Jalen Hurts’ team-first attitude is antidote to ESPNization of sports

By David McElroy · January 10, 2018

ESPN is both the best thing and the worst thing to ever happen to college sports.

The network showed a lot of absolute junk in its early days, but it also made people become accustomed to being able to see their college football and basketball teams more often. Although ABC and CBS had been the early leaders in college sports, ESPN pushed the boundaries and opened the floodgates. The rights money flowed freely to colleges and conferences.

Fans were happy. Wealthy major conferences and colleges were happy. Athletes were happy with the exposure. Coaches got paid more.

But ESPN was a relentless hype machine. In promoting its games, the push is all about the individual — the single achiever, the big star. And that has taken a lot of the enjoyment out of team sports for me.

ESPN and its competitors now celebrate individual performances more than team performances. A star athlete on a mediocre team will frequently get more coverage than a collection of hard-working players who aren’t superstars.

I have nothing against individual sports such as tennis or golf, but there is something special about the cooperation and trust that has to build between the players of successful teams. So while I can enjoy the spectacular play of a one-on-one artist such as LeBron James, I’m far more excited by teams that work together better, such as the Warriors.

One-on-one, I don’t know that any of the greats from the past could have stopped James, but a team of good players who trust each other and have good coaching can beat almost any team composed of a superstar and four sidekicks who don’t work well together.

ESPN has created this modern sports phenomenon, because it loves these superstar which it can promote individually. Even better, a culture of superstars competing — and even hating each other — helps TV networks sell dramatic stories to draw eyeballs.

It’s smart business for ESPN, but it’s not what I want sports to be. On Monday night, I saw a beautiful demonstration of what I want sports to be — from a starting quarterback who lost his job at halftime and watched a true freshman lead his team to a college football national title.

Jalen Hurts was the starting quarterback at Alabama from the second game of his freshman year. As a starter, he’s 25-2. He’s been a spectacular player and a strong leader on the team. He’s given Alabama a strong runner at quarterback, but he hasn’t developed enough as a passer yet.

Monday night against Georgia, the Bulldogs were selling out to stop the run. They were loading the box and basically daring Hurts to throw over them for touchdowns. The Georgia defenders didn’t believe he could beat them with this strategy. By halftime — when Alabama was down 13-0 and Hurts had completed only two passes — Tide coach Nick Saban agreed.

Hurts was replaced by freshman Tua Tagovailoa, a Hawaii native who had played only mop-up duty so far this year.

As a competitor, the benching had to sting for Hurts, but he didn’t show it. Instead, he showed encouragement and advice to Tagovailoa as the freshman brought Alabama back for a thrilling win. Tagovailoa hit a 41-yard-touchdown pass in overtime to win the game. As ESPN’s cameras watched Hurts for a negative reaction, Hurts remained thrilled about his team — and his teammate — in spite of going through the humiliation of losing his job to a player who brought the team back for a championship.

After the game, Hurts was gracious.

“It was important for me to stay true to myself and be the person I am, and be the leader I am, regardless of the circumstance,” Hurts said in a celebrating Alabama locker room. “It’s my duty to do things like that, and do all those things genuinely.”

It wasn’t the ending that Hurts wanted for himself. He would have loved to have been the winning quarterback being praised. But it was what his team needed, so it was a win for him, too.

“As a competitor, of course you want to stay in there,” Hurts said. “But as a team player, and as a leader, you’ve got to do what’s best for the team. If that was best for the team, then I support it completely.”

In a world that loves petulant superstars and worships arrogant celebrities, I love that class and humility.

I have no idea what the future holds for Jalen Hurts. He might have lost his starting role for Alabama or he might be competing for it again in the spring. Either way, he’s a remarkable young man who will be a tremendous success with whatever he does in the future. It made me proud to have him associated with my university.

The world needs to celebrates stars such as Jalen Hurts — superior athletes who still know what it means to be part of a team.

That’s a storyline I wish ESPN would do a better job of selling to a young generation of athletes who are far more inclined to say, “Look at me! I’m the one who matters!”

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I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

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