Though the jury’s still out as to whether it was wise of me to reboot Microkhan, I’m happy to report that this endeavor has had one incredibly positive outcome so far: While hunting for some daily material the other week, I came across an idea that I’m tempted to to make my next major project. I need to keep the particulars under wraps for the moment, but I will say it led me to check out some memoirs of football stars. And that little quest brought me in contact with the delightful The Boz: Confessions of a Modern Anti-Hero, Brian Bosworth’s gloriously self-aggrandizing account of his first quarter-century or so on Earth. In tearing through the “as told to” pages, I marveled at how much the book is an artifact of an era when athletes felt no need to try and humanize themselves. The Boz is the polar opposite of the sensitive The Players’ Tribune essay that now dominates the genre; there are no frank admissions of weakness here, no attempts to assure the reader that the elite athlete has anything in common with Joe Q. Public. And though I have doubts about some of the veracity of Bosworth’s anecdotes, I can’t help but admire his willingness to declare his total disdain for anyone who admits that they yearn for a simpler existence. This passage pretty well encapsulates his attitude from page one to the final line (which, I kid you not, is simply, “Later!”).
When I get so sick of Hollywood people that I can’t make movies anymore, I’m going to start spending all my money. I’m going to buy an island, an entire island, and kick everybody else the hell off of it and invite only who I want. What do you think Maui would go for?
I’ll build a dream house on it. After years of sleeping in puny hotel beds, I’ll have a bed the size of two kinds. I’ll have a shower as big or maybe slightly larger than the Dome in Seattle. I’ll have speakers in every room. I’ll have a bunch of wild animals on the island, lions and bears—and not the Detroit and Chicago kind. Maybe I’ll invite Pete and Elway and some of my pals from the NCAA and Horton. I’ll lock the door and let them fend for themselves with my furry friends. Maybe they’ll eat each other.
I know one thing I don’t want to do on that island is grow old. I can’t stand the thought of being old. I don’t want to be an old prunehead walking around, growling at all the kids, my mind so closed up you can’t squeeze anything in it that didn’t happen before 1979.
When I start to feel old, I don’t want to continue living. I define “feeling old” as when you’re just sitting around, going, “Sheeee-ut. I can’t do this no more. I can’t do that no more. I never have sex anymore. I might as well call it a goddamn day.”
If you know of any other 1980s athletic memoirs that are replete with grievance and devoid of humility, please advise.
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