It could be worse.
No matter how badly things are going, no matter how unpleasant your life is right now, no matter how bad the accommodations are at the leper colony, it could be worse.
You could be Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino.
There. Can you feel the first few rays of sunshine stroking your face?
If you were Pitino, you would be the subject of an alleged extortion plot that accuses you of having sex with a woman on a table at a restaurant, getting her pregnant and then giving her $3,000 to have an abortion.
You would read in the New York Post, the tabloid of record, that the woman is accusing you not only of rape but of paying the Louisville equipment manager to marry her, hoping she would forget all about the tabletop encounter.
The alleged incident happened six years ago, but it only now is oozing to the surface. Pitino denies many of the accusations, but not the sexual encounter and not the $3,000 he gave Karen Sypher.
He says he handed her the money because she didn’t have health insurance, not because he wanted her to have an abortion.
Sypher reportedly wanted $10 million in return for her silence.
It occurred to me the other day that nothing raises self-esteem quite like following the exploits of people in the sports world. Can you imagine being Pitino and having to tell your wife and five grown children that there had been an “indiscretion,” as he put it? How do you start that discussion?
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So there I was, diagraming some plays on a napkin, when she looked at me hungrily from across the smooth wood table. As I was explaining the intricacies of the motion offense, she said in a husky voice, “Did you say something about motion?”
How can you not feel better about your troubles after reading about Pitino? What could possibly be more uncomfortable in your life than the tale of a coach who has held himself up as a beacon of integrity?
Let’s face it, unseemliness has become a big piece of the entertainment value of sports. It’s impossible to go a week without reading of some criminal charge against an athlete, a coach or someone who thinks that, yes, come to think of it, this would be the perfect time to dump a beer on the Phillies’ center fielder.
The result is that it’s almost impossible to separate pro sports from the wrongdoers who populate them. There are so many criminal incidents involving jocks these days that crime and punishment have become as much a part of the show as a touchdown or a game-winning basket.
Rather than be numbed by it, I propose we try to find the value in it.
So say it out loud: It could be worse. I could be Blackhawks star Patrick Kane. One moment I’m out with my cousin, having a good time in Buffalo, the next I’m being accused of roughing up a taxi driver over 20 cents. Twenty cents!
We shake our heads at the inanity of Kane’s situation, but if we dare to tilt our heads and look at it differently, we realize that we don’t have it so bad. Sure, the credit-card payments are insanely past due, but we’d never be the subject of grand-jury testimony involving 20 cents.
We’re not Plaxico Burress, Donte’ Stallworth, Michael Vick, Pacman Jones and all the other people who have been in trouble in a court of law or the court of public opinion.
Star athletes always have accused fans and media members of wanting to see them fall. Maybe that used to be the case, but it doesn’t explain the current dynamic between athletes and the people who watch them play.
There’s no need to root for something bad to happen when you know it eventually will. Sometime in the next seven days, an athlete will get arrested. That is a given.
I say we make the best of it.
Let me hear you: It could be worse. I could be Roger Clemens. I could be trying desperately to keep the shine on a career that has been tarnished by accusations of steroids use.
But I’m not Clemens, and somehow, I feel more at peace with myself because of that fact. My foibles don’t seem so bad, in comparison. Perspective is a good thing, friends.
The unsavory exploits of athletes allow us to take inventory of ourselves. We ask each other: Can you believe so-and-so just got arrested for pulling a gun on someone? Implicit in those rolled eyes is the thought: If I made $5 million a year, you wouldn’t find me fighting in a bar at 3 a.m.
See? We’re all winners!
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