Being a child of the 50’s, I love a good old shoot em up western. There was nothing better on a Saturday morning than watching Roy Rogers or Hopalong Cassidy or the Lone Ranger chase after the bad guys while you munched your Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies. A few years later I had Cheyenne, Bonanza, Sugarfoot, and Gunsmoke to continue my love affair with the western.
This love of the Old West has continued into my adult life. I enjoy a good western on the big screen. Unfortunately, I can’t recall a real good one since The Lonesome Dove series but I’ll watch Rio Bravo every time it reruns on TV. And I love reading Old West stories written by the likes of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour.
Westerns are great for one main reason; you can always tell the good guys from the bad. The good guys wore white, rode white horses, could sing a good song, and were clean shaven, usually. The bad guys wore black, smoked cigars, and had moustaches. Now that I think about it, though, Hopalong was an exception to that rule because he actually wore black. You cheered for the good guy and you booed the bad guy.
here has not been a better example of the good guy/bad guy mentality in the world of sports in a long time more than the recent matchup of Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James vying for the NBA championship. For those of you who may not know, although I can’t begin to imagine how you don’t know, the Dallas Mavericks led by German-born Nowitzki defeated the hated Miami Heat (by everyone outside of the city of Miami) and LeBron James last week and I couldn’t have been happier. Dirk has become the poster boy for what’s good in sports and LeBron has become one of the most disliked athletes in all of sports. I’d feel sorry for him but he has brought all of this negative reaction on himself.
I had such high hopes for LeBron when he first came into the league. Here was an obviously gifted athlete, straight out of high school, setting the basketball world on fire. He seemed humble. He said the right things. He answered questions politely. And he played the game hard. He did all the right things. But, then, he got caught up in his own hype.
Something began changing a few years back. He began those awful, self-centered, pre-game theatrics. He started chest thumping and prancing around when he did something good on the court. He wouldn’t congratulate the other team when they defeated his team. And then came The Decision.
I have stated before my feelings on this fiasco and I’m not just talking about his nationally televised announcement.
The whole episode reeked of collusion and should have been stopped by the league but since he is their biggest drawing card, it was allowed to continue. He had no business talking to other players.
So, he decides to take his talents to Miami- that’s his right but then they begin these celebrations. James starts spouting off that the Heat will win more championships than any other team in history. To hear him, David Stern needed to cancel the season and just give Miami the championship trophy right then.
Now, let’s fast forward to the championship series. The Heat wins game one and had a big lead in game two before blowing it, mainly because James quit playing defense and went stone cold from the field. The Mavs win the series in six and the Heat slink away. Again, James didn’t even bother to congratulate the Mavericks.
Then, in his post-game comments he says this: “All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that.” What arrogance! What an a**!
Thank goodness there are still athletes in professional sports today like Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk does nothing but go out and play the game each and every night with intensity and determination.
And he plays the same way in 2011 as he did in 1998 when he came into the league. I can’t remember Dirk ever being controversial or a trouble-maker to his coach. He has shown loyalty to the city of Dallas (something that James cannot say) and his perseverance led them, finally, to this championship season.
Once labeled a good regular season player who never performed up to his potential in the post-season, Nowitzki silenced those accusers with his performance this year. Even though he was a having a rough shooting night for the first three quarters in the sixth and deciding game, Dirk contributed in other ways. He forced several turnovers, got quite a few key rebounds, and then when the team needed him the most in the fourth quarter, his shooting improved and he hit some big baskets.
Dirk will never be called arrogant or self-promoting. In his post-game interview, when accepting the Bill Russell Trophy for the series MVP, he wanted to talk about the contributions of his teammates, namely former Hawk Jason Terry, more than he wanted the spotlight on himself. Dirk has been a class act, something James needs to learn.
I haven’t been so emotionally invested in a championship series in a long time. I wanted the Mavericks to win, yes, but I will admit it, I wanted the Heat to lose even more. Both things happened and in the midst one good guy, Dirk Nowitzki, and one bad guy, LeBron James, emerged. Yip-e-ti-yay!
Randy Blalock is a columnist for the Barrow Journal. You can e-mail him at rblalock@mindspring.com.
