The Temporary Nature of Greatness

I awoke at 6AM in the Midwest, in time to catch the 4^th and 5^th sets of a tennis match which ultimately represented an epic struggle that no longer required the context of chalk-white lines and furry green spheres.   Brian Phillips, a writer from grantland.com framed the greater meaning of this record-setting affair more eloquently than I could have hoped to manage myself.  Nonetheless, I feel compelled to respond to chosen bits of his truly beautiful prose.

“Until this tournament, I never fully realized how much Nadal means to tennis. I knew he was a great player, obviously. But I'm a goner for Federer, and Nadal has often felt to me like an infuriating obstacle, a berserk dervish with the demonic power to out-frenzy Roger's grace and lucidity. His tennis was a bludgeoning adrenaline rush, a Ramones song that lasted four hours. Had he never been born, Federer would have won the 20 majors he seemed destined for in 2007. I admired what Nadal had done, and I loved the insanity at the top of the men's bracket. But deep down, in some atavistic corner of my sports fan's heart, I kind of wanted him gone.”

There comes an odd moment of recognition when another writer’s capacity to articulate a sentiment eclipses your own aptitude for expressing your inner monologue.  This paragraph accomplished just that, but in this case, delivered a stomach-punch of guilt and shame as the maraschino cherry atop the whipped-cream of my own insecure fandom.   Federer, as a metaphor, is who I aspire to be.  Nadal, likewise, is who I know damned well I never will be.  Federer is older than me, albeit by a scant 34 months.  Nadal, is my junior, theoretically my inferior in maturity and wisdom – and in reality, light-years ahead of the destination of my biological journey.

Federer is supremely talented, the ultimate in innate gift refined and polished to scintillating, lustrous perfection.  I too wish for the pinnacle of my profession, for superior aptitude to light my path, if in reality, like most of us, I lack the dedication to achieve it.  His air is one of smooth, quasi-arrogant elegance.  He glides between the lines, riding the undulations of ephemeral currents of athletic intuition.

 “He plays like he's fighting giants. It's not just the sneer, or the muscles, or the hair, or that forehand — you know, the one where he swoops the racket all the way around his head like he's whipping the team pulling his chariot. It's also that frantic tenacity that used to drive me so nuts. Federer seems devastated when he loses but he also seems to sense losses coming and accept them before they arrive. When Nadal falls behind, he turns the match into life and death. He gets mad. He hesitates less. He hits the ball harder. He doesn't look sad or scared. He looks defiant, and he plays like he's possessed.”

 Nadal is, by his very nature, more than talented, more than brilliant.  He is the internal fortitude, the unwavering resolve, the sheer obstinate defiance of an unbreakable mind.  He’s right-handed…but somewhere along the line, forged himself into the most formidable lefty since Rod Laver.  He has sculpted his body as a soldier might sharpen his bayonet, as a lethal, hemophilic weapon.  Vicious, powerful, bloodthirsty…yet the human being is gracious, measured, well-adjusted, multi-lingual, and thoroughly humble.   

“But is that any consolation? How does it feel to die at the end of the book, this many times in a row? I mean, think about it. You spend years in the shadow of your rival. You never stop working or believing. Finally it all comes together: you surpass him. For a year, maybe two, you win everything. You turn the game upside down, and your bottomless reserve of will makes you seem unstoppable. All the records are going to fall. Then, more or less suddenly, a guy you used to beat comfortably surpasses you. Long before your reign was supposed to end, you find yourself overshadowed again. You lose five straight, six straight, seven straight to the new champion, all in finals, three of them in majors. You're 25, in what should be the peak of your prime as an athlete, and you're right back where you started. It turns out that your relentlessness isn't an unstoppable force. But — precisely because you have it — you keep going as if it is.”

 The harshest reminder of all lies in his age.  25.  At a point in my life where considerably less devastating disappointments would almost surely be sufficiently discouraging as to force a strong reconsideration of my current course, Nadal plows forward inexorably once again, because, after all, his personality knows no other gear.  I rarely place myself within the psychological space of the athletes whose exploits I follow on television.  Whether it is my own perception of scholastic superiority or moral self-righteousness after one too many stories of abuse, adultery, self-indulgence, bravado, inarticulate post-game platitudes, etc, I do not emulate these physical specimens.  I do not truly envy Nadal’s forehand or even his chiseled physique.  I envy his unflappable demeanor.  

