Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Narcissism in Sports
Narcissists are the best in everything that they do. Whatever the narcissist is taking part of, you can guarantee that they either are the best or that they have some structure on their side which will allow them to be the best while offloading failure onto others. There are three real levels of narcissists that participate in sports, the first is the ‘has beens’, the second is narcissist naturally gifted ‘never was’ and the third is the delusionally gifted ‘could’a beens’.
Narcissists who are successful because their natural talents combined with an obsessive work ethic, leads them to achieve great success on an individual level. These are the guys that somehow get open, somehow make that one handed catch, or somehow manage to hit the net from twice the distance that anyone else could.
These guys have talent like crazy, but they come with polarizing toxicity. On professional teams they are the ones with all the numbers but yet, strangely find themselves traded from team to team. At first it may look like they are victims as they get pushed aside over and over again. They’ll make public statements which make themselves look good at the expense of the coaches and the teams.
In the lockeroom they are always blaming the other players for making mistakes and refuse to acknowledge their own. They threaten, they lose their temper and slam their lockers, they scoff at you if you try to speak with them and if you tell them to calm down they’ll flip right out.
On the field they’re complaining about the refs calls, they are getting unnecessary roughness penalties, they ignore the warnings and get ejected from the game simply because they can’t control themselves once they are triggered.
Teams struggle with these players because although they have the ability to be great they destroy the team unity and cause toxic circles to emerge within the group. They end up to be the ‘has been’s’ that tell stories of their glory days which differ greatly from reality. They blame everyone for their misfortunes but themselves. Coaches finally end up trading them to get rid of them and would rather have less talent and better team cohesion.
The second group are the ‘never was’ who were naturally gifted with a lot of raw talent. These players are able to get quite far into the sport before their cracks begin to show. Their natural ability is so great that they are able to appear as though they have great skill and will stand out amongst their peers as superior.
Often these narcissists will be able to get to the major league farm team farm teams, or get recruited off of the minor league’s as prospective rookies in the majors. They shine amongst their peers but once put into action amongst people of their calibre, they cannot deal with the constant competition and quickly slide into depression.
These guys are so used to being the star on their own that when they make it to the big show they find that they are average amongst their peers. This in itself is not what undoes them however, it’s their play style is not team driven but individualized.
They essentially stop playing for the team and they start making bad decisions that would put them into a better spot to gain their own personalized stats. So instead of passing and getting a goal they will shoot and give up the puck or will throw the ball when there is no one open to receive it.
These guys will have believed their press that they were the best and the combination of reality that they are average amongst their peers and the desire to ‘be the man’ will cause them to give up possession with bad decisions over and over until they are permanently benched. Their chance to be the legend on the team is lost as they spiral down losing all confidence and eventually being released as another prospect with potential that choked on the pressure.
These ‘has beens’ and ‘never was’ often become coaches that run their teams like fascists, screaming and yelling and insulting their team. They’ll run off the timid and pick their favorites on the team who get away with murder while the rest have to do jumping jacks for losing another game.
The third group is the common narcissist who has made themselves out to be really good at sports but the reality is that they didn’t put in the hard work necessary to succeed and the image they have of themselves is far greater than the reality.
These narcissists absolutely need the team dynamic to survive. They need to be able to blame the failures (we lost because of Jim’ s inability to hold onto the ball) on other team members and claim the successes of other team members (we never would have scored if I wasn’t so good at passing).
These guys will grumble on the bench and openly blame other team mates, they will yell at the refs, swear at the crowds, and flip out breaking their stick in a temper tantrum and then they’ll bet ejected from the game. They create cliques on the team and in general are cancerous for team unity.
Whatever the type of narcissist is on a team, you can guarantee that the team has a toxic cancer within it which is breaking apart unity and polarizing people against one another. Their inability to own their mistakes and propensity to blame everyone else ultimately will prevent the team from achieving greatness.