Demosthenes
Premiership Player
- Jun 9, 2015
- 3,364
- 3,074
- AFL Club
- Melbourne
Honestly thought he was already dead. I remember seeing him rolled out to light the flame at Atlanta '96, and he was an absolute shell of a man. If you'd told me then that he'd live another 2 decades, I'd have said we needed to legalise euthanasia.
Pretty unpleasant personality in a lot of ways, but have always thought criticism of his arrogance has more than a whiff of "uppity black man doesn't know his place" about it. Growing up in the civil rights era, if he didn't have a big ego he probably wouldn't have had the drive and self-belief to back himself and succeed.
I've always maintained it's an absolute tragedy that a man of his intellect had to make a living with his fists - hopefully if he was born these days he'd grow up with more options in life.
Pretty unpleasant personality in a lot of ways, but have always thought criticism of his arrogance has more than a whiff of "uppity black man doesn't know his place" about it. Growing up in the civil rights era, if he didn't have a big ego he probably wouldn't have had the drive and self-belief to back himself and succeed.
I've always maintained it's an absolute tragedy that a man of his intellect had to make a living with his fists - hopefully if he was born these days he'd grow up with more options in life.