Why Steve Nash is such a great guy
Posted on 31. May, 2010 by Simon in Pop Culture, Sports
You don’t need to be be a sports fan to understand the poignant life lessons bouncing a ball or skating in circles can often teach us. How else can we explain the universal appeal derived from watching films like Rudy, or A League of Their Own, or any of the Mighty Ducks franchise to even the most casual of athletic observers. It’s not about the game itself; it’s about what the game can teach us.
In this regard, what we have here is a five second clip that reminds us of everything that makes sports great. Consider the context of this clip:
Here, in this heart-wrenching moment, is Steve Nash – 36 year old father of two twin daughters, husband, millionaire, world famous athlete, Olympic torch bearer, perennial all-star, two time NBA MVP, Canadian Olympic athlete, and arguably, taken as a body of work, over the past ten years the best person ON THE PLANET at his job, crying because he lost a basketball game.
He has everything anybody in life could ever want and more. His life is a dream. Yet, he’s crying, because he didn’t achieve the one most simple goal of playing sports: to win. The mansion he drives home to will be of little consolation. His celebrity won’t grant him a redo.
There’s a purity to this moment that rings true, cutting through the sheen of the NBA’s glamour that resonates with anybody in the history of mankind who has ever played any sort of sport and really wanted to win, be it in a multi-million dollar arena or on a slanted driveway in the rain.
Sometimes at the heart of it the simple things in life are the most valuable, the things that money and fame can’t buy. Most importantly, if this clip teaches people anything else, it’s that losing a game most certainly doesn’t mean you can’t still come out a winner.
Josh
May 31st, 2010
Not the best person on the planet at his job over the last ten years, but the point is well made. Money can’t buy happiness, and neither can losing.
Simon
May 31st, 2010
If you define his job as making vitamin water commercials, then I think the point it rather undebatable.
Dust
Jun 1st, 2010
or selling MDG computers
-d