Front Page

Good guys wear white hats, bad guys wear black. There was a time when things were that simple in the movies, but times have changed.

Take the latest Hollywood western, 3:10 to Yuma. I’m a movie buff, I’ve probably talked about it, and I see lots of movies. All kinds of them, I just like movies. It was a pretty good movie, not great, not worth watching again for quite a while, but I enjoyed it. It made me think, and that’s a good attribute for a movie. Russell Crowe is a bad guy, who leads a group of really bad guys who rob stagecoaches, banks, old widows crossing the street, well……You get the idea. I won’t spoil the plot for you who haven’t seen it, but at the end of the movie it makes you wonder who should be wearing a white hat, and indeed if anyone should be wearing a white hat. Crowe becomes sort of an antihero hero, if there is such a thing. A bad guy wearing a white hat, who makes you identify with him instead of hating.

Stick with me, there’s a point to all this, somewhere.

I’m not naming names, you’ll know who and what brought this epistle on very shortly.

NBA players don’t wear hats, and some coaches won’t even let them wear headbands. Jerry, stand up and take a bow. So…….Who deserves to wear white hats, or even white headbands, in the NBA? Don’t speak up all at once, the silence is deafening. Owners would have you think that their teams should be wearing the white hats, because having good people, or rather a good image, is good for business. It makes the average fan all warm and fuzzy to know that Steven Blocksashot is helping little kids read better, or visiting hospitals, doing all sorts of white hat deeds. Some of these guys are actually pretty good guys, who try to do the right thing, be faithful to their wives, avoid the seedy nightclubs and just play basketball. Most of these guys are just guys. Guys who have been coddled, spoiled and treated like royalty since they were twelve years old, and not to the betterment of their character.

They get into trouble, drink and drive, sleep with the wrong women for the wrong reasons, take drugs, do everything that common sense and your mother tells you is wrong.

Why? Simple. They’re just men. Ordinary men given unlimited potential for mischief, and then why should we be surprised when it happens? It’s not about race, though a very large majority of them are black, Afro-American. That shouldn’t be a surprise, because a majority of the NBA is black as well. It’s not about race, but rather about homes, and family, and parental guidance, and the character that type of background supplies that allows you to weather the storm.

We all know the stereotype of the robust mother who leads her seven foot baby around by the ear, making damn sure he’s doing the right thing, going to class, avoiding loose women, drugs, alchohol…..

It makes us feel good, because down deep we know that doesn’t happen as much as it should, and that many of these kids grow up into men who have no direction, no real morals, no reason to avoid indulgence, and so they simply never grow up. They’re spoiled kids with millions of dollars and no guidance except satisfying their every desire. And then we’re expected to embrace them, because they’re members of our team, the good guys, the ones who wear the white hats. In reality, we never hear and don’t want to hear what they’re really doing on those road trips, except when something goes wrong and a stoned, naked woman is found outside their hotel rooms claiming foul deeds.

We don’t want to hear, we don’t want to know. Ignorance is bliss, blindness is soothing and the dark is comforting to us in a sick, twisted fashion.

Few men can stand in the light and have no flaws, much less NBA players with unlimited money and opportunity to go astray. When I was younger I envied those who I considered more fortunate in fate and form, until I learned that we all have warts, but that some warts are under clothing and aren’t as visible. The warts are still there, even if you can’t and won’t admit to believing in such a cruel lot.

I’ve argued with friends who hate all that the NBA stands for because of some of the men in it, those bad guys in the black hats….I’ve argued because I love basketball, and the NBA is basketball in its highest form.

When I was a kid, and I met an Uncle who recently moved to America from Norway, I was shocked to find out he smoked. Only bad people smoked. My Uncle was a bad person.

He was also a very bright and wise person. He took me aside and explained that he hated smoking, but couldn’t stop though he’d tried many times. He asked me if I thought he was a bad person, and by this time I knew he wasn’t, so of course I said no.

He explained that good people did bad things, and it was all right to dislike or hate the bad things, just remember they were good people. It took me a lot of years to really understand what he meant, and it went far beyond a cigarette.

There is also a reason that Jerry Sloan won’t allow anyone to wear a headband, or leave his shirt untucked, as Ky Fesenko found out a game or two ago. The Jazz are a team that plays basketball. A team has rules for behavior. It’s that simple.

It’s filled with men who could be wearing white hats or black hats, and it’s just human nature to wonder about who should be wearing what. We want, we need our team to wear white hats, and why? We identify with our team, and it becomes an extension of us. This is my team, and I’m a good person, so my team must necessarily consist of good persons.

If you believe this, want to believe this, you’re due for heartbreak and disillusion sooner or later.

Just like a good person can have bad habits…..A good team can and often does have less than perfect players. Remember what happened to Kirk Snyder when he showed the opposition team up after a dunk? He was benched, talked to and sat a game. Jazz players don’t do things like that on the court. Jazz players don’t wear headbands, wear untucked shirts, or behave like jerks on the court if they want to play. It’s not professional, and it disrupts a team.

It’s not my place nor can I tell anyone what they should or should not believe.

I believe the Jazz are a good team, a team that consists of players who are men with all their faults and virtues. I trust in Jerry Sloan to keep the Jazz a good team, and he’s shown over the years that he runs the ship, and runs it tight and shipshape.

That’s all I expect.