Workplace Calisthenics: Athletes, sports provide poor substitute for reality

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Cal LeMon, of Executive Enrichment Inc., solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. |ret||ret||tab|

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This game should be called because of darkness.|ret||ret||tab|

The game? Professional sports.|ret||ret||tab|

I do not know about you, but I have had it. |ret||ret||tab|

Jose Canseco got to me. Baseball not your game? Well, what about Michael Pittman, the Buccaneers' running back? Pittman was the unbelievable 124-yard pigskin mover in the last Superbowl, who also unbelievably rammed his Hummer into the side of his wife's Mercedes with her and his 2-year-old inside. Pittman will miss this year's season because he will be in jail for repeated episodes of domestic violence.|ret||ret||tab|

Isn't it time for this society to question the billions of dollars annually spent building stadiums, carpeting sky boxes and paying millionaire agents so we can parade our pathetic models of amoral athleticism between the beer and hot dogs? |ret||ret||tab|

Every day there is another "star" in professional sports who is caught, not just being human, but being a valueless human.|ret||ret||tab|

Because professional sports dominates our language, coffee break conversations and autograph hunting, we need to remember that the temperature of a culture can always be taken under the tongue of its heroes.|ret||ret||tab|

We rightly cling to the marble feet of Lincoln, Jefferson and King, not because they were perfect, but because knee-deep in their imperfection, they chose greatness.|ret||ret||tab|

What greatness is there hanging in mid air under a basketball hoop? What greatness is there in using a three iron to put a white ball within 18 inches of a small hole? What greatness is there in throwing a football 40 yards into the arms of a teammate? |ret||ret||tab|

You are undoubtedly thinking, "Cal needs to get a life." Yes, I watch the Masters. I know the Kansas City Royals are in contention this year. I get as excited as the next person over a home run, a three-pointer at the buzzer and Tom Watson's putt that magically drops into the cup while hanging on threads of grass for an eternity.|ret||ret||tab|

But I am disillusioned.|ret||ret||tab|

Whatever happened to sports as a character-builder?|ret||ret||tab|

I'm wondering where all of that "character" went when we tolerate one NFL player after another being convicted of felonies?|ret||ret||tab|

I'm wondering, out loud, why our nightly, agonizing news broadcasts have to be pockmarked with revelations of cork-filled bats (Sammy Sosa) and failed drug tests (Josh Evans). If there is any place I'm looking for good news, it should be when the sports segment airs.|ret||ret||tab|

So, think about it. What would life be like without professional sports?|ret||ret||tab|

On the weekends, spouses would actually talk to each other instead of at each other during commercials.|ret||ret||tab|

Children would have to find role models for what it means to be a "grown up" from parents, teachers, clergy, relatives and anyone else who can think. |ret||ret||tab|

We would all add at least two years of usable time to our lives that otherwise would have been spent in front of a TV, sitting in an over-priced stadium or conducting endless, inane debates about whether or not William "The Refrigerator" Perry should lose weight.|ret||ret||tab|

And, if professional sports were nixed, we might lose another excuse that keeps us from openly discussing our addictions to drugs, work and consumerism.|ret||ret||tab|

What will it take for us to wake up and smell the rotten ethics of American professional sports? |ret||ret||tab|

Why are we content to joke and applaud someone who does not know how to put together an English sentence but gets paid $18 million over three years to jump about 18 inches off the floor to stuff an air-filled ball through a hoop?|ret||ret||tab|

Thirty-eight states are bankrupt. A war that was declared over continues to grind out about one dead American soldier each day. Children have been arrested just prior to killing hundreds in New Jersey with a Columbine rerun.|ret||ret||tab|

This game needs to be called because of darkness the kind of darkness eliminated when smart people decide to turn off the television and refuse to fuel this over-priced, immoral modeling.|ret||ret||tab|

After all, it is just a game.|ret||ret||tab|

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