Changing Of The Guard...

Over the years, I have found myself becoming a modern day captain obvious by realizing that in life, there are definitely no guarantees. And even when someone provides you with substantial evidence showing the later, I still am ready to blow a whistle and throw out the SSD flag!

The entire reason for this website is solely based off of the dedication to determining whether or not someone or something can guarantee the result it claims from the hype it has surrounding it. Since there are no guarantees, throughout my research of this journey called life, I have found that there are three things you can at least rest assured to be inevitable: times changing, paying bills and death.

The irony of this is the longer you live your life, you will continuously begin to notice the more things change, the more things tend to stay the same and as long as you are living you will eventually have to owe someone something i.e. paying a debt/bill, until you die and then in that case, something definitely would be different and so my theory would be true, but I guess we won't know until the day after, huh?

Without falling too far off from the subject matter, some people don't like change and some people welcome it with open arms.
I grew up like most people watching my favorite basketball players on my favorite team play basketball. At that time, I thought these certain marquee players would play on that same team forever. And then the unthinkable happened, In 1998, forever arrived and Michael Jordan retired on top of the world, as an NBA World Champion Chicago Bull.

Being from Chicagoland at that time was a detrimental time in life. Was this the death of sports as we knew it or the birth of a marketing big business corporation dragon that today commonly devours the love of the game that players have for their respective sport or team?

As you know, SSD is dedicated to erasing the hype to uncover the truth. Through my perspective, it seemed that although Michael Jordan retired, his love and passion for basketball along with the desire to come back and play was not strong enough to compete with the "BIG BUSINESS" moving on without him, leaving MJ to have no choice but to migrate to another team that would accept his talent.

Now I know that the marketing corporation monster has been around longer than before Michael Jordan's days, my point is that this situation is far too common with players in this new age. Teams are not loyal to players and players are not loyal to teams. Its all business and in my opinion players are starting to lose the love they have for the game and are playing just to show up to cash a check. Is it the players fault for this mentality or is it the organizations that treat players/talent like cattle by not nurturing their players the ones to be blamed?

I guess there are so many variables at this point in time, its almost impossible to point the finger now. Art vs. Commerce is a life long battle across the board when it comes to talent vs client(organization) relations no matter what type of talent it is. (example: Athlete, Actor, photographer, recording artist etc.)

I digress.

So my question is, why should I continue to be loyal to a team if neither the players, nor the organization are showing loyalty to me as a fan? We want to THESE players playing on OUR team. It seems as if someone has sold their soul to the devil or given Biff Tannen the sports almanac to give us this alternate football sports universe.

Let's break this 2009 sports-opera'd, pro-club, Sunday drama scenario down, shall we? What's interesting is, I'm not even talking about 3rd and 4Th string wannabes being shipped off, I am talking about marquee Probowl caliber players that become synonyms with specific team recognition being shipped off like sheep for whatever reason. Its very interesting to say the least. Like Bill Gates and Microsoft, these athletes were, if not THE franchise player, or at least a franchise player within the organization.

Let's start with former Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss (the whole reason I even started watching football as adult). Moss was traded from the Vikings (NFC North) to the Oakland Raiders (AFC West) and then finally to the New England Patriots (AFC East). Next, former Atlanta Falcons starting quarterback Michael Vick had a run in with the law therefore forfeiting his NFL career only to be reinstated into the league and signed two years later with his former nemesis the Philadelphia Eagles (NFC East). I really wonder if birds of a feather...naaaah!

Brett Favre who was a Green Bay Packer fixture as well as the starting quarterback forever, retired and then after a stint with New Jersey Jets, decided to come back this season and is signed to the Vikings now (going from one NFC North to another NFC North team is the equivalent to the CEO of Samsung LCD Television screens throwing his 52" in the trash and picking up a Sony, you just don't see that every day). Then again, times change. The Vikings, (my former team) also had running back Michael Bennett during the Randy Moss hay day, but Bennett now plays with the Chargers.

I know all of these players were traded for various reasons, but for whatever the reasons, I'm merely stating that it seems odd to see these marquee players performing in different colored jerseys. I think back to my Bill Gates analogy and envision of Mr. Gates sitting down to an apple macbook pro doing some itunes and iphoto for his grand kids. Wait, Itunes is compatibale with windows. I guess times do change. HA!

Either way, 1998 my faith in sports for love, passion and entertainment was crushed but I learned that you can always enjoy sports, just to stay away from the business side as you will be let down every time if you get caught up in more than the entertainment aspect of sports.

Fast forward 11 years. It seems all the teams with marquee players have basically traded the players to the enemy. Literally. It's the Babe Ruth curse all over again.

With this knowledge, I chose my new football team based off of friends, business acquaintances and newly found home front ties. Being a professional photographer that living in San Diego, I have worked with The Chargers organization on nonprofit and profitable events not to mention becoming friends with some of the players so its only logical that I ride with my home team. I figure with the exception of a few lucky players, no one on a given sports team is actually from the city they play for.

This means the bandwagon threats can remain idle as long as you pick your team before the pre-season starts and the team has no previous championship at least 3 years before you picked them. Don't worry the football gods will grant you a change of team in that situation. Michael Bennett is with the chargers now, so as far as I'm concerned, I am atill routing for the home team.