egocentric

Have you ever met someone who defines this word? Someone who is so arrogant and ego-driven that everything comes back to them? In an egocentric individual's mind, they are the center of all things. I've personally been accused of being arrogant more than once in my life. And I wouldn't doubt if the word egocentric was ever used. But I've worked a lot on that character flaw over the past few years. Hopefully, I'm getting better.

The reason this came to mind was in regard to athletes. Many athletes (I have no way to quantify how many, but it is certainly not all) tend to be egocentric. For some reason, they tend to think the world revolves around them. They fight to hold records, bring conversations back to them and seek the spotlight as often as they can.

No current athlete may be more guilty of this than Brett Favre. Favre fights hard to be in the spotlight. Finally, most football fans see him for what he is, an egocentric maniac. I will not discuss this further as that is what he would want.

How about the NBA? There seems to be a lot of this happening there. Kobe Bryant has been accused of this on more than one occasion. The Lakers do best when he shares the ball. When asked on February 10th about Ray Allen's record for 3 pt shots made, Kobe brought it back to himself. His quote was something along the lines of "I'm amazed at how long we've been in this league together. It's awesome how we have maintained our play at a high level." The question was about Ray Allen and not about Ray Allen and Kobe Bryant. It irked me that he made it about himself.

ARod anyone? He leaked a big contract announcement during the World Series.

It's been said that Dan Marino fought the Dolphins' management on their attempts to bring in legitimate running backs because it would limit his passes.

These athletes are like 3 year olds who realize they did something funny, so they repeat it a million times until it drives you insane.

My point is not to judge or point fingers here. I find it intriguing how many athletes are ego-driven. Some say it's the egotism that makes players great, but I think there must be some sort of a distinction. What these players listed sans Bryant seem to have in common is that they were talented in their respected sport but not good team guys and thus not on many championship teams. Favre won 1 Super Bowl before he got out of control. ARod won a World Series once he was no longer the centerpiece of the offense. Dan Marino never won anything.

Kobe Bryant has won 5 NBA Championships. Interestingly enough, another egocentric NBA player, Michael Jordan, won 6. Maybe the NBA is the one league where ego is an advantage.

Well, in the "real world" nobody wants to be in a conversation with ego-driven people. I hope I don't fit that description any more.