Word: orly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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And why not? Cashman's reaction was typical of the way sports people treat incursions by the real world into the sports community--an inevitable tendency to say that athletes' personal lives, or higher ideals, or commitments to virtues that aren't sports-related are forever more significant.
Ainge and Rivera, by contrast, are credited for their restraint, for sacrificing lucrative and successful careers in sports for the considerations of faith or family. But the irony in this distinction is that only athletes who have already achieved greatness can opt out with the laurels of commentators.
But sports needs people like Stephan Johnson. It depends for its persistence and appeal on athletes who are willing to sacrifice the real world--whether in the form of high school or college grades, family responsibilities or personal safety--for the sports world.
It's hypocritical and distasteful when pundits find themselves compelled to valorize an athlete's preferring his personal beliefs or needs to his team's. There's more to life than knockouts or home runs, they remind us. Yet the impulse to conflate sports with life--in the quest for...
Unfortunately, it is human nature for people to think of their own self-interest first. It is a rare individual indeed who will eschew his or her own concerns in favor of the greater good. The blatantly self-promoting actions of Massachusetts legislative leaders is another example of how such...