| | | Making the Cut
Time for Some Athlete Lovin'
| | | By Mike Feldman
When I was little, my mom wouldn’t let me play football. While I assured her that short, skinny, asthmatic Jewish kids excelled in the sport, she wouldn’t buy it. Thusm my future as a professional athlete was brought to an impromptu halt.
As steroid-enhanced athletes got bigger and I got lankier, I came torealize my mother was right about my chances as a professionalathlete. But a college athlete? With Divisions I, II, and III it seemed so reasonable that I couldn’t help but dream.
Over the years, the dream of being idolized as a big-time collegeathlete sadly morphed into the desire to go to a school where I could,well, idolize college athletes.
Figuring I could go to Duke and get the adrenaline rush of justwatching the best college basketball program in the country, Iresolved to do exactly that.
However, I made the decision to come to Northwestern because I wantedthe experience of big-time college basketball and football. Thisdynamic is one you just can’t get at Duke. Their shooting might be the best around, but is anyone else familiar with their football program? Didn’t think so.
Or maybe I came to Northwestern because Duke didn’t let me in. Thedetails don’t really matter, it’s the bigger picture I’m looking at.
Upon arrival in Evanston, I was expecting some sort of star-athleteculture at Northwestern, one where I could at the very least bask in theglory of the athletic success of others. The glory of the Big 10- I figured these “Big” schools would have BIG stars.
But then I realized there aren’t any star athletes.
The only time I have seen an athlete’s “super-stardom” acknowledged was at the1800 Club. This hot-shot hoops player got negged-he was such a star that the bouncer knew he was only a freshman. So much for perks.
It’s easy to dismiss the apathy toward athletics as a facet of thenotorious apathy of the school as a whole. But something is certainlymissing.
In a school with 8000 undergrads, especially a school with a plethoraof nerdy undergrads, there should be enough students looking tovicariously experience the glory of college athletics. Studentsshould be waiting for autographs, living and breathing NU sports.
These students exist, I’ve seen them, and they don’t play with StarWars action figures. They’re jocks. And they are bitter.
The true sports fans at NU seem to be the ones who almost made it in sports- or at least thought we would. So when we watch a 6-0 white guy enter abasketball game and shoot six three-pointers in 45 seconds, we canrelate. I could do that. Actually, I have done that.
I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been told bypeople how easy it is to kick a 25 yard field goal after theheartbreaking football loss to TCU. “Any scrub off the street can hita 25 yard field goal,” we say.
While the kicker (Brian Huffman for those of you needing to brush up) definitely blew it, he (or any other scorned athlete of the moment) is not the reason for Northwestern’s lackluster fans. Rather, I blame the former-high-school-athletecomplex. Just as we had come to terms with our skinny Jewish fates,our real-life college athletes screw us over. Its not that we don’t want to love and revere our athletes- its that we can’t seem to get over our own shortcomings, and have started to project them onto the kickers and point guards.
I might not need my inhaler anymore, but I can safely say “Mom, you were right.” A pro sports career might be easier to ‘give up,’ but lets put our own childhood dreams in a special, far-off place. Let’s give those who made it past tee-ball and Rec League a chance to finally earn some credit for it.
Mike Feldman is looking to start his own dream team…For recruiting, or just to tell him what you think, email m-feldman@northwestern.edu
| | |
