Peyton Manning is a free agent and, as we have seen from the days of Ken Harrelson to those of LeBron James, a true free agent creates a sort of feeding frenzy in sports and sports media.
In Manning’s case, that frenzy is likely to be the most ferocious of all. Because, when a team purchases Peyton Manning’s services, they purchase the Peyton Manning marketing franchise, a corporate holding whose value limit has yet to be realized. But, what of Peyton Manning the man?
To state the obvious and the ridiculous, if Peyton Manning were a truly wise man, he would take his somewhat broken body and his enormous bank account and retire.
To nearly any of the millions of souls who will never earn a fraction of Manning’s annual salary, this would seem almost absurdly obvious. Of course, to a Peyton Manning, the idea is ridiculous. This distinction, more than anything else, may give us insight into the professional athlete’s psyche.
Peyton Manning has done all there is to do in the NFL. He has set more records than any quarterback and attempting to list them would be something like attempting to list the entire cast of “The Ten Commandments.” It’s so lengthy, you’re bound to miss at least one.
By the most obvious measures of greatness, he has done all that could be done by a single player. He has, of course, won four MVP awards, more than any other player in the history of the game. He has won a Super Bowl. What lies over the NFL horizon that is so compelling he must continue to chase it?
Pundits have repeatedly said that, given his release by the team he helped make great, Manning will now play with a chip on his shoulder. He will have something to prove to his old team and the league.
These talking heads miss the point. The point for Peyton, as for any athlete, is not that he will have anything to prove (what the hell could Peyton Manning have to prove?). The point is simply that he will play. As Manning noted in the press conference, it’s what he does. But, what could possibly be the appeal of playing to a man who holds most of the records at his position and has a recurring cervical spine injury? What could be worth the price he might have to pay with one more wrong hit?
Professional sports is littered with the bodies of great, near great and lesser athletes who stayed in the game for one too many rounds and paid the price. But, if the NFL star ever thought of the price, he would never play. Successful professional athletes have a peculiar form of blindness. By nature and nurture, they have been taught to see only the goal and to be blind to the cost of getting there.
But, what goals can Peyton Manning still have after his record-setting run with the Colts?
The same question might be asked of all NFL players. What goal could possibly be worth abusing their bodies and shortening their lives to attain?
Financial reward? Few will make the tens of millions Manning has made and most will have run through their football earnings soon after having completed their career.
Super Bowl championships? Only a precious few will even make it to the Super Bowl, fewer still will win the championship.
To say that a professional athlete is driven by goals is not to say that the goals are particularly clear or attainable. In fact, the professional athlete is driven by sometimes oblique and often unattainable goals. But, driven he is.
Professional athletes have been brought up in a sports culture that has always guided them to the next goal---“making the team,” “getting the scholarship,” “making the pros,” “winning the championship.” At each level, the vast majority of athletes will fail. But, this uniquely driven animal we call the professional athlete refuses to fail, refuses to count the cost, refuses to back away from chasing that ever elusive “goal.”
The few Peyton Mannings in the world succeed, in part, because they embrace this single-minded goal orientation and do so in a media fishbowl that makes “backing down” a possibility that cannot be fathomed.
It has been said that the meek shall inherit the earth. That is surely true. The meek will inherit the earth because the earth is theirs. They live and die on it and are buried under it. The rare driven “star” blazes across the sky only to be consumed in the atmosphere of age or waning skills or loss of opportunity.
We only truly remember stars as they were at their height. Sports media and fans celebrate the Muhammad Ali of the “Rumble in the Jungle” and the “Thrilla in Manila,” not the weary man Angelo Dundee would not allow to continue being beaten up by Larry Holmes. Basketball fans remember Michael Jordan leading the Bulls, not the Wizards. We all close our eyes and see Dan Marino throwing passes, not pitching weight loss programs.
One day, Peyton Manning will join the “meek.” He will walk away (of be forced to walk away) from the glaring media spotlight that shines on the NFL quarterback. Hopefully, he will be healthy enough to enjoy the money he made while playing the game.
But, for now, he must return to the spinning media stage to chase one more elusive and perhaps impossible goal---a goal even he may not be able to clearly articulate. It’s what he does. He is a professional athlete.
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