Tag Archives: Dwayne Wade

Haterade Bath

There’s no legit reason the Tebow-la virus should be gracing this site, which is about withering on the vine, not creating a mile-high vortex where the laws of probability, common sense, and F=ma cease to apply. And yet here he is. Word out of Denver is that he and LeFraud James are chummy. “Us Nike guys stick together,” said the whore of Akron (WoA, let us stop a moment to admire his loyalty). Among the choice nuggets from this interview:

“I can relate to him a lot. I see how the media plays it sometimes and how the critics go at him and to see him continue to prove them wrong.”

“I’m one of those guys who has been in those shoes before . . . I understood a lot of what he’s going through, what he went through, and it’s good to see him success(ful) now.”

Before I get into this, the WoA is a fan of the Cowboys and Yankees and doesn’t that just say it all. Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless had one of their bilingual shoutfests over it, actually agreeing on a few points. They agree that the WoA and Tebow have almost nothing in common. All they share is the hothouse of ESPN complicity in brand awareness. Oh, and each of them turns into a completely different athlete at certain times. The WoA takes an entire season of divine athletic ability, strongman tactics, and neck beards, and then turns it into root marm. Tebow takes 55 minutes of tomfoolery and wounded ducks (his only observable skill being survival until the last 5 minutes) and then appears to be the only man left standing on the field—at least in about half his games. So they’re opposite sides of the same coin, eh? Enough for the WoA to relate to? Or perhaps he’s just sniffing around in the hopes that if they get mentioned together enough, he’ll be able to grab some of that improbability matrix for himself and start ruling the NBA like he should have years ago (or still could, once he extracts himself from under Dwayne Wade’s heel).

Now, I hate—I’m using the word hate here—the entire Tebow phenomenon and have a nauseating, visceral reaction to watching him succeed. I’m an atheist, and you can have any god more invested in the Broncos ineptitude than the earthquake in Haiti. It’s just mortiferous to believe that blindness and ignorance of your own limitations, combined with Rudy-like dedication, is somehow a recipe for success. Storybooks are fiction, man, even though Rudy is now a successful motivational speaker.

Anyway, the WoA brought this comparison on himself. So he needs to own it. For all the nasty things I can say about Tebow (wait, there aren’t any, he’d probably give me his last nickel, which makes him even more infuriating), he’d never, ever have pulled something like “The Decision.” He’d never, through ignorance or malice, gut an entire sports community. The WoA was allowed to leave Cleveland—I did, Thome did, Ilgauskas did (though we’re happy to have you back in the front office, Big Z)—but his greater crime was not understanding the town, not understanding what he meant. Tebow’d never do that shit. He’d never be accused of giving up. He doesn’t check out. I mean Tebow stayed in a fracking game he was losing by 35 points with rib and lung injuries because he wanted to finish the season with his teammates on the field. Jesus! Um, exactly.

One mocks loyalty and doesn’t know when to stop talking. The other mocks his limitations and piles on the sincerity to the point of meaninglessness. It would take the WoA to make me appreciate Captain God Wad. Context is a bitch, ain’t it?

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