Once, Fuzzy Zoeller said something stupid, and his career was never the same. Charles Barkley also said something stupid, and 15 minutes later, it seemed that no one remembered.
Once, Roberto Alomar spit into the face of an umpire, and the fans never forgave him for it. Barkley once spit into the face of a young girl, and by the time someone got a towel, the controversy was over.
Once, Ron Artest went into the stands after a loudmouth, and before the week was out, a thousand essays had been produced to decry the violence. Barkley once threw a loudmouth through a plate-glass window, and when he told the judge his only regret was they hadn't been on a higher floor, America laughed along.
In that context, perhaps it should not surprise anyone that it is once again time to roll your eyes and shake your head.
There goes Charles being Charles again. And isn't he cute?
Charles has run up $400,000 in gambling debts? And who cares? He was late making payments? And so what? He thinks two queens and an eight add up to blackjack? And big deal.
With other athletes, and John Daly comes to mind, we would be vexing by now. We would worry about the depth of Barkley's gambling problems, the state of his finances and the history of his lack of control. We would wring our hands and urge him to get help. We would debate whether his bigger problem was running up that debt or being slow to pay it off.
With Charles?
We're ready to vote for him for governor.
I say this not so much to admonish Barkley but to admire him. He is an athlete born with a limitless supply of Get Out of the Headlines Free cards. Given the scandals of college sports today, perhaps a course in Barkley 101 should be taught in schools.
Other athletes are devoured by their controversies. No matter what happens, Mike Tyson always will be the boxer who chewed an opponent's ear, and Latrell Sprewell will be the basketball player who tried to choke his coach, and Tonya Harding will be the skater who had her rival whacked. Scandals brand most athletes.
With Barkley, bless his heart, the controversy always comes with an expiration date. The heat never lasts. No one, it seems, can stay mad at Barkley.
That's the amazing thing at work here. As a nation, we seem to have decided that we like Barkley. He's loud. He's opinionated. He's funny. Most of all, he has the rare ability to laugh when the joke is on him.
Yeah, I have always found Barkley charming, too. I covered him in college, back when Auburn coach Sonny Smith used to tell Barkley he was eating his way out of the NBA. But Smith couldn't stay mad at Barkley, either. Even then, Charles meant well. Even then, Charles was pretty funny, and he thought he was even funnier than that.
Perhaps that is Barkley's secret. Perhaps he knows that, as a society, we need to laugh a little more at our shortcomings. The funnier a guy is today, the more likely we are to forget that he wasn't so amusing in yesterday's headlines.
It has worked for him. No matter what you think about Zoeller's statements regarding Tiger Woods long ago, he was trying (and failing) to be funny. But at the exact moment everyone become upset, Zoeller stopped being funny. At least in public.
When Barkley once said, "I hate white people,'' it didn't have the same shelf life. For one thing, Barkley said it to a white reporter he was friendly with. For another, Barkley's wife is white, and no one seems to think he was serious. A few jokes later, the controversy faded.
Barkley withstood the outcry when he spit at a fan and missed, hitting a young girl instead (he reportedly became friendly with the family). He withstood the controversy after he elbowed an Angolan opponent in the '92 Olympics. He withstood referring to conservatives as "fake Christians.'' He withstood dating Madonna (and you saw what one kiss did for Britney Spears' career).
And, yes, he'll withstand his gambling losses. He'll wink at the camera, and he'll drop a funny line, and before you know it, you'll be laughing at Barkley again.
This is what he does. Once, after Harding's goons attacked Nancy Kerrigan, Harding referred to herself as the Charles Barkley of figure skating. "I was going to sue for defamation of character,'' Barkley said, "until I remembered I had no character.''
Then there was his quote to Slam magazine about picking his college. "When I was recruited at Auburn, they took me to a strip joint. When I saw (that body) on Buffy, I knew that Auburn met my academic requirements.''
In the end, that's what you are going to remember about Barkley. You will remember that he was the funniest guy in America who isn't working in standup. Also, he had the power to create amnesia.
As of today, a lot of scandal-ridden athletes would love to play that hand.
News