This brings us to Nadal’s foil, version 2.0; the seemingly invincible Novak Djokovic.  His court-coverage is better than Roger Federer.  The ethereal lateral movement propelled by celestial powers is replaced by an equally sculpted body that slides across a baseline as a predatory snake seemingly snaps and extends its musculature to ensnare victims before they perceive the threat.  The one-handed backhand, vulnerable above the shoulders like some inaccessible Achilles heel to all but Nadal…replaced by Novak’s two-handed demonstration of abdominal torque without equal.  As he rises at the point of impact, not even the violent kick of Nadal’s gyroscopic forehand pierces the defense.  Federer’s shot-making?...Replaced by a consistency more reminiscent of a wall than flesh.  

He too will be surpassed, but by whom?

Unaccountable

            A few days ago, the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles (Jeffrey Laurie) held his regularly-scheduled end-of-season press conference.  Though the timing of this ritual suggested nothing out of the ordinary, the dismal season that preceded it might have led the fanatics who follow the Eagles to conclude that Andy Reid, the longest-tenured coach in the NFL, might finally have worn out his welcome.  After fourteen seasons in which winning was considerably more common than losing, six division crowns, five trips to the NFC championship game and one superbowl appearance after having replaced such coaching also-rans as Ray Rhodes and Rich Kotite, and a return to contention from the 3-13 team he inherited, one must conclude that his stay had been, on balance, a net positive. 

            Of course, one juxtaposes these favorable points with the inability to win a superbowl despite nine trips to the playoffs, the 1-4 record in NFC championship games despite being at home for three of them and the favorite in four, countless failures to demonstrate even marginally competent clock management, teams with the infuriating ability to raise hopes before dashing them in a plethora of ever more grotesque disappointments, an inability to address his obdurate insistence on a pass-heavy offense even when it seems ineffective, and a borderline sociopathic refusal to answer even the most innocuous questions from the media.  Finally, following one of the most opulent of many free agent classes to arrive in Philly, the team began 4-8, looking at times discombobulated, at times distracted, and at times, downright disinterested.  A defensive coordinator with no defensive coordinating experience (appointed at the behest of one Andy Reid) looked overmatched from the first game onward.  The Eagles turned the football over 38 times – 31^st of 32 teams in the NFL, ahead only of a team which lost its final 10 contests…some of them quite badly.  When the Eagles won their final four, largely meaningless games against inferior and in one case, indifferent competition, fans regarded the oasis as the mirage it obviously was.  Case in point, after averaging 2.4 turnovers per game in the first 12 games, during their four-game climb to mediocrity, they averaged 2.25 per game…a rousing improvement indeed.* 

            When Mr. Laurie began addressing the media and those following with rapt attention in front of televisions and radios throughout the greater Philadelphia area, he began by acknowledging the frustration of his fans, decrying the season as “unacceptable” along with a variety of other unmistakable words constructed carefully beforehand to portray an image of frustration, anger, and the sense that despite his wealth and power, he too was as irritated and disgusted as the fans who buy tickets.  Of course, he did not fire his coach.

I'm not surprised that Reid was not fired.  However, there is unmistakable disappointment when no one is truly accountable for undesired results.  We live in an era of spin, plausible denials of responsibility, and bulletproof figures of wealth and power, whom are seemingly never truly at fault.

            When a financial system collapses, and the powers that be argue that they made rational decisions despite previous warnings to the contrary, the masses are rightly enraged…then they write the next check to their mutual funds and financial planners.  When politicians unfailingly point fingers across the aisle, despite generally lacking the courage, statesmanship, and savvy to address the work of the nation, we gripe…then re-elect them.  When socialites and celebrities blame everything from the media to their mothers to the pressure on them that the rest of us mere mortals fail to comprehend for their every indiscretion, we criticize…then attend their next movie.

