Rant Time: The Content of Your Game

(Editor's Note: This is the full version of an article posted in The Breeze on February 16, 2012.)



I always laugh a little bit when I hear fully grown adults with PhD’s start taking shots at Generation Y. They say that we’re too lazy. We’re the dumbest generation. Don’t trust anyone under 30. Google is making us stupid. Really? You want to put your 8-10 years of higher education to use by putting down young adults that aren’t even fully formed persons yet?
 

As you can tell, I tend to reject most of the criticism that is thrown around out there. Still, there is a grain of truth to some of what is said. If anything, I think GenY is too naïve. Now a full generation removed from the 1960’s, few of us even really have parents who can fully remember what this country was like before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was ratified.


People who try to be trendy might say “I don’t see color.” But no one walks around saying that there are no differences between men and women. Growing up on either side of the turn of the millennium, I obviously saw color. I saw black, white, yellow, brown, and everything else. I just didn’t really care, nor did I see what the difference was. To a Generation Y kid, I can’t even understand what people were thinking when they might look at anyone different than themselves and think “gee, you’re a minority? That’s grounds for needing to go to a different bathroom.” It is truly unfathomable. In a world of overused hyperbole, it is a concept that literally boggles my mind.


That is why I don’t get Luis Suarez.


He’s a 25-year-old striker for Liverpool. Back in October, Suarez got into a bit of a verbal spat on the field with Manchester United player Patrice Evra. This was followed by a 115-page report that determined that Suarez kicked Evra and told him it was because he was black. When Evra understandably became angry because of this racial abuse and asked him to repeat what he had said, Suarez only replied, “I don’t speak to blacks.” Then Suarez called Evra a “negro” a couple times before scurrying along.

The Football Association — basically an English version of Roger Goodell — laid down a £40,000 fine and an eight-game suspension for Suarez’s inappropriate actions. Exactly the right move. Case closed.

Except that last weekend, when Suarez came back from his suspension, his first act was to skip Evra while the two clubs shook hands before their game. If you’ve ever played organized sports, you know that skipping someone in the handshake line generally isn’t an accident. It’s intentional, and it’s meant to send a message. I’d love to take Suarez’s £40,000 and bet that he planned and schemed up that little trick during his eight-game suspension. It would be great to come back with a racist bang, right where he left off, and start some fireworks.

Like all great vengeance plans, this one backfired. Evra and Man U of course felt disrespected and willed themselves to a 2-1 victory. This time, the football association failed to find Suarez’ actions as inappropriate, and they have announced there will be no sanctions against him. How the exact same commission that just spent 115 pages explaining why he was a racist can fail to find this inappropriate, I will never understand. But it does reinforce the fact that the subtle, ugly tones of racism still find themselves seeping into the world of sports every now and again. I don’t understand how someone just four years older than me can understand a mentality so completely when I don’t comprehend it at all.

Still, there is a new hope rising in the (far) east, and his name is Jeremy Lin.


If I told you three weeks ago that an economics graduate sleeping on his friend’s couch was going to ignite the sports world and dominate ESPN, you’d have probably wondered aloud how I even got a sports column to begin with. Yet here we are nearing the end of week two of Linsanity. With Amar’e Stoudemire already back and Carmelo Anthony set to return to the lineup later this week, people are buzzing with anticipation. Will the ascent of previously unheralded point guard Jeremy Lin continue? I don’t know. I am not a Knicks fan, so I am not personally invested in their success, but at this rate, Lin could be elected Secretary-General of the UN by the end of this weekend.


I don’t want to anoint him just yet, but there is certainly some substance to the hype surrounding Jeremy Lin. After all, in his first four starts, he has outscored every player since the history of the NBA merger of 1976. So how much hype is appropriate, you ask? That’s all a matter of perspective. Many pundits have said he is the Tim Tebow of basketball, but Tebow was a Heisman-winning quarterback with two national championships who was drafted in the first round. Lin was undrafted and received zero Division 1 scholarships. Tebow’s stats are underwhelming; Lin’s stats are just the opposite.


Some have gone so far as to say he is a 21^st century Jackie Robinson. Lin may have grown up as a minority at the turn of the 21^st century, but Jackie Robinson was truly discriminated against. He surely would not have been allowed to attend Harvard. Lin may be a cultural phenomenon, but Robinson is a historically significant icon. Let’s slow that bus down just a little bit.


Still, as an Asian Harvard grad who wanted to play in the NBA, I’m guessing Lin knows a thing or two about unfair judgment. He’s no Robinson, but it’s reasonable to assume Linsanity hasn’t always been quite so, well, insane. These scouts have gotten so use to seeing a certain type of mould at combines, and let’s face facts. Jeremy Lin is not that mould.


It shouldn’t matter what you look like. In 2012, I would hope a player is judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their game.


But what do I know? I’m just a stupid kid.