Winning is not the key to forgiveness
By GARY SHELTON
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 19, 2001
In the end, all I really know about redemption is this:
It doesn't live in an end zone.
No matter what you are led to believe over the next few days, forgiveness for human frailty is not bestowed by athletic feats, no matter how impressive they may appear.
One does not measure personal growth with a first-down marker.
One does not achieve vindication on a scoreboard.
Winning makes you a richer person. It does not necessarily make you a better one.
Keep this in mind as we approach the Redemption Bowl, a game in which everyone seems to be attempting to achieve one sort of pardon or another. Ray Lewis. Kerry Collins. Art Modell and Christian Peter and Larry Webster. And darned near everybody else.
The winners get the microphones, and with them, the last words. In such moments, they tend to chastise the world for the lack of respect, and the absence of justice, they have received on their very difficult paths. It isn't enough to win anymore. You have to overcome. A bad rap. A disbelieving press. A false arrest.
More often than not, people tend to listen. With our society the way it is, one of the rewards of success is being granted the benefit of the doubt. The more you win, the less the past seems to matter.
Ray Lewis is a magnificent football player. That doesn't make his actions right a year ago , which led to a guilty plea to obstruction of justice in a double homicide. It doesn't mean his apparent lack of regret over his actions is understandable. It means simply that he is a magnificent football player.
Kerry Collins seems to have come a long way since the days he was branded a quitter, a drunk and a racist. Great for him. But Collins didn't get there because he threw five touchdowns against the Vikings. He got there because he quit the booze, because he attended the meetings, because he straighted out his life.
When it comes to sports, this is our most common mistake. We rewrite the lives of those who play the game until they are fictional characters, until their personalities make them the way we would have them be, until they are wacky, fun-loving guys we'd love to hang out with. We assume that only great people can make great plays, and we twist it and turn it until it is Lewis who is the victim, until it is Collins' burden, not that of the teams in his wake, that we feel.
This is how it happens. Latrell Sprewell becomes the best basketball player in New York, and one by one, his fingers are unwrapped from the throat of his former coach. Bill Romanowski wins a couple of Super Bowls and we forget about the spitting, and the racist remarks, and the diet pill scam. Roger Clemens was just picking up litter, for goodness' sake.
We can forgive Mike Tyson and Darryl Strawberry. It is unclear what O.J. Simpson has to do to get back in the good graces of America, but a touchdown or two would be a fine start. In the end, the only thing people really seem to hold against Lawrence Phillips is that he was too lousy a player. If he hadn't been, trust me -- his public persona would be much different today. And how many Super Bowls until Rae Carruth is dancing in the end zone?
Ever since Burt Reynolds dived into the end zone in The Longest Yard, that's the way it has worked. You give us a thrill and we'll give you a pass.
Personally, I'm a little surprised that hasn't been written into the XFL bylaws. Can you imagine a conversation between Vince McMahon and his marketing flaks?
"What we need is a murder," McMahon would say. "Something to make the gawkers pay attention. Something to make them argue and cheer and jeer."
"You mean like Rae Carruth?"
"Rats. The NFL beat us there. How about an accused murderer who comes back to be the star of the best defense in history?"
"Ray Lewis?"
"Oh, right. How about a diet pill-using, spitting, racist ... "
"Bill Romanowski."
"Hmm. Why, exactly, did we decide the world needed an XFL?"
Look, Lewis is the best football player in this game. He might well win MVP. He might win fame, and he might win fortune. But redemption? Who judges that? The head linesman or the back judge? And is Lewis more forgiven if he has 20 tackles than if he has 15?
Look, Collins may well be a changed man. But it isn't because he throws the ball straighter, and it isn't because he reads defenses better. Granted, he's at a stage where more people are going to notice, but that's coincidence.
Their faults are their faults. Ours include this: We fool ourselves. We need to stop confusing characters and character. We need to realize that some awfully good people play awfully badly, and vice versa.
And, in a year, when we watch The Comeback of Kerry Collins movie, we need to realize this:
Robert Downey Jr. is doing a wonderful job in the title role.
And if he wins the Oscar, we'll forgive him, too. |
