Lonesome Town

“Have you seen the loneliness of a middle distance runner
When he stops the race and looks around?”
-The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner, Belle and Sebastian

The feeling of loneliness is rarely more pertinent than when you are sitting in a packed cinema alone. The malady of permanent isolation overcomes you as you look around and realise you are the only person there without company. You try to slink down in your seat when a peppy too-thin couple ask if the seats to your immediate right are taken. “No”, you mumble, as you look around and realise that the full house sign is probably being dusted off. A group of eight or so college students laugh among themselves and you feel, with overzealous paranoia, that they are probably laughing at you. Three middle aged couples, the women all over-dressed for a trip to the movies, sit in the middle row, dead centre, the men sitting silently while the women lean over their partners to gossip among themselves. An attractive twenty-something brunette comes in with her aging parents looking awkward and clearly wishing she was invisible. In that cinema at that moment, we were natural acquaintances in spirit. Two men in skinny jeans and styled haircuts push past me and wonder if I can shift a seat over so they can sit with their friends. Another couple claim the two seats to my left during the opening preview, leaving me jammed between two girls, both of whom are there with their presumed boyfriends.

I am certainly not averse to doing things alone. I work alone due to my general intolerance of others. For the most part I prefer to watch sport by myself or at the very most, only with those who are well versed in the game played before us and the etiquette of watching sports. I even prefer to be alone in transit so that when the inevitable squawk of a baby or the chatter of the bogan travellers can be drowned out by my Ipod.

It is only really a packed cinema where I feel uncomfortable being alone. It is not the discomfort of sleeping against a wall in the bed of someone else or the uneasiness of being packed into a tram; in those situations you are usually next to a beautiful woman or with a coterie of fellow travellers. Rather, it is the awkward feeling of being alone and the fear of that becoming a permanent state that causes your skin to flush red and your paranoia to become acute.

The movie I went to see, in the end, did little to alleviate the loneliness of the middle distance runner I felt. I went and saw The Wrestler and the depressing notion that people can’t change no matter how much they want to was a gloomy outlook on life, at best. The movie was still amazing, however, with Mickey Rourke outstanding as a washed-up eighties wrestler struggling to deal with the passing of time. To a wrestling aficionado, it was concurrently a trip down memory lane and a visual punch to the kidneys, the glitz and glamour in the ring contrasted with the brutal costs to the body and the mind seen behind the curtain. It was, for all intents, a fictionalised version of the documentary Beyond The Mat with Randy “The Ram” Robinson a melding of the Hulk Hogan of the eighties and the Jake “The Snake” Roberts of Barry Blaustein’s documentary. This was not a movie written in kayfabe nor was it intended to glamorize professional wrestling. Rather, it highlighted the addictive nature of glory, the loneliness of the individual athlete and the costs of success in a cut-throat world that has little room for nostalgia.

The most compelling theme of the movie was the lonely nature of the individual athlete and the notion that though they receive all the glory when they reach the top of the mountain, they must make their way down the other side all by themselves. In team sports the glory is shared, the pain is mutual and the experiences are collective and the trip down the mountain for most is easier because just as you shared your experiences at the top, you share the experience of time moving on and the spotlight shifting away.

Some individual athletes are more adept at dealing with the passing of time and the fading of skills and some sports lend themselves more to allowing athletes gentler runs down the slope than others.

Tiger Woods and golf are a prime example. Woods is generally regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time. He has been in the spotlight for over a decade and due to the nature of golf he will be there for at least another decade. When his skills begin to deteriorate, Woods will still be able to play golf. Any professional golfer who reached the top of the mountain can play competitively until the day they die if they so choose. Woods will also be the beneficiary of a well-rounded mental makeup that ensures he has other interests and a better perspective on life. He is also an athlete who has never courted celebrity or the spotlight and competes for the sake of winning and not necessarily the roar of the crowd.

At the other end of the spectrum is boxing. The history of the sweet science is a long and agonising hymn to the athlete who can’t move away from the spotlight, whose drug is the roar and whose only way is via fists and bloodshed. For every Rocky Marciano there are a dozen George Foreman’s and Evander Holyfield’s, men who know no other way and can’t stay away from the ring no matter how much damage it does to their body and how humiliating their return to the ring is viewed. The brutality of boxing does not allow for fighters to continue at a high level for any great period of time while the rush of the crowd is more acute and pertinent than it is with a sport like golf. But that doesn’t stop the multitude of boxers who retire out of common sense and then return for money, competition, the thrill and the fact they know no other way.

The fact that those athletes who decide to pursue individual sports rather than team sports are inherently more selfish also plays a contributing role in why many struggle to deal with aging and the shifting of the spotlight.

Golfers, boxers, swimmers, runners and tennis players seek their own personal glory. They drive themselves, they train themselves, they compete themselves, they celebrate their successes themselves, they suffer defeat themselves.

Some can handle it. Others cannot.

Some athletes, of course, are more suited to individual sports. Anthony Mundine is a prime example. He desires the full focus of the spotlight and is far better suited in the ring and away from the team situation where his attitude generally was poisonous. It is not surprising that the talented Dragons teams Mundine played in never won a premiership despite his obvious rugby league ability. How he will deal with his inevitable aging is anyone’s guess but the smart money would be on a boxing career that lasts well beyond his prime.

Other athletes who have chosen to pursue careers in team sports would also be better off in individual sports where their overt selfishness and yearning for the entire spotlight would be better facilitated. Sonny Bill Williams. Willie Mason. Terrell Owens. Andrew Symonds. These, and many others, refuse to operate in a harmonious team atmosphere and despite their obvious athleticism actually take away from the team cause. They are athletes more concerned with statistics, relative contract earnings, newspaper headlines and public attention than with winning and the team.

While it is not true across the board, it is fair to suggest that individual athletes have far bigger egos than team sportsmen. It is the nature of the individual athlete and it is also a legacy of not existing in a team environment that tends to restrain out-of-control egos.

From a punting perspective, understanding the mindsets of athletes is half the battle. When you understand motivation, finding winning wagers is a hell of a lot easier. It explains why a champion team usually fares better than a team of champions, why team dynamics are important and why some come through in the clutch while others wilt like May daisies. It also helps to explain why individual athletes can tend to be more inconsistent than teams.

More importantly, when you understand the mindsets of athletes, you can understand a little about life. You can grasp that we are all different, that we all have our ups and downs, that we all experience joy and sadness, that we all deal with challenges and pressure and adversity differently. Nothing is defined. There are people who prefer to do it alone. There are others who need the company of others. And there are some who like to mix it up.

Some of us understand time and accept that change is inevitable. Others are like Randy “The Ram” Robinson who just can’t let go of the past.

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