Sunday, February 1, 2015

Super Bowl XLIX: Sharing the credit

Disclaimer: I've never been a football fan. I still don't understand the rules--besides the most basic ones--and it's just never been something that I've gotten all that into. To be completely honest, I hosted a Super Bowl party in my apartment as an excuse to get together with friends, eat food, and play cards.

But for whatever reason, what happened at the end of the Super Bowl really resonated with me.

You see, one name kept being mentioned the whole game, and I think we all know who I'm talking about. Tom Brady.

As one of my friends said, "Tom Brady get MVP just by showing up." I'm sure he's very talented and maybe he earned it, I looked up Brady and saw that he earned a Super Bowl record for completions (not sure what that means). So, go him!

However, football and other team sports are about the TEAM. Share the wealth people!

I had to Google Malcolm Butler to even know his name because off all the other attention on Brady.

Let me rephrase: Malcolm Butler saved the game for the Patriots and I had to Google him. Kind of sad.

This just really irks me. I just came back from a retreat about confronting diversity instead of ignoring it. Well, here's a huge example. Tom Brady is white, attractive, and talented. But the majority of football players are not white. They are black, brown, African-American, etc. You get the picture.

Why is it that the only name I took away from the game is Tom Brady? A lot of it is due to my lack of interest/knowledge about football. But I also blame the media.

As a person heavily involved with my college campus's newspaper, I'm very interested in the spin that the media puts on issues, events, and stories. Sure, giving Tom Brady most of the credit isn't nearly as explosive as the events in Ferguson, but isn't inherent racism just as bad?

I don't want to rant, but I think that this is something to be addressed. You may or may not agree with me. That's totally okay! You may think that I'm totally overreacting and I get that. But you know, this just really struck a chord with me and I felt compelled to share my thoughts.

Maybe it's not a race thing at all and just a quarterback gets all the credit thing. But somehow I doubt it.

Anyway, hopefully some more dialogue can come out of this. Perhaps some people more qualified than I am to discuss it.

Also, I really enjoyed Katy Perry's performance. It was totally out there and crazy, but it's Katy and she rocked it.