Spring Break and The Big Hate

Spring Break is here! I thought I'd write a post while I have some free time. Warning: It's long and it's about sports, women may lose interest. Enjoy!

The Big Hate
By: Matt Andreason

These are perilous times we live in aren’t they? We have an economic recession costing millions of people their jobs; we’ve got a president with unprecedented socialistic ideals leading a republican government; and who can forget we’ve got millions of Muslim radicals primed to literally blast the American population at any given time?

Pretty sucky world isn’t it? Luckily, one segment of the population unfazed by a world of grief seems to be our beloved professional athletes. Protected by heaps of money, a well-paid entourage and buoyed by a president whose most glaring achievements thus far are that he’s black and he's “cool,” athletes have little to complain about these days. That is if your name isn’t Shaquille O’Neal.

What perilous times could an athlete possibly face who’s amassed the amount of money of a small country during a surefire 18-year hall-of-fame career? How about irrelevance. Welcome to Shaqville. That’s right, the Big Aristotle is on a direct course to the land of triviality and he’s not taking it very well.

The new guys, who’ve waited so patiently to take the reins of basketball’s elite, have officially taken the mantle. The process hasn’t been easy on the big guy, as it seems no one can escape his unforgiving wrath as he tails off into the wind; not even squeaky-clean Dwight Howard who idolized Shaq as a toddler.

Howard, Shaq’s literal heir apparent, crafted his game and personality so carefully after his idol he even dubbed himself “Superman” as a tribute to his hero. How does one react to such glowing admiration?

"When it's all said and done, I'll have four or five titles," Shaq said. "It doesn't matter to me who tries to take my (Superman nickname). We all know who the real (Superman) is."

He wasn’t done either. After a recent game against Howard, Howard’s coach, Stan Van Gundy, called Shaq out for “flopping,” a defensive technique that Shaq has abhorred in the past. It was Van Gundy’s way of protecting his guy (Dwight) who’d been under constant fire from Shaq as shown in the quote above. As you can imagine, Shaq wasn’t amused and had some heated words for his former coach.

"When a bum says some (stuff) and I respond, you can (expletive) cancel that 'cause I know how he is in real life. We'll see when the playoffs start and he (expletive) panics and quits like he did when he was here. Do I look soft to you like you can say something and I'm not going to say something?

"I said this a long time ago but I was actually talking about him (Van Gundy). When the general panics, the troops will panic . . . All the players hate him.

"Usually, I let (stuff) go. Not that. Not him."

Consider this your “I feel better about myself today” medicine. Remember that even though we all don’t have superstar money or in some cases even a job, most of us (my few readers) do have character. Shaq’s recent example shows all the money in the world doesn’t buy a cent of happiness. It’s the smaller things (family, religion, etc.) that prove our true character.