Watching a Cleveland Cavaliers game earlier in the NBA season, I couldn’t help but be struck by a commercial break shot from outside the arena. Rising several stories above the pavement, arms outstretched in his classic pose, a giant LeBron James poster stood guard over a city that once burned his jersey in the streets.
Of course, James has triumphantly returned to Cleveland and his homecoming has been mostly positive. With good reason, too: A team that finished the 2013-2014 season just 33-49 is now, one year later and in the NBA playoffs, markedly improved with a regular season record of 53-29. Certainly the better record is not only from James, but the attention – both due to his presence and the team the Cavs have been able to assemble around him – is squarely on ‘the King.’
It would seem Cleveland has forgiven James for leaving to play in Miami for four years, where he went to four consecutive NBA Finals and won two NBA championships. Those Cavaliers fans who had once burned his name have quickly returned James’ Cleveland jersey to #1 on the most-sold list.
Compare this redemption with another recent return story: Alex Rodriguez’ return to the New York Yankees after one full year of suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s performance-enhancing drug (PED) policy. Yankees fans have been mixed in their reaction to ‘A-Rod’s’ return this season. While many have welcomed the help he can offer to last year’s quiet bats, others argue his best days are over and, even if he does contribute to the team’s offense, his antics should have bought him a ticket out of New York. Suffice to say that Rodriguez’ jersey sales in New York will not rival the resurgence of LeBron James’ in Cleveland.
Contrast both stories with former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist comments in April of 2014. The sports world immediately called for his resignation, and NBA team owners unanimously voted to remove him from team ownership while handing down a lifetime ban from professional basketball. Whereas LeBron has been largely forgiven and plenty of fans do entertain the possibility of Rodriguez’ redemption, there is likely nothing Donald Sterling could have done to elicit forgiveness from the sports community. Why?
How do we process these very different responses to behavior that, initially, enraged sports fans?
I had the privilege of attending the International Association of Communication and Sport (IACS) conference in early March this year. In a presentation on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s image restoration in light of the league’s issue-plagued 2014-2015 season, Karen L. Hartman of Idaho State University made a provocative point regarding forgiveness in sports. Image restoration can come more readily in the sports world, she argued, because “the act of purification doesn’t need to be specific to the sin, due to the unique value placed on winning.”
This is an interesting and seemingly accurate point. Though LeBron’s act of purification was exactly specific to his “sin,” the Cleveland community largely hopes that his return – now with more experience and two titles under his belt – will lead to a championship in the coming years. Rodriguez’ purification is certainly not unique to his sin; he cannot reverse his decision to use performance-enhancing drugs, nor can he get back the lost year. But, like the situation with James, a cohort of Yankees fans are hopeful that this year’s team will see more offensive production than during the lackluster 2014 season and that A-Rod, who returned to the Yankees mainly as a designated hitter, will help in that department.
Sterling never attempted an act of purification. He made excuses for the way the public perceived his racist comments, all the while fighting to hold onto his team ownership. But had Sterling somehow made moves to position his Clippers team to win last year’s NBA championship, still I doubt that fans or the NBA community would see it fit to offer forgiveness. And so, while forgiveness in sports is somewhat unique because wins and losses are considered the measures of “success,” it seems that winning alone does not guarantee purification in the athletic world.
There is still a lesson here, and it is not simply that ‘winning elicits forgiveness.’ If it was, forgiveness for Rodriguez and Sterling, in particular, would be much more clear-cut. These examples show that we can’t measure the possibility of forgiveness only in wins and losses, in pure point production value, because it overlooks a bigger picture.
If “winning” were to be redefined as having a higher purpose, wouldn’t it truly pave the way to redemption and forgiveness in sports? I was impressed particularly with LeBron James’ written explanation of his return to Cleveland. In it, he claimed that he was excited not only to help his hometown team win a championship but, more importantly, to support the community at large.
“I feel my calling here goes above basketball,” James wrote in Sports Illustrated. “I want kids in Northeast Ohio, like the hundreds of Akron third-graders I sponsor through my foundation, to realize that there’s no better place to grow up… Our community, which has struggled so much, needs all the talent it can get.”
Like James’ hope for a better future in Cleveland, the mindset of an athlete must always be towards a higher purpose, progress, and a brighter tomorrow. One strikeout, missed field goal, or turnover does not signal irrevocable failure. The only failure is in failing to learn and grow from previous mistakes, and viewed through this lens, we see that forgiveness in sports is, in fact, not much different than forgiveness in everyday life. LeBron acknowledged the mistakes he’d made when departing four years earlier from Cleveland and vowed to support the city going forward; though it took him a while, Rodriguez admitted to his failures and has ostensibly turned his attention towards becoming a productive team member; Sterling only added fuel to his own fire by attempting to pave over a personal failure rather than finding a way to serve his team, sport, and league.
Philadelphia local Phil Martelli, head coach of the St. Joseph’s University men’s basketball team for the past 20 years, offers a great example of this mindset of winning as only one piece of a higher purpose in life. After a heartbreaking overtime loss to the University of Connecticut in the 2014 NCAA tournament, Martelli kept perspective for his team by noting that if the loss was the hardest thing his players ever faced in their lives, then they have lived blessed lives.
Indeed, in sports there is always a next game, a next homestand, a next season. That’s no excuse to slack off now, but it is a life lesson about redemption and the eternal hope of sports fans, no matter the odds stacked against them or their team. Whereas in life we are often so quick to condemn, hope seems to spring eternal in sports. We are inspired by what could be. By what, we hope, will eventually be. That hope for the future, for our team’s betterment and ultimate success, makes forgiveness in sports easier when we accept that the subject of our forgiveness is striving towards a better future, and one that is more complex than just a winning record.
Often, the one whom sports fans believe needs forgiveness does not actually seek that forgiveness, and the individual needn’t necessarily seek forgiveness for it to be offered. Especially now, with many reminders of our continuing Easter season here at Neumann University, we remember that God forgives completely and unconditionally, as mysterious as it may be. Curiously, sports fans also find ways to look beyond the semantics of the forgiveness process, precisely because each game starts with an even score and every season begins with a clean record. In finding moments of redemption in our own lives and in forgiving those around us, we should similarly strive to look ahead with optimism and hope, finding opportunities to start with “clean slates” and offering fresh scores whenever possible.