Sports people as role models are becoming few and far these days.
Even the most famous and lauded British Olympians are finding themselves under suspicion and scrutiny for their actions on the road to winning medals and titles that have raised our nation’s sporting profile to its highest level in years.
Many sports “stars”, of course, tend only to be role models if the role in question is to do with ignorance, selfishness and the gargantuan sense of entitlement that comes with being given (I refuse to say “earning”) too much money for doing something that tends not to involve a lot of joined up thinking or an ability to be a decent person away from the playing arena.
Of course, this applies in any area of activity. Nobody ever said Mozart had to be a nice guy, as the not-too-heavily fictionalised Peter Shaffer play and film Amadeus showed. But at least it left us with a lasting legacy of acknowledged worth.
Football is the case in point in contemporary sport of course and there really isn’t much to be gained in going over yet again the general gap between gain and behaviour.
There are undoubtedly many estimable young men with exemplary teamwork playing this game who are no doubt very much to be emulated by other talented and often working class boys who want to make it to the top.
The point is you rarely, if ever, hear about them, so the role model thing hardly applies.
Watching through fingers
Any Scot with a heart and a grip on reality (real reality, not TV-manufactured reality) will obviously be watching tonight’s World Cup qualifier through their fingers, from behind the couch or through a haze of lavishly-applied bevvy to take the edge off it.
Of course, we know in our heart of hearts that we’re rubbish. We’ve been rubbish before but just not for quite so long. The year 1998 seems a lifetime ago. For many young people, it actually is.
Hope springs eternal, it’s true; things come in threes also but somehow, I don’t think we’ll be seeing any Brexit or Trump-style upsets here. Just as long as we don’t get completely tanked, I can cope, role models or no.
But then, just when you thought it was safe to go back into the murky waters of mediocrity, there’s Andy Murray.
The chippy Scot-turned-GB national treasure has covered himself, his family, his support team, his sport and by extension, his nation (however you define it) in glory by reaching the number one spot in the men’s singles world tennis rankings.
It has been achieved through immense talent, great support, a pinch of good fortune and the kind of hard physical work and mental concentration the rest of us can only guess at.
He (and his contemporaries, the best male tennis players the world has ever seen playing at the same time) could be forgiven for a bit of swaggering strutting and “look at me!” syndrome.
However, Murray reacted to his accession with a self-effacing pleasure and a desire to do the right thing by a paying Paris Masters audience, who missed a top-class match because of Milos Raonic’s withdrawal through injury.
He also showed a slight sense of bewilderment.
It’s like Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize. Everyone assumed he was an arrogant so-and-so for not acknowledging the Swedish academy’s award.
Turns out the guy was so gobsmacked he couldn’t believe it and it took him several days to realise the phone call and ensuing publicity wasn’t an elaborate stunt.
Lavish praise
Whether you think him worthy of the accolade or not, there’s a man with a properly developed sense of modesty in the face of lavish praise and monetary gain – although let’s face it, he can’t be needing the money.
He probably looked at the other Nobel laureates in his field, thought: “Nah, someone’s getting at it,” and went back to composing another memorably literate shot across the bows of the American psyche – which, goodness knows, is sorely needed at the moment.
Novak Djokovic, the long-reigning No 1 who grew up playing alongside Murray, reacted to the Scot’s success with grace and generosity of spirit, citing his rival and close friend’s dedication and underlining that he deserved the title.
That kind of conduct in defeat, if it can be put like that, mirrors exactly the fierce yet fair type of competition they have conducted over the years via talent, force of personality and determination. No name-calling, bullying, threats or claims of partiality here.
I wonder if the new, sweetly-reasonable Donald Trump is still going to claim, loudly and in public, that the US electoral system is “rigged” and “corrupt”?
Shrieks of silence on that one from now on I suspect and somehow, I don’t see any bills being introduced in the near future that will alter the American constitution in any material way.
After all, a rigged, elitist, biased system is only rigged, elitist and biased until you’ve won using it. Then, suddenly, it becomes the best system you have.
