Muscles over Matter

The NFL combine is under way in Indianapolis and along with it the peculiar ritual of reducing human beings to numbers and figures. Set aside are the names and history. Irrelevant are the "intangibles" and IQ's. Your worth, in a very literal sense, is based on how fast you can stride 40-yards, how high you can leap, how far you can throw a ball or run a series of cones. In this sphere everything else takes a back seat to your physical prowess.

In this arena, I often wonder if these aspiring professional athletes ever feel like animals? "Jump!" they're told. "Run!" and they obey. Do good and you'll get a nice shiny reward, how does a Bentley sound? Is it any wonder that many of these athletes then act like animals once they've received their money and fame? Many are quick to blame and put to shame but aren't these the same people that never treated these athletes like people anyway? I think we'd all have a few issues if people only cared about how well we could high-step a set of tires.