Does A Good Underdog Story Matter Anymore? - Teshale's Comment.

To be fair, it is hard to expect a 25-year-old to deal with decades of pressure, the hopes of generations-- the hopes, in fact, of an entire city-- for over five years. He has his own dreams, his own beliefs, his own desires. But that is the irony of sport; that it is not at its heart about being fair, despite what most of its fans claim. If sports were fair, only the best teams would win every year. Roger Federer would win every tennis tournament until someone better came along. In fact, if sports were fair, there would be no underdog story. The power of sports, I argue, comes ultimately from the unexpected; from what should happen not happening, for better or worse.

I think there is still power in a good underdog story. It's why everyone always seems to hate the Lakers and the Yankees, why so many non-Bostonians were rooting for the 2008 Celtics and the 2004 Red Sox. The underdog, however, can come in various forms. I think that there are two: the underdog team, and the underdog player. Furthermore, and most importantly, the two cannot exist together. I suspect this, ultimately, is why Lebron and the Cavs could not work, despite the stars seemingly aligning for it: Lebron was not a true underdog.

When I accidentally happened upon an NBA finals game earlier in the year, the question on the garishly suited announcers' lips was always "Will Lebron do x, y, z?" When I turned on ESPN this June to watch a little World Cup action, there was a ticker along the bottom devoted entirely to Lebron. It was always about Lebron James, not about the Cavs. It was "Can Lebron finally take the Cavs to glory?" not "Can the Cavs finally win glory?" Luke, at the beginning of his saga, was simply a whiny farm boy who nobody really took seriously. He was not touted as the chosen one at the tender age of...however old teenage Luke was. Luke was always part of a team, from a young age. And far from being misfits, this team consisted of people who made the Kessel run in twelve parsecs, who were the daughter of the most badass guy in a multitude of galaxies (spoiler alert), who were...ok, I'll give you that some of them were a little ragtag. That doesn't change the fact that they all worked together to change the world.

I am sure they are excellent and worthy players, but if you asked me, I could not name any other member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. This is, I suspect, not purely to do with their talent, but rather the fact that they are not as much of A Story as Lebron was, or rather, was turned into. And hype, ultimately, is what separates an underdog team from an underdog player. Magic should come from all over the field (or court); in being the underdogs, a team is united, not set up to prop one particular player, or hope that that one particular player can save their bacon when they really need it. There is certainly nothing wrong with someone on an underdog team being able to create magic like this. But if they're the only person creating magic like this, frictions arise.

In my attempt to discover what Stanek might be feeling, I have only actual football to think of. Liverpool FC could be thought of as a kind of underdog team, I suppose; the previously mighty team thirsting for a championship for over twenty years. When they came the closest to ending that drought, in the 2008-2009 season, it was with the contributions not only of Steven Gerrard, the talismanic midfielder and hometown hero-- but with Xabi Alonso (alas, Xabi) playmaking, and with Fernando Torres linking up with Gerrard to create, arguably, the Premier League's most deadly scoring duo, and with goalkeeper Pepe Reina keeping clean sheet after clean sheet. The underdog team is, above all, a team, and must work together if they are to achieve the unlikely.

Of course, the underdog player can and often does make the difference. But I find this is only really true in the concentrated, short-term environment of tournaments. Diego Forlan, for instance, recently carried the Uruguay team on his back to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. In the slog of a yearly campaign, however, the character of a team shows, and in the words of a television show everyone loves to hate, live together, die alone.

There is still hope for the underdog story in sports, mostly because such stories get people reading. Here's a question: who decides who the underdog is? Even the Evil Empire wants to be thought of as the underdog ("Everybody hates us, we don't care"). I'm not about to say the Lakers are underdogs because everyone seems to hate them; what I'm saying is that different people will have wildly differing beliefs about the same facts, because what they want to happen will supersede everything. Like I said before, sports are not about being fair; they are about the unexpected, but more personally, they are about whatever you want happening, happening, regardless of what that is. And the myth of the underdog feeds into that desire. The underdog story will always matter, as long as people want to win.

I feel I should point out that all the advertising revenue generated by Lebron's ESPN sports special, "The Decision," went to The Boys and Girls Club of America.