Ellington

The first 11 months of 2009 have given fans rare insight into the Celebrated Sports Hero. USA Swimming suspended Michael Phelps for using marijuana, not quite violating his parole for a previous DUI. Quarterback Brett Favre burned bridges to acquire a Vikings uniform and then made ill-advised suggestions on what "real Packers" fans should feel. Retired Titans quarterback Steve McNair was the victim of a tragic murder-suicide fueled by heavy drug use of his mistress. After being busted for steroids, Alex Rodriguez coordinated a small media circus to muddle his guilt. These revelations mostly confirmed fans' suspicions, and those incidents may define those athletes' legacies.

Overshadowing all of them are the statements that tennis champion Andre Agassi and six-time NBA champion Michael Jordan chose to sum up their professional careers. Both athletes dominated their respective sports and inspired awe among young American devotees in the late '80s and early '90s. With great panache, their styles were innovative and divergent from the contemporary orthodoxy. No list of great professional athletes in this era would be complete without their names. Both had charismatic on-field presences, able to market clothing, sports gear and the sport itself to a sometimes-apathetic general public. This fall, both athletes decided to publicly disrobe and give us a profound glimpse into the emotional complexion of a sports champion.

In September, Jordan gave his Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech—a speech both puzzling and predictable. "His Airness" selected North Carolina State forward David Thompson to introduce him and, once on stage, Jordan began listing all the grievances against him. On an occasion where Jordan's character and ability were being celebrated, the athlete chose to criticize the high school coach who cut him, the professional organizations that neglected him, as well as all other perceived and real slights against him. His speech could be described as petty, venomous, monomaniacal and alienating. He demonstrated no character gained from failing in player management at Washington in 2000, 2001 and 2003, and no regret for evading involvement in any political and social causes beyond basketball.

In October, Agassi published "Open: An Autobiography" (Knopf, 2009), written in powerfully spare, minimally punctuated, confessional prose. The passages about his use of crystal meth (and the way professional tennis dealt with it) have gotten major attention from ESPN and other outlets, and his book discloses how he developed a response to intense pressure. A degenerative disease affecting his vertebrae tormented him from birth to his playing days. His abusive father, an Iranian Olympic boxer, staked the family savings (and the house) on games between 10-year-old Agassi and Jim Brown, the great pro football player. The relief of avoiding beatings outweighed any authentic pleasure from winning. Agassi grew to "hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion," and eventually married Stefanie Graf, a fellow tennis pro who identified with his loathing of their vocation.

Young athletes are routinely told about Jordan's "struggles" (being cut as a high school player) and his superhuman ability to overcome them. Fittingly, Agassi will become an archetype for defeating degenerative disease and achieving greatness. I doubt, however, that sports fans of any age are willing to meet the gaze of their unblinking final public pronouncements before returning to anonymity.

Jordan and Agassi made incredible physical sacrifices. This is how Agassi describes the damage in his back: "With this one vertebra out of sync, there's less room for the nerves inside the column of my spine, and with the slightest movement the nerves feel that much more crowded. Throw in two herniated disks and a bone that won't stop growing in a futile effort to protect the damaged area, and those nerves start to feel downright claustrophobic. When they send out distress signals, a pain runs up and down my leg that makes me suck in my breath and speak in tongues."

The tennis player "negotiated" with his body, coaxing more tennis out of it with cortisone. Though Jordan has not described the toll on his body, the sound his wrecked knees make when he crosses a room cannot be pleasant.

Did achieving greatness stoke Jordan's pettiness and Agassi's loathing, by insulating them from the public? Could the attention and benefits of their achievements have exacerbated their personal foibles? Or did their personal faults motivate them to greater heights? I tend to think that the achievements and the foibles reinforce one another. For Jordan and Agassi, these twin poles of their personality amplified one another.

In both cases, their weaknesses pushed Agassi and Jordan beyond the limits of even exceptional athletic performance. Rational people would have quit sports they hated, saved their bodies, addressed their insecurities and doubts with a psychiatrist, and found positive motivation for continuing to play their sports. Agassi and Jordan allowed their obsessions to consume them leaving us, finally, to wonder if "Sports Hero" status is worth the human cost.