Bode Miller, perhaps the greatest underachiever in American history since Bart Simpson, had the gall to get up on a podium and lament his lot in life.
Excuse me for a moment while I go unpack the world's smallest violin:
Miller, speaking at the World Scholar-Athlete Games at the University of Rhode Island on Thursday night, marveled at how he was perceived as "apparently the most hated Olympic athlete in history."A media prone to "sensationalism" had given the public misconceptions about him, he said, as he urged an audience of mostly teenagers to measure their success by their own standards.
"I'm sure some of you know me through the media, and that's not, as we all know, the best way to get to know something," he said.
(snip)
"I was literally the number one guy in the Olympics that everyone was looking at, that everyone was paying attention to," he said.
The public had placed a lot pressure on him, he said, and he was unfairly portrayed after failing to meet the expectations of others.
This is sort of like Dr. Faustus acting surprised when Mephastophilis came to collect his soul.
The bottom line is this: Before the Winter Olympics, nobody really knew who Bode Miller was. So in order to introduce him to the American public, and put him in the position to collect millions of dollars if he came home from Turin with even just one gold medal, his handlers put him in front of any audience they could find.
As for public pressure, perhaps it wouldn't have been as intense if Miller had concentrated on preparing for the Olympics instead of granting interviews to 60 Minutes and Rolling Stone.
A lot of folks bet pretty heavy on Bode Miller. That includes sponsors like Nike as well as NBC Sports. And when Miller came up snakes eyes, how could he be surprised that the very same media he used for his own purposes in the run-up to the Olympics would return to deliver a metaphorical leg breaking that would leave him bitter and disillussioned?
As Sean Connery once said, "Here endeth the lesson".
