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Frank Deford

How fast we turned on King Carl


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Looking back in reflection, it's fascinating to note how Carl Lewis was treated in these Olympics -- and what larger conclusions we can draw about how we view our heroes.

Send mail to Frank Deford First of all, we must return to 1984, when Lewis burst upon the world scene at the Olympic Games as the new Jesse Owens. He was too brash for most tastes, his quote -- life style -- unquote was questioned and it was decided that he was greedy and ego maniacal. That reputation would hold for years.

Insofar as image is concerned, at least in athletics, first impressions are crucial. This is particularly true in an individual sport. In a team sport, an athlete can at least depend on the home fans to defend him. After all, their own self interest is involved. Even Albert Belle has some Cleveland fans to protest that he is misunderstood. But in golf or boxing or skiing or tennis or track the star who gets off on the wrong foot is out there on his own.

In fact, the young athlete, like Lewis, who is so instantly marvelous, so natural, so secure in his talent, has little chance to be accepted until he starts to age and show some vulnerability. Good grief, even Jack Nicklaus, rosey-cheeked and bland, was not accepted until he started to age.

Lewis' reputation only began to break as he began to suffer challenge and defeat. By 1992, in Barcelona, when he outjumped the world record holder and then electrified the stadium when inserted as the anchor on the relay, his critics from '84 were seeing a different creature. He was, as they desired, more humble, more forgiving and more ... vulnerable.

By this Olympics, when Lewis was 35 years old, symbolic of all of us fighting to turn back the tide of years, he became downright sympathetic, and when he won the long jump in bold and dramatic fashion, Carl Lewis was suddenly our hero. In fact, over and over again, the conventional wisdom in Atlanta was how much more charming and human that Lewis was than the unconquerable Michael Johnson.

Michael Johnson, you see, was too good, too self-absorbed.

And so, old Carl went forth to accept his plaudits and his love. But unfortunately for Lewis, everywhere he went, after he was congratulated and deified, the interviewer would say: "and Carl, gee would you like to run in the relay and win a 10th gold medal?"

But Lewis didn't know the script. He told the truth that, yes, that would be nice. He didn't know he was supposed to play humble and to dissemble, to protest that such a normal thought would never enter his mind.

So suddenly, he was greedy and ego maniacal. Ah, those who had come to praise him just days before, now rushed to bury this Caesar. Usually, of course, we make exemptions for greatness. We allow old champions to squeeze back in, but this was the Olympics, and we had to pretend that being competitive suddenly was tacky.

We had decreed that it was all right for the old man to fight for one more, final triumph, but when Carl Lewis would not settle for what we had doled out, we turned on him again and put him back in his place.

The moral is: be respectful as a young athlete, competitive in your prime and grateful as an old veteran. This is the only accepted way that sports ideologues will accept you.


Frank Deford is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine, sports columnist for National Public Radio and ESPN and correspondent on the HBO magazine show "Realsport."

Among his many honors, Deford, a longtime senior writer for Sports Illustrated, was six times voted Sportswriter of the Year by his peers at the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters. The American Journalism Review has cited him as the nation's Best Sportswriter, and twice he was honored as Magazine Writer of the Year by the Washington Journalism Review. He has also been presented with a Christopher Award (for his memoir about his daughter -- Alex: The Life Of A Child) and with distinguished service-to-journalism awards from both the University of Missouri and Northeastern University.

Two of the 11 books Deford has written have been made into movies. He wrote the screenplay for the film comedy "Trading Hearts," and currently he is researching a new historical novel.

Deford, who was editor and publisher of the short-lived but highly acclaimed National Sports Daily, has been a weekly regular on NPR's "Morning Edition" since 1980. His commentaries can be heard three times a week on the ESPN Radio Network and periodically on ESPN television. In 1988 he was awarded an Emmy for his work on NBC at the Seoul Olympics.

For the past decade, Deford has served as chairman of the national Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. He resides in Westport, Conn., with his wife of 30 years, Carol. The Defords have two children -- a son, Chris, and a daughter, Scarlet. A native of Baltimore, Deford graduated from Princeton University in 1962.


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