Let me warn you ahead of time that the nature of this blog entry is basically word vomit. It is my almost entirely candid thought process spilled out onto a page, so enjoy, and good luck keeping up.
Mr. Wallace, according to your essay How Tracy Austin Broke my Heart, the tennis protégé’s autobiography was an inadequate account of her story. It was disappointingly cliché and so typical to the average sports memoir. This was especially disappointing to you because you feel she has a worthy story to offer. In fact, you progress to say that her boring memoir is a necessary evil because a great athlete’s dumbness is the essence of her gift. The athlete’s ability to dismiss thoughts and instead accept the reality of a moment makes her uniquely able to handle the intensity of performing in front of a crowd. The cost? The simplicity of emotion the athlete experiences often does not translate to us viewers. Instead of accepting that Tracy Austin “was thrilled” – and that’s all – after winning the US Open at age 16, we grow angry at her poor conveyance of the mind-blowing event. Sports autobiographies often fall short of reader expectations due to this mental divide between great athletes and their fans.
From my interpretation, those are your feelings on the sports autobio. I think that is a unique and plausible point of view. I don’t bother with sports autobiographies, so I am ill equipped to contrast this philosophy with my own. However, I am inclined to ask you, where does that leave us as normal people? We love the sports, we crave the dramas the athletes have to share, but we can hardly ever seem to get a reliable first hand account. This concept has never bothered me in the past. Like I said, I do not often bother with sports autobiographies. I read what magazines and mostly what Wikipedia has to say about an athlete. I find it is a compact and informative source that (contrary to accusations) is accurate enough for my satisfaction. I guess I am more interested with the stories the athletes star in rather than how those experiences made them feel.
But now, having read your article, I feel a little jipped. Why should world class athletes be privy to the inner workings of physical phenomenon’s that I will never understand? Granted, they busted their asses off for years, sacrificed normal lives, in order to achieve their greatness. Still, the thing that makes the difference is that these people are born athletes. From the womb, if they choose to embrace their different-ness, they lead different lives than we do. Again they do sacrifice normal lives in order to become great. But the difference is that in the media there are accurate portrayals of the average-joe’s life. Even if the athlete can’t experience this lifestyle hands on, they can clearly see what it is like for us. Who create these snapshots into our daily lives? Geniuses, of course: people who, contrary to athletes, understand human nature on a deeper level. So geniuses are out there to help the rest of the world think, understand, and imagine on a level closer to their own, and athlete’s are out there for…entertainment? But so are books. Instant entertainment? Maybe athletes invite us closer to the thoughtlessness of physical triumphs by capturing our attention so acutely as we watch.
I again return to my initial question; where does that leave us normal people? You could take the viewpoint that we are the ultimate consumers of society. The athlete sacrifices the luxury of normalcy to provide us with an excuse to stay glued to our couches on a Sunday afternoon. The genius abandons any hope of seeing the world from a simple and happy eye to motivate us, the less wise, to see with greater depth. And we, somewhere in the middle of the two, are blessed to wish we are closer to either of the two cursed extremes. It sounds pretty right? But the loophole is where does a genius find inspiration? Us. Where do athletes get the boost of motivation to perform their best? Fans.
A third and final time, I return to my question; where does that leave us? It leaves us with the responsibility of ogling. Our job is to occupy the middle ground watching the geniuses and athletes change the world. If we weren’t here wishing we were them, whom would they have to pull in the wake of their success? Whom would they have to envy?
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