Last week, I talked about the culture of forgiveness within sports and how it seems to take so little to accept an athlete who has cheated or committed a crime back into our good graces. There are, of course, a couple of conditions: The athlete needs to show remorse that we can accept as genuine, and he needs to continue to perform well on the field upon return.
It's that second condition I find most intriguing. After all, would I have been so eager to defend Ray Lewis following his highly publicized murder trial if he hadn't continued to play at an All-World level? Would Lakers fans have been as quick to come to Kobe's defense if he hadn't continued to play like Kobe?
Although the acquittals in both cases were seemingly justified given the contradictory evidence and testimony that shaped them, I am still disturbed by the fact that Lewis and Kobe are treated as heroes in their towns when people like Scott Norwood, Bill Buckner and Earnest Byner — excellent players in their own right — are looked upon as scourges of the cities they once played for.
If you watch enough ESPN Classic, or if you are one of those devoted Buffalo Bills fans that are harder to find than avid Columbus Blue Jackets supporters, you will recall the scene pretty well: Super Bowl XXV. Tampa, Fla. The Bills trail the New York Giants 20-19 with eight seconds left in the game. Bills' placekicker Scott Norwood runs onto the field to try a 47-yard field goal that would bring the Lombardi Trophy to Orchard Park. He missed — to the right. The Giants won the Super Bowl, Al Michaels' call of "Wide right!" became one of the most famous in NFL history and Norwood hung his head in disbelief.
Perhaps things would not have been so bad if the Bills hadn't gone on to lose the next three Super Bowls as well, thus cementing their place as the hopelessly optimistic Henry Clay of sports. As it was, however, Norwood became a symbol of pain and suffering in upstate New York, and he was treated as such. Even now, after almost 20 years, he is still a punch line, and he is still openly mocked as he goes about his daily business as a realtor in Virginia.
I hardly need to remind most people around here about Buckner and the sort of treatment he received — and continues to receive — after that Mookie Wilson ground ball went through his legs. So I move instead to Byner, a former running back for the Cleveland Browns.
With the Browns trailing 38-31 in the 1988 AFC Championship Game against the Denver Broncos, and with 1:12 left in the game, Byner took a hand-off at the eight-yard line and appeared to be on his way to the game-tying touchdown.
But in a play that would come to be known simply as "The Fumble," Byner was stripped of the ball at the three-yard line, the Broncos recovered and Browns fans have wallowed in self-pity ever since. Like Norwood and Buckner, Byner is still mocked and ridiculed by the city he once represented so proudly.
As "Sports Illustrated" contributor Karl Greenfield writes, "Prove yourself a champion, and we will love you forever, overlooking murder raps and drug busts and spousal abuse. But fall short on the field, and we may never forgive, no matter how you conduct yourself away from the game."
As sports fans, this is nothing new to us, nor is anything I've just said. But that doesn't make it right. So I have made a personal vow, and I ask you to do the same. If by some chance you ever see Norwood, Buckner or Byner, pretend you're a Bills, Red Sox or Browns fan, shake their hand and thank them for what they did for your team. I imagine it will mean a lot.
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Rory Parks is a senior majoring in international relations and Spanish. He can be reached at Rory.Parks@tufts.edu
