Athletes new bogeymen

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Raise the threat level to a fiery red, add provisions to the Patriot Act, bust out the duct tape. Call on elected officials to protect us from the true enemy within our borders, the real threat to our way of life, the imminent danger George W. Bush and John Kerry egregiously ignored on the stump.

You know, the professional athlete.

What, you want to leave this to the French?

What sort of security mom, or dad, are you?

Or maybe you just haven’t heard, despite the patriotic efforts of Katie Couric, Larry King, Paula Zahn and many other TV gabbers to inform us. Maybe you don’t frequent the cable yellfests that decry the coarsening of our discourse and culture, all while exacerbating it. Maybe you didn’t hear Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren ask, “Athletes out of control? What’s behind the rage?” Or MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle, subbing for Joe Scarborough, ask, “Has our society created monsters? Should they be role models?” Or radio host Laura Ingraham, while admitting she hadn’t followed the NBA since college two decades ago, insinuating hip-hop culture caused that melee in Auburn Hills, Mich.

Maybe you didn’t see the fear on the faces of parents invited to chat with Zahn on CNN.

Almost as if they’d seen the deficit.

Or Desperate Housewives. Or Terrell Owens – gasp! – with the most desperate.

Maybe you’ve been too focused on footage from Fallujah to witness the horrifying guerrilla warfare of Auburn Hills.

Maybe you’ve been too busy jamming to Ron Artest’s rap album, the one he hawked on the Today Show. “It’s positive, it’s about love,” the Tru Warier vouched, headed straight for The Surreal Life with William Hung and Amber Frey.

Maybe you had watched only one NBA game, and not the 1,229 others occurring every regular season without incident, other than any caused by cement pretzels.

“There’s going to be a backlash, no matter what,” Miami Heat guard Eddie Jones said. “We have to expect that. Hey, I didn’t like what I saw. Would I not bring my kids? Honestly, I play this game, and I think it was an isolated event. I think that will probably never, ever happen again. I just think it was something that got totally out of hand.”

Maybe you weren’t aware of this simple truth: there are no isolated events or individual actions. If one person acts a certain way, all colleagues are similarly inclined. And if those people are ethnic minorities, forget it; it’s gospel.

Maybe you didn’t see the national non-sports electronic media’s last major foray into sports, and its exhaustive examination of whether all athletes were sexual miscreants like Kobe Bryant, who would naturally be convicted, unless it became just another case of hotshot lawyer getting rich athlete off.

Maybe you have been wary of generalization, especially after seeing noted bad boy Rasheed Wallace play peacemaker during the brawl, and considering Jermaine O’Neal’s sterling reputation.

Maybe you assumed if anyone associated with the NBA belonged on Larry King Live, it wouldn’t be John Green, who allegedly tossed the cup at Artest – which at least beats drinking from it while driving. The guest might be classy Grant Hill, to discuss his remarkable return to health. Or maybe Richard Jefferson, who offered to replace a little girl’s $20,000 wheelchair after reading a hit-and-run driver had destroyed it.

Silly you.

Maybe you didn’t recognize, even after the Monday Night Football controversy, that sports fans are in the crossfire. Bored by body bags and emboldened by an election allegedly decided by “moral values,” according to exit polls they have otherwise discredited, many in the electronic media have made sports the latest front in the culture war.

The pundits have found scores of new bogeymen, monsters and “thugs,” and best of all, these guys have pronounceable names, until the NBA starts scouting Basra. Most have never met the athletes, let alone seen them help communities, care for families and lead positive lives. Not that it would matter if they had. Tuesday, Heat forward Wesley Person acknowledged the need to act professional everywhere: “You can’t give them anything to go on. Because people don’t really take time out to really get to know people, because they don’t have enough time, really.”

Especially people with 24 cable-hours to fill.

Shaquille O’Neal has given up on thoughtful differentiation: “Most of the time, when something happens bad in the fraternity, the whole fraternity is going to get stereotyped. It goes for you writers. It goes for police officers, it goes for doctors, teachers. As an individual in a fraternity, you’ve just got to make sure that you do the right thing, so that the fraternity overall maintains a strong, clear name.”

Now all should do the right thing: find a bunker, escape the evildoers, and still be sure not to miss Fox’s season premiere of When Athletes Attack.