Greg Norman was the Shark. Jack Nicklaus was the Bear. In tennis, Ilie Nastase was Nasty and John McEnroe was, well, a lot of things. Baseball had the Mick, the Babe, the Barber and Joltin' Joe. Name three nicknames in baseball today.
Psychologists such as Jim Loehr in tennis and Bob Rotella in golf have taught young athletes that possessing preternatural athletic skills at the age of 15 is not enough, not now when the margin between the top players is thinner than ever. To win consistently at the highest level, and at crunch time, young racquet-smashing, club-throwing players have been taught not to let their emotions drive all those thousands of hours of practice over the cliff. Only a pure genius like John McEnroe can work athletic miracles and toy with his emotional demons at the same time. For almost anyone else now, we recommend not Mr. McEnroe's "You Cannot Be Serious!" but Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations."
That's the benign explanation. But in our time, characters who wear their hearts on their sleeves, on or off the field, run the risk of having their hearts stuffed very publicly back down their throats. Ask Vijay Singh.
Vijay Singh, among the five best golfers in the world and one of the sport's cheerier personalities, let slip his opinion that Annika Sorenstam "didn't belong" on the PGA Tour. Mr. Singh wasn't merely refuted by the media's moral gatekeepers; he was teed up and whacked for a long ride. USA Today summed up the sand-trapping of Mr. Singh: "After a day of intense criticism, golfer Vijay Singh backed away from his derogatory comments." And dropped out of the tournament.
McEnroe was laugh out-loud fun. I saw my normally stoic brother smash two rackets one summer and could only figure he got his inspiration from one place.
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