You Herd Me!: I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will (6 page)

Make one thing clear: I’m not a moralist or some throwback Puritan who believes strong drink is the devil’s brew. I’m in favor of legalizing pot and I own a wine store.

Morals aren’t the issue.

Sanity is the issue. Common sense is the issue.

You will never see me wear a jersey to a game. Ever. Maybe my ego is just too big, but I would never wear another man’s name on my back. That’s my back, and I’m proud of it. I don’t want my kids to see me idolizing someone else. Do you want them to idolize other people? You can be respectful of someone’s work without slobbering over him or her.

There’s just too much man worship in sports. Maybe it’s our Western religion where we look up for answers while Eastern religion asks you to look within yourself, not idolize or worship someone else.

It’s what brought down Penn State football. People allowed a man in his eighties to run a $400 million football program. That’s not being an ageist—it’s being a realist. Joe Paterno was not only injured twice during his last few years, he was so generationally out of touch, he didn’t recognize how dangerous and inappropriate the Jerry Sandusky information was.

Never forget, Phil Jackson was once swept out of the playoffs. The late Steve Jobs at Apple had several creations that failed. Go look up his 1988 single-button mouse, which could have doubled as a hockey puck.

When Bill Belichick and the Patriots acquired Tim Tebow, there was immediate recognition of Belichick’s brilliance. How soon we forget his dubious acquistions of Albert Haynesworth and Chad Ochocinco and his regrettable trade of talented Richard Seymour.

Women seem to grow out of it. Teenage girls may worship boy bands or movie stars but move past the infatuation at an earlier age. With guys, it starts early and often grows when we have the means to support it. Autographs, iPhone pictures, fantasy camps, message boards, paying thousands for a seat at a table with a 67-year-old former football star—would a woman really pay 25 grand for a dinner with Molly Ringwald in 2013?

Man worship is at an all-time high. It’s a bull market right now. No thanks.

Bel Air Country Club is nestled into the hills above UCLA’s campus in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in the country, and it’s just as beautiful as it sounds.

After a round of golf at Bel Air, it’s not uncommon to spot anyone—from a broadcasting icon to a business tycoon to a Hollywood celebrity—knocking back a few. On the night of my one and only visit, I spotted all of the above when former NBA player and coach Mike Dunleavy invited me up for a few drinks before he and his wife went to dinner elsewhere.

The next ninety minutes were filled with giant laughs, compelling stories, and a sense of camaraderie among men who may find themselves competing against one another during the work week. These were men who put in long hours, and this impromptu 6:15 cocktail party was a break from lives filled with deadlines and pressure. No one, judging by the conversations, would be happy living his life any other way. They were competitive, hardworking guys, and nobody was about to apologize for that.

I had put in a long week of radio shows and sales meetings. Before I sat down with Mike and entered into the group conversation, I was dragging. Within minutes, I was energized.

It was the same energy I feel whenever I’m in a room full of athletes, coaches, or other dreaded type-A personalities who are often criticized for lacking balance, priorities, and a sense of perspective.

These are men and women—mostly men, to be honest—who are often singularly obsessed with achievement or mission. The problem, according to too many people who lack the same drive, is that people like this lack
balance
.

You’ve heard it:

He’s a workaholic. His life is out of balance
.

He’s obsessed. He needs some balance in his life
.

Is it possible that this premise—one of our longest-held and least-questioned—is mostly one giant crock?

If you live in my world long enough, it certainly feels that way.

I decided to research what makes people happy, and I found that even chronically unhappy people don’t list
a balanced life
as a means of escaping from the dark tunnel of depression. Of all the things listed—independence, sex, achievement, charity work, exercise
—balance
was nowhere to be found.

How can that be? How can such a vital and universally acknowledged key to happiness not be, in fact, a key to happiness? My barista is a poet, web designer, ski bum, and all-around radical dude—he
always
has a lively step to his mornings.

Could it be possible that Peyton Manning, a guy who spends countless hours breaking down game film without so much as a single camping trip with his buddies or a visible recreational pursuit, may be just as happy as my barista? Or—gulp—even
more
so?

I can only speak for guys since … well, I am one. But after forty-nine years on this planet, most of it spent observing and then discussing teams and people, I’m going rogue right here: Unbalanced Guy? He’s doing just fine.

You can have Balanced Guy. I’ll take his miserable brother, otherwise known as “Fully Committed to Something.” You’ll recognize him if you see him. He’s the one always hanging out with another unbalanced guy—“You Get One Shot at This Life and I’m Going to Make Something of It.”

Maybe those guys get home every night and head to the nearest sofa, where they dive headfirst, bury themselves in designer throw pillows, and sob for hours.

Or maybe they don’t.

Maybe through intense competition on the climb to the top of their fields, they’ve grown accustomed to—but not comfortable with—the occasional defeat and are resilient enough that the kind of day-to-day problems that derail most people are treated as welcome challenges.

