Why do we overrate sports stars?
I was reading this article quite recently about sports stars who never quite fulfilled their potential or hype, for whatever reason. It was quite an eyeopener, here were people considered the next Jordan, Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, etc but nothing came of it.
And on the other hand, especially in light of the Linsanity craze, it got me thinking, why do we overrate sports stars, especially to the point where they're bound to fail? I mean, look at Lin, I was into him but always felt he wasnt what he was playing at. Now he's come thundering back to Earth and it highlights this point. Granted Jeremy Lin was a different story, as he had no hype coming in and even if he comes back to the mean, its a great story.
I'm a huge soccer fan and I watch a lot of the English and Spanish soccer leagues. They're are so many players that are overrated but shoved down our throats because people are so desperate for something to root for, we fail to see the bigger picture.
Another example is Blake Griffin.
Why do we do this? What does this say about our own lives that we are desperate for a good story but dont appreciate the greatness among us, i.e LeBron James.
Discuss.
It's not only that we overrate, but we probably underrate just as frequently. There are many examples of players coming into a league unhyped, but then going on to accomplish great things (Kurt Warner, Aaron Rodgers, Jeremy Lin, Bruce Bowen, Ben Wallace, Sami Hyppia, etc.)
The issue isn't simply that we overrate players; it's more so that we're just bad at rating players in general.
There are certain exceptions to this, however. For example, sabermetrics have made rating baseball players a much more rigorous process. In football, it's often very difficult to tell whether a quarterback is going to be a star or a bust based on college performance, but that's often not true for non-skill positions (D/O-Line).
Sami Hyppia? You're either Scouse. Or an idiot. Or both.
Cool argument bro, I didn't realize that Sami wasn't successful. /s
"Initially, Hyypiä was regarded as an unknown who would not live up to expectations but this preconception was dismissed when he immediately formed a successful central defensive partnership with fellow arrival Stéphane Henchoz.8 Almost ten years later in a farewell tribute to Hyypiä, Ron Yeats, then the chief scout for Liverpool, commented that the deal was “one of the best bits of business we’ve done over the years…a steal – a bargain…”9"
Sami Hyypia...now that is a name drop
Because people like to feel in the presence of greatness, and there's no greater time then to see when someone is about to become great.
And people like the kudos of predictions, being able to say you spotted the next Tiger Woods is mad props bro!!!
So what does that say about the people who hate on LeBron?
Because there's nothing more people love then watching those who may not be gracious (being British I'm not too familiar with LeBron's attitude, just making an assumption) in their success fail.
Kim is like THE MOST overrated Kardashian.
Speaking of Kardashians, we're having a discussion in the office, of how many hot dogs Kobayashi would have to handicap Khloe Monster in an eating contest. Any ideas?
Does anyone else think that hating on someone like a sports star is just our passion for the sport or does it have connections to the fact that someone may not be too happy with their own lives? Perhaps phrased badly but you know what I mean..
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