A thought about the ever-present sob stories about overcoming adversity in sports.

Most of these stories are about a kid who grew up in poverty, in a broken family, etc. I can think of very few rich, privileged athletes that achieved greatness.

Manziel
Manning sons (not Archie)
Ken Griffey, Jr.

During Gameday or all the other sports shows, when I hear the piano “ding…ding…ding…”, I change the channel or leave the room.

Any others?

—Old and grumpy.

There are quite a few second generation athletes thriving in the pro leagues, many of which were raised in well off households. A bunch in baseball (Bichette, Guerrero, etc.)

I hate rags to riches stories. I prefer riches to richer stories.

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There are tons of college athletes from middle to upper class families that grew up with two loving parents and always were high achievers.

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What is the racial breakdown of this group?

The ‘poor downtrodden minority’ angle is another reason for these stories

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It’s the same for every sport across the board chief.

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No it isn’t chief.

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women sideline reporters can be employed

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And Tom Rinaldi

Yeah right. Your are only bothered by minorities overcoming poverty stories then. I can’t stand anyone from any race/gender talk about overcoming poverty, or some disease, or retardation, or some misfortune. But America loves it. Tho I tend the people who love it don’t really watch sports.

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A thought about the ever-present sob stories about overcoming adversity in sports

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To be honest I hate them, I just wish one time I would hear someone say “I grew up in a middle class neighborhood with my mom and dad still married. I just worked harder then everyone else and accomplished my dream.”.

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During Gameday or all the other sports shows, when I hear the piano “ding…ding…ding…”, I change the channel or leave the room.

Any others?

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Of course, it's gotten brutal. I understand when it's a campus tragedy or something that affects the entire community. But sometimes they're scraping the bottom of the grief barrel, with our hearts going out to some random player who unexpectedly lost his grandmother last week.

Getting to be as bad as those fricking Olympics segments with the brave little gymnastics laboratory project who is battling on behalf of her younger sister who suffers from moderate to severe asthma.

Don’t forget the tidbits of female athletes surviving bullying.