They have all happened on top of each other, three random sets of events that mean different things by themselves but, put together, put the American sports fan right on the spot.
Auburn’s Cam Newton has led his football Tigers to a 12-0 mark and a shot at the national championship. Yet his quest for glory is dogged by allegations that he, or his father, asked for six figures after he left Florida to go to the Plains.
Up in Philadelphia, Michael Vick has shaped the Philadelphia Eagles into a playoff contender, to the surprise of everyone. Yet no one can separate his current good deeds from the bad deeds that landed him in federal prison a short three years ago.
Then you’ve got LeBron James. He got his wish, taking his talents to South Beach, all right. Yet the Miami Heat, who was supposed to dominate the world, is a mere 10-8 through 18 games, not that much better than Cleveland, whom he left- and to where he returns this week.
So you ask – do we cheer for these guys? Boo them? Neither? Both? The truth, as always, is more complicated, and has less to do with the subject themselves than with the fact that we got burned before in similar cases, and don’t want any more of the fire.
Start with Newton. As if his status as college football’s best player was not secure enough, he goes out in the Iron Bowl and, with his team down 24-0, rallies Auburn past Alabama. That alone is the stuff of instant folklore in a state where they take football just a bit too seriously.
Shadows chase Newton, though. He left Florida in unfavorable circumstances (an alleged laptop computer theft), and just as Auburn was rising to the top of the rankings and Newton was becoming the Heisman front-runner, here came the payment allegations.
Who knows, at this point, if any money was involved. Given that all the accusations were made by folks with ties to the jilted suitors at Mississippi State, it’s quite easy to doubt the whole story.
Yet we sit just months removed from the USC/Reggie Bush revelations. Based on what happened there, it gets a lot tougher to believe the Newtons, father and son, and their vehement denials. It also makes fans believe the worst, that Cam is a cheat. It won’t keep Newton from the Heisman – but will he have to return it years later, just like Bush did?
Move to the Mike Vick story, and it’s even more difficult to proceed. Not too long ago, Vick was the face of pure evil, the most reviled athlete in the land, a criminal beyond redemption – for what person would ever want to kill a dog?
Now that Vick is back, and playing the best football of his career in Eagles green, the comeback stories are everywhere. He says, over and over, that jail was the best thing for him because it forced him to grow up, be responsible, and do all the hard work he neglected in his Atlanta days.
Most have forgiven Vick, saying the price he paid was steep enough. Others remain unconvinced, though, and you still hear a lot of dog-themed cheap shots thrown his way by the cynical types. This story remain very much one in progress, and people reserve the right to say if Vick has redeemed himself – or whether redemption for him is impossible.
LeBron James did nothing criminal in going to Miami. He was, after all, a free agent, with every right to play wherever he felt like. Even his harshest critics acknowledged that basic fact and said the pursuit of an NBA championship was a legitimate reason to change places.
The hatred, though, grew entirely of the way LeBron left Cleveland – doing it in an hour-long “Decision” broadcast infomercial that seemed to serve the express purpose of slapping the entire populace of Northeast Ohio in front of the whole world.
Worse was to follow – namely, a news conference with LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh that smacked of a championship celebration with preening and pyrotechnics, when that trio, together, had not yet won a darn thing.
All this has made Miami’s mediocre start a source of great glee among fans outside of South Florida. There’s almost a primal desire (and not just in Cleveland) to see the Heat fail, to see the great experiment blow up. It’s savage, yet understandable.
And now LeBron and his new mates have to make the inevitable trip back to his old home. There is no doubt that Cleveland fans will completely forget the seven years of highlights, two MVP awards and Finals trip in 2007 that LeBron provided, and will go after him with a vindictiveness normally reserved for Michael Jordan or John Elway in those parts.
We want to jeer, yet we want to cheer, too. It’s a conflicted time in our conflicted sports world, made more so by the fact that the biggest stars, like Cam Newton, Michael Vick and LeBron James, are loved and loathed, sometimes in the same breath. At least they’ve got everyone’s attention, and that’s the whole point, right?
