On the Couch : By Dr. Richard Lustberg

An Analysis of Current Topics and Issues in Sport
August 2000

Now that we have taken part in the carnage, and feasted on the carcass of Marv Albert - whose personal and professional life were dissected in a feeding frenzy by both the media and public - we anxiously await the next victim of what has become a modern day American version of a Roman circus. We have become eager participants to the numerous character slaughters we witness through the modern version of the colosseum, the electronic media. That is not to say that the people who have been personally dissected have not done wrong. However we are clearly a country that has a number of decisions to make about what we stand for personally as individuals and as a society as a whole. Our behaviors, which condone these character slaughters deserve introspection, as it appears that we have sold both our emotional and economic souls in the process. And perhaps we have also mortgaged the souls of our children as well. What we need to evaluate is our future as well as the future of the electronic age.

Over the last few months we have been treated to the sordid details of Albert’s sex life. Details of a life that most certainly titillated and satisfied the voyeuristic and intrusive emotional needs of an American public and media that seems to know no boundaries. Maybee next time it will be some athlete or sports figure jumping off a bridge that will provide the emotional fodder we have come to crave and desire. How else are we to explain increased magazine and newspaper sales except that we have become the ultimate in psychological collusion. The media provide for our psychological needs and we provide for their economic needs.

These continuing psychodramas played out in full public Technicolor are psychological pile-ons. These events have become predictable in the way both the media and the public react. Any event that is predictable and repetitive provides some psychological fulfillment for everyone. Albert’s case provided cathartic emotional experiences for cross dressers, people with sexual fantasies, women’s groups, homophobes, lawyers, media specialists, law enforcement experts, psychics, and other members of the gene pool, where all were able to express and act out a full range of emtions and feelings and not pay the consequences. After it is all over, and we have gotten our psychological needs met, we just walk away and await the next event. So easy, so simple, so clean, until our collective guilt takes over and we feel badly for the victim. We offer our cvondolences, and speculate over whether he can rehabilitate his image. Not to worry, he’ll be back. So wise are we. But once again we are partaking in what is just another psychological ruse: A projective easel on which to emotionally project, vent and not take responsibility for what we have done, or recognize what we have gotten from it all.

Over the last several years the media have enlightened us on the drug problems of Lawrence Taylor, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and Steve Howe. We were told Barry Switzer tried to carry a gun into an airport. That college basketball stars cheat and rape, and we have watched Dennis rodman act like a lout on and off the basketball court. Adult movies can be accessed by children easily on cable, horrific details of Princess Diana were discussed on the news. Howard Stern - perhaps the most popular radio personality in the history of the country - talks about sex and violence early in the morning. HBO airs shows like "Sex bites" and "Real Sex." We, and our children, are confronted and bombarded with these aspects of life in the ‘90s. Difficult choices and decisions, many of which our parents never had to make which are now ours to make.

It seems like it was just yesterday that children were playing street games like stoopball, stickball, punchball, skully and jump rope, just to name a few. Flipping Topps baseball cards was an art, and the school yard was a sports haven where local neighborhoods legends were born. Adolescents and teens were listening to rock and roll songs whose lyrics seemed somewhat risque at the time but pale in comparison to the lurid lyrics our children are exposed to today. Television programs like "Leave It To Beaver," "Father Knows Best," "Donna Reed," and "My Favorite Martian" were the pride of the networks. Marty Glickman and Al Derogadis called the pay-by-play on radio for the New York Giant football games. Kids knew that Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were phenomenal ball players and spent hours on the street and in apartment hallways arguing about who was the better player. The latter was arguably the best of all time. They had no idea that Mantle had a drinking problem, and Mays was as surly and moody as they come. And it was better that way.

Children go through a number of cognitive, moral and emotional stages. While children are known to be highly resilient, there is a price to pay when they are exposed to the kinds of experiences and images that they are experiencing today. And while we all may be getting our own emotional needs met by these continuing psychodramas our children are paying a heavy emotional price. We see this in a number of ways. Crime among juveniles has increased at a dramatic rate, and America leads the world in teenage suicides. The incidences of drug and alcohol abuse among young children is dangerously high and our school dropout rate is unacceptable. Psychologically we are seeing disturbingly high rates of depression in children as well as other indicators of poor adjustment.

The controls necessary to redirect, to make wiser decisions, to show some class to paint an easel that reflects pride in what our generation contributes to the soul of society whether it be for us, our children, or grandchildren are up to us. The bottom line is always to identify the problems and decide upon the solution. The rest is up to us. No easy task.