During the Washington versus USC game this past weekend, a despondent Caleb Williams went up into the stands after losing and began crying with his mother. He has faced ridicule, scorn, and questions about his worthiness of being a top NFL quarterback prospect all because he was showing emotion after seeing the goals of a national championship and conference championship evaporate in three very public and humiliating losses.
Caleb Williams is the reigning Heisman trophy winner. He has put up amazing numbers in the Lincoln Riley system at Oklahoma and USC. He has had some controversy during his Heisman campaign last year but I tend to put that towards being a brash QB who is still in his early 20s. The nail painting backfired terribly and resulted in an epic troll by the Utes. It was a teachable moment.
A lot of critics are jumping on this show of emotion as unmanly, weak, and childish. I disagree. Football is an emotional game despite what some critics are saying. USC came into this season with national championship aspirations and Williams trying to become the second back-to-back Heisman winner. He was prominently featured in the Fansville campaign for Dr. Pepper as well as the Nissan Heisman House and other NIL deals. He has a lot on his plate and was essentially an NFL quarterback balancing his football with endorsement deals. He is also 21.
According to multiple studies, the prefrontal cortex of the brain that controls the rational part of thinking is not fully developed until you are 25. That means that most young adults are straddling the line between adolescence and adulthood while letting emotions control their thinking. Throw in the fact that Williams is also taking violent hits with that and you see why he can become so emotional.
Williams cares about the team and the goals they put forth. He is an emotional leader of the team who just had everything they had been working for all offseason dashed in the span of four weeks. He was facing a tremendous amount of pressure internally and externally and he just broke. It is completely human to break when you have reached your limits. Most people have their breaks in the privacy of their homes, cubicles, bathrooms, or cars. Williams just happened to be on national television as the face of USC football when the loss happened and cameras followed him into the stands with his mother.
I think that people tend to lose sight of how much pressure is on the current crop of athletes. While Jordan, Favre, and Jeter were always shown with their icy demeanor under pressure, they were able to just go home and turn off the TV if they had a bad game. Now, with sports talk 24/7 on the radio, social media interactions constant, and YouTube armchair quarterbacks reacting after every game, the pressure is never-ending and almost inescapable. This is the media landscape that these young players face every day. Fandom is at an all-time high and intensity. Death threats to players for messing up are common on social media. After the Kick Six, Cade Foster had death threats. A Colorado State football player and his family received death threats after giving a hit that knocked out two-way player Travis Hunter of the Colorado Buffaloes. Fans have more access to players than ever before and it's not necessarily a good thing.
I know I never achieved the notoriety that Williams faced but I remember being that upset after football games. My junior year of high school was very rough and we were coming off being undefeated state champions. We played one of our archrivals Mountain Brook at their stadium and lost to them for the first time in 14 games. I was despondent. I was angry. I had angry tears. Then the next game we played another heated rival in Homewood and my botched snap ended up costing us the game. I was angry and crying in the locker room because I had let my teammates down. My mother rode home with me because she was worried about how upset I was after the game. High school football in Alabama is an intense and popular thing. We had the weight of our school, fellow students, parents, and community on us. It only becomes more intense the higher levels you go.
Caleb Williams showed that he was merely a young man who was dealing with a lot of emotions at the time. He sought consoling from his mother. There is nothing wrong with that nor is it a sign of weakness. Give the young man a break and understand that this is all part of the growing-up process. He just happens to be doing in front of an audience of millions each week.
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