Adam Morrison’s Crying Game

“He hollers during games and seems like one of those guys who flips over Scrabble boards and keeps you playing Ping-Pong until he wins.”

The above quote is from today's Sports Guy column on Adam Morrison’s crying fit over the weekend. The context is that the Sports Guy is trying to get the heart of why it’s become okay for athletes and Clint Eastwood to cry. I’m not going to get into the propriety of men crying. It’s something I try to avoid at all times because, as a man, it’s important that I deal with pain like a man (i.e. gin and violence). But I do think an interesting question has been raised.

I want to talk about what goes into a man getting to a point in his life where he will absolutely lose his composure to the point of embarrassing himself, his family, his school, and, no doubt, God. The short answer is that guys like Morrison are wired different from most people. They have another level that most of us don’t have. It’s why he’s such a great scorer; the passion for victory and the physical pain of loss. It’s what separates the greats like Bird and Jordan (and maybe Morrison) from Jerry Stackhouse and Keith Van Horn. After the game at his press conference, all Morristache could get out was that he hates losing.

I find it very interesting that he thinks that Morrison is the type of guy who won’t let you leave the ping pong table until he’s won. I just finished reading a book on Michael Jordan by David Halberstam. The book is peppered with stories about Jordan’s ferocity when it came to all things competitive. One of my favorite stories was how he bought a ping pong table for his garage because he was tired of Charles Oakley beating him with the paddle.

(Just for giggles, here’s Adam Morrison's 5 Stages of Grief.)