Bulls’ fans wanted Derrick Rose to return for the playoffs. James Haberl argues that the decision was rightly Rose’s, not the fans’.
One year ago, Derrick Rose tore his anterior cruciate ligament. Early in March, doctors medically cleared him to play and he began to practice with the Bulls. It became difficult to go anywhere in Chicago, where I live, without the subject coming up. Someone might turn to a stranger in a Bulls hat on the train and ask casually, almost rhetorically, “How good will the Bulls be when Rose gets back?”
The implied answer behind these words, of course, was that they would be close to unstoppable and that even LeBron James and the Miami Heat should be nervous. That his inevitable return would bring them back to the glory days when Rose became the league’s youngest MVP and led the Bulls to the overall number one seed. And so blossomed a city’s obsession with a 24-year-old’s left knee.
But Rose didn’t play. He would shoot around before the games, but when tipoff arrived, Rose would be sitting on the bench in a suit. The city’s obsession became frustration. First, the questions concerning Rose began to change. They became less overtly about Rose, and yet somehow carried more accusation. “How long does an ACL take to heal, anyway?” someone might ask. Finally, the frustration became anger, and the questions were supplanted by statements about Rose and his knee. “He should be playing,” people would say. “He has no heart,” they’d suggest. “The Bulls should trade Rose because we only want guys who want to be here,” they’d offer on their calls to local sports radio shows.
In fact, one Bulls fan has even filed suit against Rose for weight the fan gained due to the emotional stress of waiting for Rose to save the Bulls’ faltering season. What had happened to the public’s relationship with their favorite player as he went through the process of rehabilitating a serious injury? The message from fans was clear: Rose should be playing, yet Rose still sits.
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What’s most interesting about the fans’ reaction to Rose is that it is hardly unique. But what do these commonly held opinions and the way we talk about the injuries of athletes reveal about our beliefs? As a high school English teacher, I think the language we use to talk about athletes and their injuries can begin to answer this question.
Expecting and wanting players to play hurt (or more simply, before they themselves determine they are completely healed and ready) dehumanizes them. When Chicago sports fans say Rose “should” be playing, they are discounting and ignoring everything he is communicating about his physical, emotional, and mental readiness for a return. The word “should” has interesting linguistic properties. Words like “should” carry weaker necessity than words like “must,” yet they strongly imply that the suggested action is best, and it implies expertise. In the case of Rose, the sports fans’ use of “should” suggests a belief that they “just know better” and that they see the players of the teams they root for as unable or unworthy of making their own decisions.
Try to think of the last time you had a conversation about sports that didn’t use the word “should.” Sports fans are constantly “shoulding” the coaches. “He should have run it there,” or, “I wouldn’t have called that timeout.” And we do the same thing to players. “That’s a bad shot.” “I would have passed it.” In some ways these are just statements that allow us to talk about key moments in the game. But the words we use have specific meanings, and our intention does not change these meanings. The word “should” retains its implied expertise. Look no further than the comments on an online article for proof of this. Listen to the phone calls to sports radio talk shows, and you will find a consistent belief that the fans know better.
The language we use to talk about American athletes and sports suggests deep-seated and widely held beliefs that the players are objects and that they are ours. When we speak, we include ourselves in the team by saying things like “we need to win tonight.” It’s a perceived ownership—a belief that I know better than you and have the right to express this belief because you are mine.
In the case of Derrick Rose’s potential participation in the 2013 NBA season, the fans in Chicago believe they should have a say. These fans root for the Bulls with a passion that was forged by six Jordan-led championships, but our fandom does not actually include us in the team. It does not, nor should it, allow us to have power over players. Our perceived ownership is false.
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Part of the criticism of Derrick Rose comes from the fact that what he is doing is not the norm in American sports, professional or otherwise. The expectation has always been that players play hurt. In basketball, look no further than Derrick Rose’s teammates. During the Bulls seven game series against the Brooklyn Nets, their roster became a collection of the walking wounded.
Joakim Noah, who has played most of the season with painful plantar fasciitis, limped up and down the court while leading the Bulls to impressive and unexpected wins in Brooklyn in games two and seven. Kirk Hinrich, who also missed games during the regular season, has what is being called a sore calf. However, the Chicago media has suggested that the injury is much more serious and Hinrich will potentially need surgery at season’s end. Luol Deng missed two games during the series with what was initially reported as the flu. When Chicago fans criticized Deng for not playing anyway (like the great Michael Jordan or even his teammate Nate Robinson, who was seen with a bucket in front of him during a timeout), he was forced to respond on Twitter by explaining that he was unable to play because his symptoms were so severe, he received a spinal tap which gave him a migraine and left him unable to walk. All of these players have at least tried to play hurt, yet Rose still sits.
