I Am an Old, Old Man
I used to think that I was still young. At first glance it seems ridiculous to even consider the possibility that I might be getting old, since I’m 22, I graduated from college in June, and less than thirteen months ago I couldn’t legally drink.
That was before this month, which I spent watching Ben Roethlisberger and Reggie Bush play football. Roethlisberger is 23 years old and Bush is 20, which means that if you asked him what his favorite Super Nintendo game was he would probably look at you like you asked him to go out to the barn and help you churn some butter. That is disturbing. Like Reggie, Carmelo Anthony and Andrew Bogut are both younger than I am. I have more than a year on LeBron James. At this point, the average NBA player is about my age, and I would practically be an elder statesman on the Clippers. Part of me feels guilty for caring about the performance of men who aren’t allowed in bars. The other part of me is terrified that I’m destined to become That Creepy Old Guy, in the vein of that creepy old guy who tells everyone at the bar what a great quarterback he was in high school.
So it’s entirely possible that watching sports has skewed my ability to accurately evaluate my age. I’m still younger than 70% of the population, but about half the people I watch on TV are younger than I am, mostly because they’re athletes. That’s a depressing step. When the people who you find entertaining are younger than you almost by necessity, you’ve really crossed the Rubicon into adulthood. In another year I’ll probably have a colostomy bag.
The primary reason for this is because, like most guys, I never really abandoned the idea that in some universe I would become a professional athlete. When I was growing up I never understood people who looked at pro athletes with a weird combination of admiration and jealousy. Why would you be jealous of them? After all, couldn’t that be you in five or ten years? Barry Bonds didn’t represent greed – he represented possibility. For those of us who were even marginally better than average athletes, becoming the next Jim Edmonds was a realistic career choice.
Of course, we all have to grow up sometime. Even then, the phrase “grow up” confuses me, because it seems like something I was already supposed to do. I don’t feel unprepared per se; I just have a vague sense of having missed out on something important. It’s like I showed up to high school one Monday and everyone else was talking about developing investment capital and the housing market. Meanwhile, I’m still more concerned with organizing a rec-league softball team, and I sincerely doubt that I will ever appreciate fine wine. On some level, this is sad. It appears that my only options are either to stop clinging to my youth, or to become an overgrown man-boy who will one day fight with his children over video game controllers. Only time will tell.
When I was in seventh grade, I was given what turned out to be an incredibly depressing homework assignment: write an essay on where I thought my life would be in fifteen years. (Maybe my English teacher was just running out of ideas.) Of course, like everyone else, I crafted a lifestyle that would make a Saudi prince seem like the poster boy for fiscal responsibility – all Maseratis and vacation homes in Belize and trophy girlfriends. As for where I’d be getting that money, I figured by 25 I would already be a professional baseball player, or, at worst, in the upper ranks of some farm system (they don’t like to rush the stud prospects).
But now, like everyone else, I have a real job. The star small forwards and cornerbacks of ten years ago are riding the subway to work with me, listlessly watching a homeless man blow his nose into his raincoat in the middle of a crowded car. 90% of my interaction with sports takes place on a TV screen or monitor. Not that there’s anything wrong with this. I still love watching football, and will continue to do so until the day I die (likely at age 32 in an unfortunate motorized-wheelchair accident). However, I just spent three hours of my Sunday watching a guy (Roethlisberger) who could easily have been in my graduating class in college lead his team to the Super Bowl. I’m not sure what this means, other than that I need to stop comparing my own career path to professional athletes’. It shouldn’t bother me that Reggie Bush will make more with one signature than I probably will in a few years. I should congratulate Lebron James on achieving my dream of appearing four times in the same Nike commercial before his 21st birthday. I may not be able to throw for 268 yards against the one of the best defenses in the AFC, but I am a beautiful and unique snowflake.
And I'm still doing better than Marcus Vick.
That was before this month, which I spent watching Ben Roethlisberger and Reggie Bush play football. Roethlisberger is 23 years old and Bush is 20, which means that if you asked him what his favorite Super Nintendo game was he would probably look at you like you asked him to go out to the barn and help you churn some butter. That is disturbing. Like Reggie, Carmelo Anthony and Andrew Bogut are both younger than I am. I have more than a year on LeBron James. At this point, the average NBA player is about my age, and I would practically be an elder statesman on the Clippers. Part of me feels guilty for caring about the performance of men who aren’t allowed in bars. The other part of me is terrified that I’m destined to become That Creepy Old Guy, in the vein of that creepy old guy who tells everyone at the bar what a great quarterback he was in high school.
So it’s entirely possible that watching sports has skewed my ability to accurately evaluate my age. I’m still younger than 70% of the population, but about half the people I watch on TV are younger than I am, mostly because they’re athletes. That’s a depressing step. When the people who you find entertaining are younger than you almost by necessity, you’ve really crossed the Rubicon into adulthood. In another year I’ll probably have a colostomy bag.
The primary reason for this is because, like most guys, I never really abandoned the idea that in some universe I would become a professional athlete. When I was growing up I never understood people who looked at pro athletes with a weird combination of admiration and jealousy. Why would you be jealous of them? After all, couldn’t that be you in five or ten years? Barry Bonds didn’t represent greed – he represented possibility. For those of us who were even marginally better than average athletes, becoming the next Jim Edmonds was a realistic career choice.
Of course, we all have to grow up sometime. Even then, the phrase “grow up” confuses me, because it seems like something I was already supposed to do. I don’t feel unprepared per se; I just have a vague sense of having missed out on something important. It’s like I showed up to high school one Monday and everyone else was talking about developing investment capital and the housing market. Meanwhile, I’m still more concerned with organizing a rec-league softball team, and I sincerely doubt that I will ever appreciate fine wine. On some level, this is sad. It appears that my only options are either to stop clinging to my youth, or to become an overgrown man-boy who will one day fight with his children over video game controllers. Only time will tell.
When I was in seventh grade, I was given what turned out to be an incredibly depressing homework assignment: write an essay on where I thought my life would be in fifteen years. (Maybe my English teacher was just running out of ideas.) Of course, like everyone else, I crafted a lifestyle that would make a Saudi prince seem like the poster boy for fiscal responsibility – all Maseratis and vacation homes in Belize and trophy girlfriends. As for where I’d be getting that money, I figured by 25 I would already be a professional baseball player, or, at worst, in the upper ranks of some farm system (they don’t like to rush the stud prospects).
But now, like everyone else, I have a real job. The star small forwards and cornerbacks of ten years ago are riding the subway to work with me, listlessly watching a homeless man blow his nose into his raincoat in the middle of a crowded car. 90% of my interaction with sports takes place on a TV screen or monitor. Not that there’s anything wrong with this. I still love watching football, and will continue to do so until the day I die (likely at age 32 in an unfortunate motorized-wheelchair accident). However, I just spent three hours of my Sunday watching a guy (Roethlisberger) who could easily have been in my graduating class in college lead his team to the Super Bowl. I’m not sure what this means, other than that I need to stop comparing my own career path to professional athletes’. It shouldn’t bother me that Reggie Bush will make more with one signature than I probably will in a few years. I should congratulate Lebron James on achieving my dream of appearing four times in the same Nike commercial before his 21st birthday. I may not be able to throw for 268 yards against the one of the best defenses in the AFC, but I am a beautiful and unique snowflake.
And I'm still doing better than Marcus Vick.
posted by Dan at 5:28 PM
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