BASS Communications and (subsequently) BassFan ran a story about the efforts of two-time NFL Pro Bowler Trent Cole’s to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic. I have nothing at all against Cole. Well, I take that back – as a long-suffering NY Giants fan I’m sure he made the predecessors of Danny Dimes miserable on occasion. But other than that, I’ve never met him, never heard a bad thing about him, never seen him fish. On the water, he might be the second coming of Jacob VanPalaniuk, and off the water, he might be nicer than Charlie Hartley.
I don’t have anything against BASS or BassFan, either. As faux athlete Chico Escuela might have said, both have been “berry, berry good to me.” I get why’d they publish these stories. They garner more eyeballs, and therefore more clicks for advertisers, than the 800th piece about how to throw a frog in the summertime or about some more obscure wannabe pro’s on-the-water efforts.
Nevertheless, there’s something that rubs me wrong not about this particular story, but about the genre in general. Every year or two, it seems, we have a former pro athlete who wants to rise through the ranks the same way he knocked down pinch hitters or plowed over quarterbacks. Because they are celebrities of sorts, we pay them more attention than we otherwise would if they were just some Joe Bagofdonuts of the street. Again, I get it. Clicks. Eyeballs. Advertising bucks. Attention during an otherwise slow news period. To be honest, I don’t really care that it “takes away coverage” from some other angler, but it bothers me about what it says about our sport.
First, it implies that we have an inferiority complex, that we’re not comfortable in our own skin. We seek validity not on our own merits but through the approval of others. It’s like the article about the heavy metal guitarist or jazz pianist who is rumored to have been granted acceptance in a classical music conservatory – a halo effect that grants legitimacy.
Second, while I don’t begrudge any individual pro athlete (Cole or anyone else), the opportunity or the right to take a stab at a professional angling career, it speaks to the origin of the inferiority complex described above: many people on the outside still think of tournament angling as a game of luck. In just the past 10 years it has become so much more competitive at even the AAA level that unless you’ve fished with a true bunch of hammers you have no idea how hard it is to be consistently competitive. We’ve seen the occasional former pro athlete break through – former Major League pitcher Billy Brewer fished the Elite Series for a short time, and there have been a handful of pro bull riders who’ve made the leap over the years. Still, we’ve never seen one of the hyped former stars make the switch. Maybe Cole will be the first one. If not, I’m sure there will be another in the not-too-distant future.
Perhaps coincidentally, both Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson, the greatest multi-sport athletes of my lifetime, are both avid outdoorsmen. Both seem to be busy with other endeavors right now, but without ever having seen him fish, somehow based on his Tecmo Bowl exploits alone I figure Jackson would qualify for the Classic and the Elites on his first try. Until then, Cole is our next best hope and the next step of his quest is on Oneida this week.
