the odd missed shot, the decline of your skills happens so gradually, you're usually able to bow out of the game with relative grace and dignity. The same luxury does not typically exist for other athletes, most notably fighters. The loss of their skill comes much more suddenly, and usually becomes evident in a much more shocking, and definitive fashion - their loss of consciousness.

There may have been no greater humiliation in modern sports, than when Roy Jones Jr lost to journeyman fighter, Glen Johnson. RJJ, a once in a generation talent who looked invincible at his peak. Johnson was a construction worker, who still needed to work his 9-5 job to make ends meet. Jones was supposed to make quick work of Johnson, but something had happened. The air of invincibility was all gone.

Left in its place, RJJ up against the ropes, drifting in and out of consciousness, his shorts allegedly soiled after getting knocked out.



This past Saturday, I witnessed the similar destruction of another fighter, former UFC champion Chuck Liddell. For years before MMA's recent explosion in popularity, Liddell stood as the UFC's lone legitimate star. While other mixed-martial-artists toiled in obscurity, making as little as three thousand dollars a fight, Liddell was said to have raked in over a cool million each (after PPV bonuses) for his last four fights. But the Liddell of Saturday night was not the same ‘Iceman' who had knocked out Tito Ortiz and Randy Couture, twice. Nor was he the one who brutalized Jeremy Horn so badly, that the 80-fight veteran literally begged off any more punishment.

No, Saturday's fighter was slow.

His punches and kicks took an extra milli-second to reach their mark, which was all his opponent, ‘Shogun' Rua, needed, evading each strike with ease. Ultimately, it was his reflexes that led to his downfall. Shogun, knocked Liddell out with a leaping left hook. There was no set-up. Liddell was not stunned. It was a strike launched from four feet away. Two or three years ago, Chuck would have not only avoided Shogun's punch, but would have viciously countered him. But that Chuck Liddell is gone. The 39-year old Chuck Liddell took it on the chin, and was finished.

While the pinnacle for a professional athlete may be higher than any other profession out there, so is the decline. Lawyers, doctors, and engineers, reach their professional peak in their 40s and 50s; it's during this time they usually reach the peak of their field, maximize their earnings potential, and finally feel comfortable in their job.  By the time retirement comes, the average professional is more relieved than anything, looking forward to spending their golden years in relative quiet and comfort. Compare that to the life of the average retired professional athlete; in his mid-30s, a young man in any other profession, but past his prime at his, and with nothing left but his memories and time. If he's lucky, he'll have some money socked away, but more likely than not, he'll have to supplement his income with some sort of job - the fortunate get some sort of television or coaching gig -  the not so fortunate end up in used-car dealerships that populate the suburbs of the cities where they played.

As I get older, I still have the same daydreams of scoring the winning goal, or winning the big championship fight. But as I see the Liddell's and the Jones' ride off into the sunset, I realize that maybe I don't have it so bad after all.