Here’s a question for every therapist who preaches balance: Would you prefer balance from the quarterback of your favorite NFL team? You know, the guy who might have had a better game if he hadn’t spent several hours that week on his new whittling exhibit? If you’re a therapist in Dallas and a Cowboys’ season-ticket holder, would you prefer Tony Romo to skip practice today to work on his recently acquired interest in the violin?

Nobody is suggesting that staring at a computer screen all day is a recipe for eternal bliss. Nobody is suggesting you ignore your kids, never take a vacation, and treat your spouse like an employee. Nobody is saying that having the Unabomber’s social life is the way to go.

But look around. You’ll see a pattern.

As author Scott H. Young writes, “Almost everything meaningful is accomplished by a megalomaniac on a mission. Balance is static, it’s the opposite of change and growth. Obsession, not balance, makes things happen.”

Isn’t it reasonable, then, to assume that many people or groups who create everything from transcendent technological advances to small landscaping companies gain a level of self-worth that wouldn’t have been possible without some level of obsession?

Unless you’re reading this book in Yellowstone National Park, look around right now. What do you see—a computer, a house, a nice clock, dual-pane windows? You think Balanced Guy made all those things happen? And if you acknowledge that Unbalanced Guy was the driving force behind them, don’t you think he gained something emotionally from his creations?

In sports, teams are constantly asking for more from you, the fan. Rising ticket prices, PSLs, $9 beers, DirecTV packages to watch games—they’re on a mission to separate you from your discretionary income. Given that, isn’t it perfectly fine for you to ask for something in return, like a greater and more serious commitment from the athletes and coaches your team employs?

For one thing, it pays off. Longtime NFL scout Gary Horton told me the hardest-working coach he ever met was Bill Belichick. Upon being hired to coach the Cleveland Browns, Belichick gathered every scout in a room and broke down what he wanted from a nose tackle should the Browns ever draft one.

This nose-tackle meeting took more than four hours.

Horton said Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome, maybe the league’s most respected talent evaluator, has a relentless work ethic. Newsome arrives at the office every morning in the off-season to watch tapes of college players, many of whom the Ravens have no chance of landing.

Maybe it’s just a vicious cycle, and we’re all to blame for the unbalance in our lives. We pay more, therefore we demand more and we’re all miserable in the process. Is that how it works? Maybe an 8-8 team makes the world a happier and more balanced place, enough wins to bring me—the fan—back, but not so many wins that the coaching staff won’t take that extra weekend off.

But what are the sports stories we want to hear? From my
lengthy experience in the field, I’ve got a pretty good idea: Michael Jordan lifting weights the morning after every game of his career; Kobe Bryant refusing to leave the practice gym until he wins the final game of H-O-R-S-E; Peyton Manning sitting in a dark film room hours after practice looking for the slimmest edge on his opponent.

For all we give to sports, these are the stories we
need
to hear.

Nearly any business of any size—sports teams and leagues included—resides in a global space. Fifty years ago, the great 18-year-old American shortstop had to worry about fewer competitors for a job in the big leagues. Now, that same kid has to be better than shortstops from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico, and even Cuba.

You simply can’t rise to the highest level without putting in more hours than your competitors. And when it comes to sports, the more hours you put in at an earlier age, all the better.

In 1996, the late writer David Foster Wallace wrote a fascinating article in
Esquire
about a little-known tennis player named Michael Joyce, who was the seventy-ninth-ranked player in the world at the time. Wallace delved into the inner workings of the tennis circuit and told the story through Joyce’s eyes, and one thing became abundantly clear: the commitment, time, and focus needed to be a top 100 player—even in the second half of that top 100—is not suited for those who are only partially devoted to the sport. As Wallace writes, “The realities of top level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus. A consent to live in a world that’s very small.”

The question then becomes, does that small world necessarily make you less happy?

A 2006 Pew survey attempted to define happiness as it pertains to political persuasion, always a dicey proposition. But the findings were illuminating. The survey found that conservatives, regardless of income level, are happier than liberals. (This indicates that the prevailing idea that older, wealthier conservatives are happier than younger liberals is true but not exclusively true.)

The study used political persuasion while basing its findings on the well-established Big Five personality scale, in which five factors—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—are used to determine personality.

What did it find? Conservatives tend to be less neurotic and fretful. They don’t agonize over unknowns, which means they probably don’t lose sleep over the possible tyranny of a third-world dictator. The study concluded that conservatives know their place in the universe and aren’t troubled by it.

Liberals, on the other hand, need closure and certainty. They
are
troubled by the tyranny of a third-world dictator, even though they are undoubtedly powerless to do anything about it. They focus on what is idealized rather than what is possible, while conservatives focus on stability and community, two factors that are far more controllable.

I’m not suggesting the path to happiness starts with trading Rachel Maddow for Sean Hannity. I doubt psychologists and therapists are touting their new treatment—Beat depression! Watch
Fox News
!—as better than medication. The conservative/liberal thing is a mind-set that extends beyond politics, and the study left me with an overwhelming sense that a smaller world with more certainty makes people happier. Maybe that seems counterintuitive in an increasingly global community, but one finding of the study struck a chord with me: conservatives cared more about
community than liberals, but it was limited to the community that they consider theirs.