            Recently, an independently wealthy group of owners in two separate sports locked their players out of their jobs for want of a more usurious split of billions during a time in which most Americans struggle to feed, clothe, and house themselves, ignoring the tens of thousands of low-wage employees that their industries support.  We complained, we allowed pundits to decry their greed…then promptly returned to following their sports.

            Why do we continue to expect different behaviors?  This is the world we inhabit - a world in which people are blamed, but never held accountable.  This occurs from elementary school, where failing to master basic concepts might yield red ink from a teacher but still results in promotion, and permeates the culture in countless ways thereafter. 

            The only part of this that angers me is that we are still surprised and outraged.  We get what we pay for.

*It is essentially indisputable that the largest single reason for the Eagles’ failure this season stems from their inability to maintain possession of the football.  After finishing 3^rd in the NFL in total offense and 8^th in total defense (no other team in the NFL placed in the top-10 on both sides of the football), the 31^st place finish in terms of total giveaways (also tied for 30^th in terms of giveaways – takeaways) thoroughly torpedoed an otherwise talented team.  Quarterback Michael Vick, in his end-of-season press conference, discussed his turnovers (19 of the 38 total turnovers could be directly attributed to Vick, though he started only 13 games and completed only 11), yet insisted that the team’s poor showing was not the result of them.  He believes he has erred, but not that his errors wrought any deleterious effect.  This ought to be incredible…yet it is both credible, and predictable. 

Unawairness

            Verification of one’s lucidity generally involves the battery of straightforward questions, generally designed to ascertain whether the person in question has at least a perfunctory awareness of their current situation.  Though these questions often vary, once one has successfully answered the old saw, “how many fingers am I holding up?” the typical follow-up involves some form of the question, “where are we now?”  This seems fair, as without much thinking a functional brain can deliver an answer to that question.  Currently, I am on the second floor of a building in the Philadelphia suburbs.  Were a greater level of specificity required, details such as the neighborhood, street name, and numerical address would come to mind easily and supplement an already fairly specific description of location. 

            However, as human beings, we often deprive ourselves of such seemingly constant states of awareness.  Consider the example of a person who falls asleep as a passenger in a moving automobile – upon awakening, were they to be asked “where are you?” though they could, of course, describe that they were inside a moving vehicle, immediately, they would not be able to place themselves.  That said, scenery offers contextual clues, which often allow for repositioning, whether a mile marker on a highway, or a familiar building.  One location is unlike these others, it is near total deprivation of positioning. 

            Recall the last time you have fallen asleep while aboard an aircraft in flight.  If you are anything like me, your first reaction upon awakening has nothing whatsoever to do with location analysis, but rather, with the glance at your wristwatch to determine how many minutes of otherwise mind-numbing thumbing of the in-flight magazine you have spared yourself.  Despite this piece of information, if you have ever bothered to ponder this notion, your personal knowledge of your whereabouts is shockingly uncertain.  Consider the proverbial flight from New York to Los Angeles.  While most of us possess some perfunctory understanding over American geography, the plane neither flies at a constant velocity (climbing and descending are indeterminately faster or slower than cruising altitude), nor follows a linear path between the point of departure and the destination.  Given the geodesic patterns traversed by commercial airliners (I never fail to be amazed at how little time geometry teachers spend discussing the limitations of Euclidian geometry upon a globe which is anything but flat), even the flight path is unknown.  At best, upon awakening somewhere in the middle of a trans-continental flight, I could vaguely speculate which state might be lingering miles beneath the plane.  

            What was disconcerting that this did not, in any way, feel disconcerting.  Were I to have awakened from a protracted slumber in any other context and found myself unable to discern my location, even to the level of specificity of which of the fifty states currently housed my body, the sensation of disorientation would have been profound and unsettling.  In this case, despite being housed in a metallic cylinder hurtling through the troposphere at six hundred miles per hour with windows that reveal clouds that obscure any salient geographic detail, my information deprivation is thoroughly uninteresting. 

            Thus, allow me to posit that the concept of a handful of necessary factoids, which are necessary for lucidity and functional awareness, is actually context dependent.  Were pseudo-concussed football players to be similarly incapacitated on airplanes, their trainers would be forced to ask tremendously different questions…