On winning,
perception, and American idols.
In my first
post in last year’s Super Bowl-inspired series, I focused on a December
2012 controversy surrounding Washington Redskins rookie quarterback Robert
Griffin III. At the time, RGIII was perhaps the biggest
story in the league, not only for his stellar rookie season but also
because of his unique personality and seemingly limitless potential (and not
just as a football player). But in the 2013 season, the stories and
controversies surrounding RGIII reflected instead the fickle nature of such
stardom—he began the season recuperating from the prior year’s season-ending
injury, never quite seemed to get back to where he had been in that rookie
season, and before the end of the year had
been benched in favor of backup Kirk Cousins (a move that, along with the
team’s dismal year, may
have precipated the firing of head coach Mike Shanahan).
Obviously it’s
far too premature to say that Griffin has definitively lost his star potential
or status (just as it was probably, in retrospect, too early to grant him that
level after his rookie season alone). But there’s no question that the
narrative has changed, and more exactly that Griffin is now no longer considered
(notwithstanding his unquestionable talent) a
definite “winner” in the NFL. Debates over winning vs. talent have long
been a part of both the NFL specifically (see: Brady
vs. Manning and Montana
vs. Marino, to cite only two examples) and the sports world more broadly
(see: Russell
vs. Chamberlain, to cite perhaps the best known example of all). But such
debates, and more specifically the power of being considered a “winner,” also
have a great deal of valence in our larger culture and society—as illustrated
by the example of Donald Trump, whose multiple
bankruptcies and other
public failures haven’t apparently dimmed his “winner” status in much
of our collective perception.
There’s certainly
an element of universality, of simple human nature, in such idolization of “winners”
(whatever the specifics or contexts of their situations). But these emphases
are also closely tied to many different core American narratives: of individual
success and the self-made
man; of rags-to-riches
stories and the American
Dream; of the meritocracy
and the mobility it promises. All of those narratives have a significant degree
of circularity at their core: if RGIII wins, it’s because he’s a winner and has
made his own success; if he doesn’t win, it’s because he’s not a winner and is
lacking what it takes to get there; and so on. But perhaps these two
back-to-back seasons can help us see the other side of these questions, the
ways in which contingency and context have so much to do with winning and losing,
success and failure. Injury notwithstanding, RGIII was fundamentally the same
quarterback and person in 2013 as in 2012; if his circumstances and thus his
results changed, that doesn’t mean we have to change the narratives as well.
Next issue
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think?
No comments:
Post a Comment