America's Chaotic Ride: Why We Hate To Love The Athletes We Love To Hate

Everyone hop on board and make sure that your seatbelts are securely fastened. Ensure that your arms are inside the car. The ride is about to start.

The engines whir and the gear catches the car as it slowly pulls up to the top of LeBron's peak. It pauses there, resting for that fearful fraction of second before hurling down Decision curve, and then on it goes.

It passes through the Woods loop, speeds upside down over the Roethlisberger pass, and the passengers almost leave their stomachs at the Vick dip. It rushes along at breakneck speeds and the terrified passengers love the thrill. 

Amidst all the turmoil surrounding the decision there was the singular, almost discreet announcement concerning Kevin Durant's signing with the Oklahoma Thunder.

It's not that there was no benefit to Durant to sign early; the collective bargaining agreement is going to expire, and in all likelihood he made more signing earlier.

I have no problem with that, but since that doesn't fit the spoon-fed story line of the "anti-LeBron" it's not as commonly understood.

I don't say this to suggest that something is wrong with Durant; that's not the point.

The point is that there's another "hero" being created and sooner or later something will happen where he disappoints us, and we'll just start heading up the next ride, expecting that this time things will be different. 

In 1998 Michael Jordan, the most recognizable athlete, perhaps ever, retired, and the sports world was starved for a replacement.

They latched on to a spectacular young player for the Lakers by the name of Kobe Bryant. A few years later the sports world heaped scathing rebuke on him when he was accused of rape.

Long before there was anything known in regards to innocent or guilt, there were those who almost gleefully greeted the downfall of an icon, even if it had been at the expense of a young woman being raped.

We all know how things turned out, and it's not my point here to discuss those issues, but the manner in which those charges were greeted leave a cloud that still remains.

We latched on to a young phenom from Ohio, a kid who had yet to play anything other than high school, to be his replacement.

For a decade the expectation to be the replacement to the greatest athlete ever is placed on his shoulders.

He is literally followed by national camera crews at 15. Then after we, the world, revolve around him his entire adult life, we wonder how he could think that it does when he's still only 25 years old. 

In 2003 Brett Favre played one of the greatest games of his career just one day after his father died and was admired for putting his personal life behind him.

Years later, when he's struggled with the decision to retire annually, we revile him for being unable to leave the field behind him.

It never seems to occur to us that the same essential thing—that he can't put his professional life behind his personal life behind him—infuriates us so. 

From Tiger to Ben, from Vick to Mayweather, we put our belief in people who never promised to be patterns of morality.

When they come to have low standards of morality we are not only offended by their acts, which is normal, but we feel "betrayed" as though a trust which had been entrusted by our very appreciation of them has been violated.

When they repent we agree to forgive them, believing that somehow athletic performance is a redemptive quality. 

Then when we all get sick of it all, we blame the media for building this chaotic ride. It's their fault for bringing us what we ordered.

It never occurs to us, the fan base that the real problem is us. We see athletes do what we can only dream of doing. Because they do what we can't do we expect them to be people that we can't be.

When they fail at that, or even turn out to be worse, then we feel cheated. The responsibility for the actions which disappoint us rests on the athletes but the disappointment is on us.

Beware Thunder Mountain. It's not the athletes who are the ride, it's not the media who paid for the ride, it's the passengers who paid for the tickets who need to look at themselves.