If you were asked to name the top five biggest falls from grace in the public's eye over the past decade, what names would you come up with? If this was Family Feud, I'm confident the top three answers would look something like this Tiger Woods, LeBron James and Michael Vick. After that it gets pretty tough. Maybe you could argue Eliot Spitzer, but he wasn't as famous as those guys. Or even George Bush, but he was never as universally revered, or as universally loathed, as those three guys.
In fact, some of the biggest contenders might be other sports stars. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and more recently, Brett Favre, have all fallen incredibly far in the public eye. I guess I could understand a Lindsey Lohan-type of answer, but again, Ms. Lohan has never been cheered for by tens of thousands of screaming fans. Plus, I don't think anyone really cares when a movie star has drug problems; they just aren't loved like sports stars.
So in one sense, sports stars have it tough. Whether it's fair or not, they are viewed as heroes, and thus are held to a higher standard than many other celebrities. On the one hand, without the fans, professional athletes wouldn't have jobs, so they should act as their fans want them to. On the other hand, it's kind of ridiculous that Tiger Woods gets caught cheating and, due to public pressure, has to stop playing golf for a bit and check himself into "sex rehab," while Bill Clinton gets caught cheating, lies about it and can remain President of the United States.
I started thinking about this while watching the Eagles-Colts game this weekend. Vick's turnaround is truly remarkable. There isn't a single person in the United States that took more heat than Vick did during his downfall. Every dog-lover in the country wanted him to suffer and he lost over $100 million dollars. Rock bottom is an understatement.
Now though, Vick is back on top. He's the starting quarterback for one of the top offenses in the league and looks like he hasn't lost a step since his Atlanta days. Not only that, if you read or hear anything about him in mainstream media, it's all glowing. Everyone says they are proud of him and hope he continues to have success in his comeback. Not only that, they constantly compliment his character and cite all the moral progress he has made off the field.
I'm a big Vick fan myself. He's the quarterback of my fantasy team and easily the most exciting NFL player to watch. I can't help but wonder one thing about his comeback though. If Vick wasn't playing well, would this turnaround have happened?
It seems pretty unlikely that anyone would care about Vick at all these days if he wasn't lighting up the stats sheet. I don't think he'd get any coverage whatsoever. In fact, in terms of his public reputation, it might still be very tainted. People would probably only remember him for the dog-fighting scandal.
But, Vick has been playing well, and he's proved that even though sports stars can fall the hardest, they can also climb back up the easiest. Can you name one sports star who's playing well that's hated by most of society? Right now the only one I can think of is LeBron.
Luckily for the self-proclaimed King, however, if there's anything Vick's comeback has shown, it's that LeBron can bounce back too. If the Heat go on to become the greatest NBA team ever, he will win people over. The bottom line is if they are fun to watch, people will learn to love the team. Same with Tiger, all he has to do is start winning tournaments again and people will come around.
The old saying, "Big tree fall hard," couldn't apply to sports superstars more. At the same time though, sports stars can climb back up faster than just about anyone, all they need to do is play well.
