The Disconnect With Fans And Athletes
It seems as this ongoing fight between players and fans will never end. We saw it when Kevin Durant went down with his Achilles injury in the NBA Finals and Toronto fans cheered. Golden State players ripped all of Toronto for that quick lapse in judgement.
It is prevalent in all of sports, but it was highlighted this past weekend when Andrew Luck decided to retire a week and a half before the season starts at age 29. In case you missed it, Adam Schefter broke the news that Andrew Luck would be retiring in the middle of the third preseason game. It was the fourth quarter, and it happened to be at home at Lucas Oil Stadium. Once the fans got Schefter’s tweet, and it spread throughout the stadium, and the boos went wild toward Andrew Luck once he walked off the field.
It seems crazy that these fans would boo their franchise quarterback, a quarterback whom they’ve loved since he replaced Peyton Manning in 2012. But let’s take a look at the situation, shall we? We have hardcore fans there. No one but hardcore fans would go to a preseason football game to begin with. These fans are typically season ticket holders. Not only that, it was the fourth quarter of a game that doesn’t matter. So, all who is left in the stadium is diehard fans.
So, when the boos came down toward Andrew Luck, Twitter exploded. Every sports media member, athlete, and random Twitter user called the Colts fans “classless” and “bums.” Even Aaron Rodgers just came out today and thought that the boos were disgusting, along with the way the story broke in general.
At first glance, it does seem a bit disgusting of fans to boo a man who is tired of being injured and wants to just ride off into the sunset. But fan is short for fanatic. Grown men wear the names of younger men on their backs. They paint their faces. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. So, when the news came down about this team that had Super Bowl aspirations was about to lose their star quarterback, of course their reaction was what it was. After all, the timing of it was terrible. There is no arguing that. Andrew Luck has been injured since training camp, yet he waited until the regular season was about to start to retire. If this has been brewing in his mind, he could have done it even a month ago and fans would have reacted way differently. Even still, I think with context of his injuries and Luck’s mindset, fans would react differently if they had that background. In the moment, all they saw is their star quarterback who is 29 is retiring on them when their team has Super Bowl hopes for the season.
For all the media and players who are going after the fans, remember this: most fans do not care about the well-being of players, coaches, or personnel. They just want to win. On top of that, most of these fans maybe bring home fifty-thousand dollars a year. There won’t be a lot of sympathy when a player who is making millions upon millions of dollars doesn’t want to play a child’s game anymore because they’re tired and rundown. When a guy is driving to work at 5am to a construction job that he hates, it’s hard for those fans to sympathize with Andrew Luck, even if all of Luck’s points are valid.
And they are valid. Make no doubt about that. Andrew Luck doesn’t love the game like he once did, and he should walk away if he isn’t enjoying his life any longer. But don’t expect the fans to get behind you on it. The way they see it, you make millions of dollars to play a sport that is loved throughout the country. Instead of going after the fans, maybe more people should try and put themselves in their shoes. It’s not that they aren’t grateful for Andrew Luck and everything he’s done for them throughout the years, it’s more about the situation and timing of it all. The disconnect between fans and athletes is that athletes think the fans should act one way, and the fans believe they have a right to act another. Luck didn’t deserve those boos. But the fans didn’t deserve all the heat that they got. It was the heat of the moment. Emotions were high. Things happen. It’ll all be alright.
