Close the Locker Room Door, Please!

Since this is Superbowl Sunday, it seems like a good time to take a stand regarding the information the media gives us about athletes:

There's altogether too much of it. Way, way, to much.

I like sports. Actually, I don't watch a lot of games, let alone actually go to them, but I listen to lots and lots of sports radio. And I'm tired of trying to decide if I can cheer for an athlete that's been shown to be a thug, or abusive to his family, or to have children by a dozen different women. Sports are one of my HOBBIES, darn it, and I don't need them to be awash in moral ambiguity.

I don't have to worry about this with the other people I appreciate. Nobody's gonna interfere with my appreciation of my florist by telling me that she's a kleptomaniac. Even if the butcher I like gets arrested for embezzling porterhouses in order to support his crystal meth habit, I'm unlikely to ever hear about it: there'll just be somebody else working there the next time I'm in.

It's pretty apparent that a pro (or major college) locker room is not an environment where I'd feel comfortable. So, I don't make any effort to spend any time there. I leave that door closed, and wish the press would, too.

I only want the good news. Does the quarterback go to visit sick kids? I'd love to hear about it. Does he stop at a strip club on the way home from the hospital? I don't want to know.

Yeah, I know: this horse has left the barn a long time ago. I'm not gonna get what I want. Anything these guys do that's bad - or can be painted to look that way - I'm gonna have to hear about it if I want to listen to any sports at all.

But I don't have to like it!