Shaedon Sharpe deactivated his instagram account and it\u2019s hard not to know why. Internet commentary is the unfiltered id of society and he had the audacity to commit a professional athlete\u2019s one unforgivable sin: he got injured.<\/p>\n
In the grand scheme of things, a young man in his twenties tearing his meniscus isn\u2019t some great tragedy. He\u2019ll eventually heal, be able to walk again, and live a normal life, but Shaedon Sharpe is anything but normal. He\u2019s a superhuman able to defy the laws of physics each time his feet leave the ground, hanging in the air for an impossible amount of time before he crams the ball through the rim, just as gravity reasserts its tenuous hold on him.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve watched and re-watched enough Shaedon Sharpe slams that it seems like the novelty should\u2019ve worn off, but it hasn\u2019t. At this point, I don\u2019t think it ever will. Witnessing a Shaedon Sharpe dunk is to experience every synapse in your brain firing, creating more synapses, those firing, bringing you to the verge of awareness so transcendent that you can almost see and understand the area that exists between dimensions.<\/p>\n
Now, an injury has robbed us of that sensation for at least six months, probably longer. Adding an obstacle to a season that hasn\u2019t yet begun. For the second year in a row, a young Trail Blazers guard had his body betray him in the offseason, inching a career already off-track a little further off the rails.<\/p>\n
For a fanbase following a franchise snakebit by injuries, in general, and meniscus tears, specifically, the Shaedon Sharpe news was a re-opening of wounds barely scarred over. As raw as the hurt is on those exposed nerves, I know it\u2019s much worse for him. The pain isn\u2019t just figurative, the trauma isn\u2019t just emotional.<\/p>\n
I can only imagine what Sharpe is going through during his recovery, but what I don\u2019t have to imagine is how mean and self-centered fans can be in that moment. Unfortunately, I know that cruelty firsthand.<\/p>\n
A Bittersweet Memory Soured<\/p>\n
I was at Moda Center for what turned out to be Greg Oden\u2019s last game in a Blazer uniform.<\/p>\n
Two years after Portland made him the first overall pick, the investment was starting to pay off. The big man\u2019s skills were still very unrefined, but his impact on the court was undeniable. He was a physical specimen whose very presence warped play around him on both sides of the court, but especially when he was acting as the defensive anchor.<\/p>\n
In an early season game against the Spurs, I remember watching Oden make Tim Duncan look overmatched, old, and irrelevant. The same Tim Duncan who was an All-star that year and a starter for an NBA champion five years later couldn\u2019t keep up with Oden\u2019s physicality or athleticism. At the time, I thought that the potential of both the promising center and the young Blazers would be finally realized.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to yours truly attending a Saturday evening tilt against the Rockets; a rematch against the team who had knocked the Blazers out in the first round the year prior and whose own former first overall pick center phenom was having injury issues.<\/p>\n
The game had barely started when Oden went to provide weakside help on an Aaron Brooks drive. He planted his feet and rose up to contest the floater in one explosive motion that produced so much force that it ripped his kneecap completely in half. It was gruesome. A giant, powerful exemplar of a man immediately crumpled to the floor, fragile and helpless.<\/p>\n
The arena fell quiet as a library. Brandon Roy put his hands to the sides of his head, pantomiming the silent scream held within all of us. As the team captain watched his junior writhe in agony, he slowly collected himself, walked over, reached out and held Oden\u2019s hand in a beautiful poignant moment of comfort.<\/p>\n
It was right then that I heard someone a few rows behind me say, \u201cPfft, what a bust.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was something so shocking in an arena already experiencing a state of shock, that the shock on top of shock somehow became a cold splash of reality that sobered me up enough to turn and glare at the offender. Our eyes met briefly before he turned his attention to the floor in shame. That\u2019s when I realized I wasn\u2019t alone in the staredown, dozens of us were sharing the quiet dismay he galvanized.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t tell you anything about the people who sat near me who were my allies in that encounter, but I could pick the guy who ruined that moment for us out of a police lineup all these sixteen plus years later. I can recall every scatalogical detail of the turd in the punch bowl, but don\u2019t remember the color of beverage it swam in.<\/p>\n
With no eye contact to fence them in, unpopular and impolite opinions run rampant in the free range of internet discourse. Engagement is king; anger, outrage, and shock its loyal subjects. The further away communication gets from human-to-human contact, the more emboldened it is to become inhumane.<\/p>\n
Who seems further removed from the general public than professional athletes? They\u2019re more gifted than us and richer than us, breathing the rarefied air of the elite. It\u2019s easy to objectify idols and treat athletes as totems for our entertainment when you only see them on a screen or witness them from a hundred feet away. They\u2019re untouchable.<\/p>\n
Out of the spotlight, they\u2019re just as human as we are. Flesh and blood, full of thoughts and feelings that more than likely mirror our own. They\u2019re just as likely to experience a sense of loss.<\/p>\n
Professional sports don\u2019t shield its participants from tragedy. Sometimes professional sports expose them to it.<\/p>\n
A New Study, an Old Truth<\/p>\n
Content Warning: This section talks about mental health struggles, violence, and suicide.<\/p>\n