Yep, who woulda thunk it? A piece at ESPN that is actually political and social while purporting to be about the University of Kentucky basketball program. The link was emailed me by a friend and, to tell the truth, I was quite sceptical, until I got a few (about 12) paragraphs in.
Then ... wow, just wow. This fella has a head on his shoulders and doesn't view just an individual basketball program. He's got a brain and observational skills about the society he lives in. Where did he go to school? The Iowa Writers' Program? LOL!!
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=macgregor/090330&sportCat=ncb (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=macgregor/090330&sportCat=ncb)
University of Kentucky, General Motors Share Something In Common By Jeff MacGregor
Page 2, ESPN.com 30 March 2009.
A winning program is often enough just a series of one-night stands. A satisfying tally in the short term, sure, but addictive and existentially empty across time, heartless and soulless, with no greater purpose than self-gratification.
For fans and institutions caught up this way, winning then becomes a kind of prison, in which expectation turns into a sense of entitlement, which eventually deforms and hardens into a sense of mindless, self-deluding exceptionalism. Too big to fail! Which is where we find the University of Kentucky this morning.
And General Motors.
It's been a tough weekend indeed for those who valued winning in the short term over succeeding across the long haul. Just ask GM's ex-chairman Rick Wagoner -- Brought In To Return General Motors To Its Rightful Place Atop The American Motoring Consciousness Without Regard To Cost Or Consequence! -- whose chickens came home to roost late Sunday night.