Watching these Bulls players gut their way through injuries all season long—and especially through the playoffs—has been impressive and inspirational, and this determination has probably been the reason the Bulls won so many more games than expected. It was courageous and tough, but it was also stupid.
Of course, Joakim Noah, like Rose, should be allowed to make up his own mind. But throughout his athletic career, what has he been taught about the “play-hurt mentality” in American sports? What has he learned by watching the reaction of the fans and local sports media as Derrick Rose (his far more talented teammate) continues to sit out? If even Rose could not escape the backlash, what could Noah hope for from the fans and press? Rose is criticized for not living recklessly but instead taking the long view of his career.
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Gutsy and reckless performances can be fun to watch, but if we truly care about the athletes playing these games, they should make us sad. Sad that they work to further objectify athletes in the mind of the viewer. Sad that they have become so commonplace. Sad that athletes feel it is necessary to put themselves at risk to continue to play the games they love. Personally, I’d rather watch Derrick Rose or Joakim Noah have long and successful NBA careers than to see them gut out a performance in the 2013 playoffs.
While watching the Rose-less Bulls battle LeBron James and Dwyane Wade’s Heat on Monday and Wednesday, I was reminded of a 2006 Converse commercial for a Dwyane Wade shoe. The commercial begins by showing Wade falling or being knocked down at different stages of his career, and then shows him getting up from each of these successive falls.
Finally, as the ad closes, the words of a Japanese proverb flash across the screen: “Fall seven times. Stand up eight.” The ad highlights the dedication, perseverance, and grit that a kid from poor black Chicago like Wade or Rose needs to rise up from the challenges that have been placed in his way. And yet, the commercial shouldn’t end there. We know that Wade and others like him will fall eight, nine, ten times. In fact, Wade has been injured this season. What I, or any sports fan, should be thinking about is not the eight times Wade, Noah, Rose, or others stand up.
What I should acknowledge every time I watch sports is the fragility of the human body—even one belonging to a finely-tuned professional athlete—and the perpetual possibility of the ad ending in a different way: “Fall down seven times. Stay down one.”
This article original ran at POPSspot.
James Haberl is an English teacher at Niles North High School in Skokie, IL, where one of the classes he teaches is Literature of Sports and American Culture.
Photo: John Starks / AP
If it were our neighbor or our friend, or our father or son (feel free to swap in female gendered nouns as desired, just keeping this with the male athletes mentioned), we’d be more concerned that the player waited until he was really ready to do it. What could be happening here is that Rose felt the pressure of the fans pushing him before he was ready and that made it harder for him to perform. Performance anxiety is real, and it often comes after an injury or a set-back. A bit of the “how did I let this happen… Read more »
I think Rose has every right to sit out. I think fans and commentators have evry right to call him out for sitting out. I don’t see a contradiction.
I don’t buy the argument that Rose should return because he participated in an advertisement for shoes that used the image of his return. His return is both a fantasy and a commodity in the advertisement, but it has nothing to do with the reality. We did not demand that Michael Jordan eat Chicken Mc(Dick’s)Nuggets because a corporation paid him to gain the right to juxtapose his face and uniform next to their disgusting product. It’s his damn knee. It’s his damn health. He had the injury he had, not Shumpert. Chicago-area sportscasters play macho by demanding his return, and… Read more »
Yes.
“If Rose woke up tomorrow and realized that farming lettuce is more noble than selling shoes, that America has turned children’s games into maniacal fetishes, and that he no longer had the stomach for it, he’d immediately be a hero in my book. I’d buy his jersey and his lettuce.”
We need to get a like button for comments here on GMP.
I hear what you are saying. I really do.
It is Rose’s body, that’s how he makes his living, and he should have the final word. Of course.
BUT…
Iman Shumpert of the Knicks had the same exact injury the day after Rose, and was back in February. Rose was medically cleared to play and had been practicing with the team.
But, Rose also got paid for an Adidas ad campaign about his “triumphant return” both before and during the season”. You can’t have it both ways. he should be answering to criticism.
There’s no doubt that Rose definitely acted on an impulse when he made his campaigns with Adidas. However, we don’t know how Derrick’s mental state is at all at this point in time. People who were or are competitive athletes know that having physical conditioning is one of the biggest things in order to compete at the highest level. However, I would argue that your mental conditioning is as, or even more, important than physical conditioning. Instead of attacking him and berating him, we need to be supportive of him until he feels like he is ready to come back.