Matt Lauer Yearns for a Simpler Time of Race Riots and Nuclear Standoffs
>> Thursday
This morning on NBC's Today Show, host Matt Lauer led into a story on the recent scandals in sports (Yellow Jersey getting kicked off Tour de France for doping, NBA ref-rigging, Barry-'roiding, and Vick Dog-fighting) by stating the following. I am not joking.
"Doesn't it seem that everywhere you turn today in sports there's a scandal and controversy? What happened? I remember when I was growing up I followed and idolized athletes like Muhammad Ali..."
Well, aside from the fact that Ali was guilty of draft evasion, sentenced to prison for five years, and advocated Black Separatism, I suppose Ali did have a relatively uneventful, mundane, non-controversial career.
Whatever you think about Vietnam and draft-evasion (or Black Separatism, I guess), I think we can all agree that Matt Lauer is an ignorant fuckhead who despite being a grown man, still views sports like a child; completely incapable of remembering that there has ALWAYS been controversy in sports, and the present, like our golden yesteryears is no exception.
After finishing the story (the lead this morning), Lauer beefed up his journalistic credentials by reporting on what rehab facility Lindsay Lohan is going to. Atta boy, Matt.
Whatever you think about Vietnam and draft-evasion (or Black Separatism, I guess), I think we can all agree that Matt Lauer is an ignorant fuckhead who despite being a grown man, still views sports like a child; completely incapable of remembering that there has ALWAYS been controversy in sports, and the present, like our golden yesteryears is no exception.
After finishing the story (the lead this morning), Lauer beefed up his journalistic credentials by reporting on what rehab facility Lindsay Lohan is going to. Atta boy, Matt.
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4 comments:
While shallow, Lauer's comments make sense given his age. When Ali was tried for draft dodging, Matt Lauer was 9. Its hard to imagine that race relations and war were the centerpiece of his thinking at the time.
I'd imagine Lauer's comments refer Ali's return to the ring starting 1970 when he beat Quarry with much fanfare. Lauer was 12 at the time of that fight. Ali/Frazier I was less than a year later. That was a glorious era for Ali.
How about the Black Sox scandal? That was only, oh, twenty years before Ali was born. And it's ironic that he mentions a boxer because if there's one sport that has always, and will always, be clean, that sport is boxing.
Also, he's remembering back to a time of less mass media... before the 24-hour news cycle, before journalists like himself started tracking, reporting, and broadcasting every little move, every little controversy, every little sound-byte that athletes make. More media = more reporting = perception that more bad things are happening in sports. Lauer's part of the problem.
Solid post. Good point, this crap really pisses me off, this nostalgiac and revisionist way of looking at sports that's actually really childish.
In David Maraniss' book on Lombardi "When Pride Still Mattered," he uses that phrase ironically to talk about how the squeaky clean image of the past held so dear by some people (read: old white men) is complete bull. Examples include the Army cheating scandal that happened when Lombardi was an assistant there and the gambling spook that got Hornung and Alex Karras booted out of the NFL for a year in the late '60s.
This basically all goes back to the same theme of Vinnie's argument on how people always say "SNL was better x years ago." People, for whatever reason, are always going to think of the way things were while focusing on the positives, and the fact that he was young when the events he's talking about took place only further provides evidence to why he's missing so much of the point.
Also, Ali fuckin' rules for refusing to fight in Vietnam (and didn't that whole draft evasion thing have something to do with religion also? I could be wrong).
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