The Roger Clemens Trial: Why Do We Idolize Professional Athletes?

The recently concluded Roger Clemens trial ought give all Americans pause to consider what’s gone so wrong with sports in the United States. And I’m not talking about steroids. Whether a professional athlete is using entirely legal means to grow his body to an insanely unhealthy weight and compete in the National Football League, or is taking growth-enhancing drugs to accomplish the same end result is truthfully of very minor significance. That is, to anyone other than headline-seeking members of Congress or advertising-seeking news media.

Who really cares what a professional athlete voluntarily chooses to do to his body anyway?

To me, the real significance of the Roger Clemens trial is not the alleged crime itself, but rather the incredibly widespread fascination over whether yet another sports idol was about to be publicly disgraced. Why do we idolize athletes in the first place? What is it about the ability to throw a 95 mph fastball and hit a small target 60 feet away that earns such grand public admiration? Why don’t we place on a similar pedestal the great college professors, the scientists, the mathematicians, the musicians, the artists, and the great physicians whose achievements really make a difference in our lives? Does anyone really think it is a greater accomplishment to throw a baseball accurately than to develop a cure to a life-threatening disease? Why do we pay our college football coaches 5 times the salary we pay the college presidents who hire them? Why do we idolize a football coach whose principal talent is a pied-piper ability to attract outstanding high school athletes to join his program? What has happened to our value system anyway?

To me, the most perfect sport ever invented is Tee Ball. It’s the only sport I’ve found where enjoying the experience is the only objective of the game. The players themselves don’t care if they win or lose (indeed, many of them don’t even know who won when the game is over). The fans don’t care either, except maybe one or two dads who think their little boy might get a college scholarship if only the coach would always put him in the most desirable position.

After Tee Ball, it all goes downhill. The games become more and more serious, and the better players gain more and more adulation for their good fortune of having been born with natural athletic talents. Their less-skilled teammates who achieve brilliant academic successes receive little kudos and little public attention. This same pattern continues throughout life; the athletes always gain greater admiration for their innate talents than the students, teachers, professors, and scientific researchers who contribute so much more to the fabric of our lives than do the athletes.

That's my take on the Roger Clemens trial.