A budding sports person works hard to achieve the highest spot in the world in his sport. He competes and starts catching everyone’s eyes by achieving small but valuable milestones to the ultimate destination. Enter media and he gets immense popularity amongst the local people. He is projected to be the next Numero Uno in his sport. Through media he is known to the whole country and eventually to the whole world. But he has just achieved a couple of milestones. He has a long way to go and he knows that. In the meantime he has become a sport hero. He starts getting ad campaign signups and sees a lot of money and popularity coming his way. He has achieved a celebrity status. But he has a long way to go and he somehow knows that. Suddenly he feels that the whole nation is expecting him to be the next Numero Uno in his game.
This thought scares him and makes him think what if he looses his next game? The fear slowly creeps up in his mind but he works and practices hard to defeat bigger opponents in his tourneys.
Come next tournament and he goes to the field with a fear that his supporters and fans will be disappointed if he looses this game. His aim of reaching the zenith somehow gets buried behind his thoughts of survival. He plays but he looses the game with a bigger player. Immediately media starts criticizing his play and starts ridiculing his efforts. He gets into depression and this affects his practice. His aim to reach the top slowly gets transformed into better performance to survive the kickbacks. He drops down in his world ratings and now he fights to survive. There is no talk about him in the media anymore other than criticism. He is completely broken down. He again tries to concentrate on his game and practice in an effort to achieve his dream one day. He is now just another player in the queue.
Expectations spoil careers. People should not expect miracles from anyone. If a sportsman is promising, expect as per his capabilities. We should rather try and improve his abilities so that he can reach the top spot and make us proud, rather than expecting him to lay golden eggs. Media puts a lot of pressure on the minds of these budding sports persons because they need news. Media forgets the consequences of failures under pressure. It’s the media that makes the crowd expect the unexpected from a sportsman. And it is not only about sportsmen. We shall not expect a miracle from anyone. A sweet accident is a miracle. And miracle happens once in million times.
We should rather provide better facilities to our sports men to perform better than making them small time celebrities. This mismanagement of the media has been a big reason why sports men from big countries have never been able to take the top spot in any game.
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