ESPN.com - The ultimate test of sports' new sobriety

ESPN.com: NBA

Sunday, September 30, 2001
Updated: October 3, 11:20 AM ET
The ultimate test of sports' new sobriety

By Tom Farrey
ESPN.com

If the sports world were the stock market, the events of the past three weeks might be called a correction, an inevitable, yet healthy adjustment in our national priorities. A shock to the system forced a redistribution of resources, and a better understanding of how the once overheated sweat sector fits into the cultural fabric.


	The new somber state of sports will be sorely tested when Jordan takes the floor again.

Evidence of the dip, sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks, is everywhere.

In Chicago, plans to sell naming rights to a renovated Soldier Field were scrapped because altering the name seemed tacky with war on the horizon. There's no longer serious talk about taxpayers funding new stadiums for the Yankees and Mets in New York, which has bigger things to worry about.

Major League Baseball and its players are being forced to consider pushing back labor negotiations for a year, avoiding, at least for a while, the sorry spectacle of millionaires squabbling over money and threatening to shut down the game next season. Even the John Maddens of the TV universe are showing Herculean restraint, delivering on their promise to dial down the combat metaphors in describing football action.

"When your country is attacked and you're on a state of alert, when a lot of firefighters and police have given their lives, games lose a certain amount of importance," said Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based SportsCorp, which advises teams on stadium issues. "The thing is, the leagues and players are saying, 'rightfully so.' "

But now comes Michael Jordan, who will test sports' new sobriety mightily.

Jordan is America's favorite drug, capable of distorting the perspective of all but the most devout of teetotalers. If we here in life's playpen got a little carried away with ourselves over the past decade or so, it is due in no small part to Jordan himself. He engaged corporate America better than any athlete before him and allowed that marketing machine to transform him into something far more than a guy with great game. It wasn't enough to Play Like Mike. It was an imperative to Be Like Mike, even though he never did much off the court other than get rich and play golf.

Jordan, at first glance, seems to recognize how he fits into the new world order. When he announced his return last week, he did so with a press release, declining to do media interviews until training camp out of his "deep respect" for the victims of the terrorist attacks and their families. When he finally did speak to the media on Monday, he said, "We're entertainers. I don't think my job is more important than all the firemen and policemen's jobs each and every day. There is a place for relaxation, and I think that's where my responsibility lies. Hopefully, I can provide relaxation for some people."

He's also giving the victims' families his $1 million salary from the Wizards for the upcoming season. Smart P.R. move, sure, but for now let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he really cares.

	“	When your country is attacked and you're on a state of alert, when a lot of firefighters and police have given their lives, games lose a certain amount of importance. ”
		— Marc Ganis, president of SportsCorp, which advises teams on stadium issues

The coming months will be more telling. Will Jordan let the many companies he endorses present him again as a hero, a term given deeper meaning in recent weeks? Will he go along for the ego ride, without objection, when the sports media again begin describing him in terms reserved for the gods? Already, it's been suggested in various quarters that Jordan can heal the nation, as if going for 40 on Kobe can possibly help anyone come to terms with the pain from the attacks, or help anyone feel any safer from terrorism.

Surely, Jordan does not buy that self-serving logic.

"If you talk seriously with any athlete, they'll say that, of course, they aren't heroes," said Dave Meggysey, Western director for the NFL Players Association. "That's just how they were built up in the media. What this tragedy has done is take all that (imagery) away. That's one of the great things to have come out of all this."

You could see the humility in the curled-down eyes of Mike Piazza after his game-winning homer in baseball's dramatic return to New York. Even then, it seemed the last thing he wanted was to be celebrated. It wasn't just sadness; it was the clear sense of an athlete's place in society.

Let's see the same in Jordan's eyes, and his choices.

"I'd like to see us keep our focus on the right things," said Mike Robbins, a University of Miami psychologist. "But I don't think we will."

At its core, the appeal of sports is its physical elegance. It's the pleasure of watching Jordan shake Bryon Russell with a flick of the head, pull up just beyond the free throw line, meditate on the rim, and set the ball on an arc that delivers the game-winning bucket. We'll pay for moments like those, appreciate them just as much as we have Barry Bonds' pursuit of the home-run record. They will provide worthy distraction in the coming months, respite from the grim news to be delivered nightly by Jennings and Brokaw.

But look out. That's not going to be good enough for the many-headed hype machine that makes the super heroes, sells the $144 replica jerseys and ultimately builds the taxpayer-funded arenas. The urge will be to exaggerate Jordan's importance, and for the league, his handlers and the media to wring every dollar out of whatever remains of his out-sized persona. Beginning Oct. 30 when his return begins at Madison Square Garden -- Washington vs. New York in a season opener involving teams from the two cities most devastated by terrorists -- it will be too easy to romanticize him as some bizarre panacea for what ills the nation.

That's too bad for sports, ultimately. Rarely have athletes been as likeable as they've been in the past three weeks, and it's precisely because they have seemed so ordinary. Like many of us, they've wept at the tremendous loss of lives and tried to help in some small way, by giving blood, time or money. They connected with their communities more as citizens than celebrities. And that made them easier than ever to cheer for.

This time, Jordan need be a hero only to his kids.

Tom Farrey is a Senior Writer with ESPN.com. He can be reached at tom.farrey@espn.com.