I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It - Charles Barkley [46]
At the same time, though, I’ve been riding around in one of those cities and been through a neighborhood where the houses on a particular street looked exactly like the houses on a street back home. Parts of Munich, to me, looked exactly like parts of New York City. Germany might be the country I’m most surprised about liking so much. I just didn’t know what to expect, knowing what we know about the atrocities of World War II. . . . You just don’t know a place until you go and see for yourself.
One of the things I find different about Europe is that the people tend to honor their athletes. There seems to be a different relationship between the people and athletes. And one of the things I really like is when you walk down the street and interact with people, nobody’s trying to borrow money, and there’s no player hating. I’ve been asked if my enjoyment of international travel is enhanced by being well known internationally, and if as a black American I’m treated differently. And it’s difficult for me to answer that because I didn’t travel before I became so recognizable. You’d be naive if you think people don’t react differently to you because in their eyes you’re a celebrity. But I’ll say this: even when people haven’t known me overseas, there’s a lack of what I perceive as the racial tension you feel when you’re at home in a lot of different parts of America. I don’t have a definitive answer as to why that seems to be the case, and there are probably a thousand reasons for it. Mostly, I think it’s just ignorance, and that causes the tension. It’s ignorance tension. But I don’t dwell on it, I just try to enjoy people wherever I am because what travel should teach anyone is that people can socialize and relate and rise above the tension. I really feel bad for the people who never get the opportunity to broaden their horizons, take themselves out of a place that’s limited. So many people just have no chance to do that.
Obviously, there are differences whenever you go to a new country, or even a new city, and that’s what makes it so appealing in the first place, being able to experience something that’s not like what you have at home or eat at home or do culturally at home. But ultimately, we’re more the same than not. I don’t see that as a contradiction. Anything that’s going to hold your attention is probably going to be complex and include contradictions. Travel reminds you of that, too, that the similarities between us, the ways we’re all kind of the same, are as fascinating as the differences.
A Unique Fraternity
Being a professional athlete puts you in a unique fraternity. To me it’s the greatest fraternity in the world. When bad things happen to an athlete—it could be a baseball player or football player, doesn’t matter—particularly in championship-level competition, my heart just breaks. People forget what a great baseball player Bill Buckner was and what a great career he had. They focus on one ground ball error in the World Series. There’s nothing worse than when you’re on that island by yourself and millions and millions of people are watching and you screw up. It’s a horrible thing. Nobody’s going to hand you a blanket; there’s no cover to put over yourself. You’re standing in the middle of the field or court—which at that time feels like the middle of the whole world—and everybody’s watching and you’ve just got to gather yourself and get through it.
The person watching at home probably hasn’t been in that kind of situation. Until you’ve been in it you can’t know what it’s like. Sometimes the tension is running so high you can’t breathe out there. And it ain’t like the guy is out there trying to screw up, but you’re just out there as tight as a drum.
I’ve heard guys say in certain circumstances they literally had trouble breathing. I was a bad SOB in my day, and I always felt like pressure was fun. Some guys got uncomfortable when they knew everybody was watching some big national TV game. I always felt like, “Good, everybody’s gonna watch me kick