Serious sports men love to talk about character.
It’s one of the main building blocks in the creation of a championship team, the conventional wisdom goes. You want character guys in that locker room, they say. Good guys, standup guys.
Pressure doesn’t build character, they say. It reveals it.
Two athletes were thrust into the spotlight over the last couple of weeks for very different reasons, and how they comported themselves revealed a lot about themselves, and what real character looks like.
One of the athletes is a hockey player who has lived on the fringes of the pro leagues of North America and Europe, bouncing from team to team. He was once a top prospect but never actually played a game in the NHL. There were rumours, whispers about the player: Does he have “character issues,” the serious sports men wondered.
The other athlete is thought to be a near perfect leader. Talented, charismatic, successful. He plays quarterback, one of the most prestigious positions in all of sports. It’s a position built for leaders, for character guys. He’s a three-time NFL MVP, and a Super Bowl champion. He is, by most measures, one of the ultimate character guys.
So what did the all-pro quarterback do with his recent time in the spotlight? He basically lied, at the start of this season, when asked if he had been vaccinated. “Yeah, I’m immunized,” he said, even though he had not received a vaccination for COVID-19, but rather undergone “homeopathic treatment.” He then went about his business as a busy NFL star, fraternizing with countless people, many of whom likely thought he had been vaccinated, given his previous disclosure. Then he got COVID-19, and revealed that he wasn’t actually vaccinated. Then he complained that he was “in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now,” regarding his vaccination status.
He also said he consulted Joe Rogan, a podcast host who is most definitely not a doctor or scientist, for COVID-19 treatment advice, and admitted that he has taken Ivermectin since testing positive to try to treat his COVID-19.
And what did the fringe professional hockey player do? The one who never made it, the one labelled a “bust?” He went on national TV and revealed himself to be one of the anonymous victims in the centre of a sexual assault scandal involving the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks. He said he’d reported the incident when it happened and was dismayed when there were little to no repercussions for the person responsible. He apologized for not doing more to stop his alleged abuser, who went on to coach a high school team where there was another incident in which he pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual assault.
By speaking out last month, this hockey player shone a huge spotlight on the issue, putting the topic of protecting athletes from predators at the top of everyone’s agenda. And there were repercussions, 10 years after the abuse happened. People lost their jobs, which sent a pretty strong message – for those who couldn’t come to grips with it on their own – that there can be serious consequences for you or for others if you willingly cover up or minimize or ignore abuse.
There were well-regarded hockey men – players, coaches, staff, right on up to the owners – who decided that chasing the Stanley Cup and minimizing bad publicity was more important than defending a teammate and stopping a predator.
So who are the character guys? Who are the role models here?
The MVP quarterback who is now condoning the use of horse-deworming medicine rather than a vaccine? The consummate hockey captain who put his head down and skated by trouble rather than sticking up for a young teammate who had been abused? Or the prospect who never played an NHL game, but still managed to make an enormous, and important, impact on the game and the league?
Character is hard to quantify. But if I needed someone I could trust, if I was looking for someone with inner strength, if my very life depended on it … I know which of those athletes I would count on.
Andy Prest is the sports and features editor of the North Shore News. His lifestyle/humour column runs biweekly. [email protected]
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