Nice to see him stand up for himself. Easy to lose perspective when all you see online and in papers are people clowning on you, despite being in the top ~5% of footballers.
I make the point about NFL quarterbacks sometimes, because there’s only 32 full-time job openings and only maybe half that many get any respect, but it applies to professional athletes in general. Imagine if most of us were subjected to constant oversight and mockery from random strangers because we might have slipped from the top 1% of our chosen profession to the top 3%, or god forbid we were only ever among the top 5%.
Now, the obscene money reduces my overall sympathy quite a bit, but I could definitely see it weighing on somebody, especially with how it generally hits them while they’re still young and dumb and status-conscious.
Nice to see him stand up for himself. Easy to lose perspective when all you see online and in papers are people clowning on you, despite being in the top ~5% of footballers.
I make the point about NFL quarterbacks sometimes, because there’s only 32 full-time job openings and only maybe half that many get any respect, but it applies to professional athletes in general. Imagine if most of us were subjected to constant oversight and mockery from random strangers because we might have slipped from the top 1% of our chosen profession to the top 3%, or god forbid we were only ever among the top 5%.
Now, the obscene money reduces my overall sympathy quite a bit, but I could definitely see it weighing on somebody, especially with how it generally hits them while they’re still young and dumb and status-conscious.