The past year was filled with many memorable sporting moments. With the arrival of the New Year, it is time to reflect on what went right and what went wrong in the wild world of sports in 2010.
2010 was an incredibly disappointing year in sports. It wasn’t just because all my favourite teams were awful—when you cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, Toronto Blue Jays, and San Francisco 49ers, every year ends in disappointment. Rather, I was frustrated that the arrogant, greedy, and overall stupid actions by certain athletes overshadowed the incredible performances that occurred during the past year.
Yahoo! Sports named LeBron James’ decision to leave Cleveland and “take his talents to South Beach” as the Story of the Year in 2010. It’s hard to argue with that, since nearly 10 million people tuned in to watch his televised decision that instantly turned him from one of the most loved to one of the most hated athletes in North America. Six months later, people are still talking about it. It was the hubris of King James and his total lack of awareness of how selfish and unsympathetic his prime time “screw you” to the city of Cleveland really was that made the event so attention-grabbing.
It’s depressing that in a year in which Spain won an incredible World Cup, the Canadian Olympic team put on an epic performance on home soil that was highlighted by Sidney Crosby’s gold medal winning goal, the Saints brought a Super Bowl to New Orleans, the L.A. Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics in an amazing NBA Final, the Butler Bulldogs came one half-court shot away from shocking the world and winning the NCAA Basketball Championship, and the San Francisco Giants were one of the most unexpected World Series Champions in years, the most memorable story was about an overpaid, arrogant, and attention-seeking basketball player switching teams.
But what’s even more disappointing is that LeBron’s decision was just one of many demonstrations of idioticity. 2010 seemed to mark the apex of arrogance and ignorance in professional sports.
Don’t believe me? Consider the Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis. In September, Portis was asked to comment about the allegations that members of the New York Jets had harassed a female reporter while she was interviewing them in their locker room. Portis inexplicably began to defend the Jets players and attack the credibility and professionalism of all female reporters.
“I think you put women reporters in the locker room,” Portis said, “and you sit in the locker room with 53 guys, and all of the sudden you see a nice woman in the locker room, I think men are going to tend to turn and look and want to say something to that woman … And I mean, you put a woman and you give her a choice of 53 athletes, somebody got to be appealing to her. You know, somebody got to spark her interest, or she’s gonna want somebody. I don’t know what kind of woman won’t, if you get to go and look at 53 men’s packages.”
Unfortunately, Portis wasn’t the only football player to act so arrogantly. After retiring and then un-retiring for the third consecutive season, which is outrageous in itself, Brett Favre was alleged to have sent pictures of his package to football sideline reporter Jen Serger. Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a washroom of a college bar. In the NHL, Calgary Flames rookie Brett Sutter drunkenly and randomly punched a cabbie. Francisco Rodriguez, the closer for the NY Mets, punched his girlfriend’s father after a game and tore a ligament in his thumb during the incident that ended his season. Gilbert Arenas brought multiple guns into the Washington Wizards’ locker room.
I understand that these stories are not representative of every athlete. There are many athletes who are incredible role models for everyone. But, it seems as though the number of stories about athletes acting like morons multiply yearly. Where can you find such a ridiculous, foolish, and awful collection of actions other than the sporting world? Hopefully the trend won’t continue in 2011.
