Jingle Bell Rock: Seeking Eloquent Egotism

So, it’s the holiday season, a time when columns of this nature often degenerate into cheesy, insufferable, sports-themed parodies. You know the sort of thing I’m referring to here. “’Twas the night before Christmas / And all through the place / The joy had all drained / From Jordan’s fat face.” Then, you’ve got your wish list-themed columns. “Oh, and for Christmas this year, let’s get Memphis Grizzlies forward Pau Gasol a letter ‘L,’ so he can put one on the end of his first name, too!”

I had no interest in writing up such an atrocity. The Mets traded for Roberto Alomar yesterday. From a sports standpoint, I’m already taken care of. God bless you, Cleveland Indians executives! God bless you, every one!

I would have loved to do something different here, maybe write a Kwanzaa sports column. But the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa, which include “unity,” “cooperative economics,” “collective work and responsibility” and “purpose,” sound like a list of things that the ongoing negotiations between Major League Baseball and its players sorely lack. And who wants to write anything that depressing?

So I had nothing to write about—nothing, that is, until I learned that the new Michael Mann film about Muhammad Ali hits theaters on Christmas Day. And two things occurred to me.

My first thought was this: Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year. The next day is Dec. 26, a Wednesday—the day of the week when most midweek films are released. It is also Boxing Day. Boxing Day! How big an oversight was this? I mean, here is Ali, supposedly a very good movie about perhaps the greatest fighter who ever lived, and you release it the day before Boxing Day! If you’re going to release it a day before, do it in only one theater at an obscure locale where Ali actually fought—Manila, perhaps. Or Kinshasa, the Sony Loews at Kinshasha would have been a good call.

My second thought was a bit deeper, or so I’d like to think. Ali was, as we all know, a great talker in addition to being a great fighter. This was the man who said, “You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup George Foreman’s behind!” This was the man who described himself as so bad he, “…murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I’m so mean, I make medicine sick!”

If Ali wasn’t the best athlete of the past century, he certainly was the most charismatic. And that’s why he was so fascinating and so beloved. If Joe Frazier—a damn talented fighter—had been blessed with Ali’s social gifts, we would remember him almost as fondly.

Fast-forward thirty years. Now, when we gripe about the woes of sports, we complain about ego. We complain about pride. We complain about the obnoxious scowl Latrell Sprewell puts on after he dunks, about endzone dances and casually flipping the bat after jacking one to left center. But should we?

The code of gentlemanly conduct that has emerged—and wears the public face of “class acts” Pete Sampras and Tony Gwynn—is centered on conceptions of sports that focus on the aspects of fair play and gallantry. These are laudable ideals, to be sure, but they neglect other important aspects of athletics. Crucial components, like the perfection athletes seek in training and their deserved contentment with the competitive machines they mold themselves into. There is also the view of sports as a competitive clash of personalities as well as bodies, of will matched against will. Athletes are personalities, and the best of them bleed these personalities with every movement they make on the field. When sports are played at their highest level, we go to see the person express himself through actions often more compelling and articulate than speech. Why shouldn’t they let the full extent of those personalities shine on the periphery, as well?

A lot of these holiday list sports columnists call for an end to arrogance where each player conducts himself with elegance and class. They also want timidity. They want restraint and reluctance. They want the athlete’s soul to be seen on the court, field or ice, but not heard.

Me? If I had to make a sports wish list, I just might ask for another Peter Kelly here and there. The Princeton squash player had this to say to the Daily Princetonian about the Yale team last week: “I just think that they suck as people… It’s nice to think that they cry [after losing to us].”

We also need another Charles Barkley: “There will never be another player like me. I’m the ninth wonder of the world.”

We need another Alberto Tomba: “I really lack the words to compliment myself today.”

And another Babe Ruth: “If I’d just tried for them dinky singles I could’ve batted around .600.”

But we don’t just want bravado for bravado’s sake, just as we don’t want to watch the Cleveland Cavaliers just because they play a sport. Listening to an imperfect, inarticulate statement of ego actually is offensive, not unlike a Detroit Lions game. The sport-to-soul continuum works both ways. We care about quality. Deep down, what we really want is eloquent egotism.

And, to that end, Lord knows we could use another Greatest, too.

Happy Holidays. Boxing Day included.