What I read here is a bit puzzling. It says that:
'The public has a need for sporting heroes as well, and every generation seems to anoint a new god. "There's always one," Jolly said. "There was Nicklaus and Palmer, there was Michael Jordan for a long time, now it's Woods and Schumacher. In 10 years it will be somebody else."'
How come. I have no need for a sporting hero. Maybe Michael Schumacher is a a hero for Tim Blair because he likes fast, stylish cars and admires Schumacher's extraordinary skill.
But a need for a hero? Why? Is it because we need to look up to someone? To model oneself on that person? To identify with them? To be inspired by the hero.
Hardly. Take Leyton Hewitt as a hero. Can you imagine anything worse? With Hewitt its a simple back and white view of Leyton against the world that is modelled on the parodic Rocky V1 of a patriotic Rock versus the Soviet cyborg.
This is sport as war. You can admire Hewitt as the kid who made good on the global stage, but he needs to to be taken down a peg---just like the Australian cricket team. It is a world in which you hate the media, call officials spastics, abuses black linesman and has little responsibility to the game that has made him wealthy. He's full of hatred.
Yuk. Lets hope Andre Agassi takes out Wimbledon, Hewitt is beaten in the first round by an unknown qualifier and the courts throw out his claim for damages.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at June 15, 2003 11:17 AM | TrackBack