SIDELINE CUT : The lionisation of the school sports stars - thejocks - is a particularly American conceit and it has become jadedby now. But it remains true and universal too.
TOWARDS THE end of The Catcher in the Rye, Mr Antolini frets thatHolden Caulfield, his former pupil, is in for a 'terrible, terriblefall'.
'It may be the kind where, at the age of 30 you sit in some barhating everybody who comes in looking as if they might have playedfootball in college.'
That hardly qualifies as the worst fall one could have in life.Nonetheless, was there ever a character or a book that repudiatedthe mythology and appeal of sports culture - and in particularschool sports culture - as effectively as old Holden did in JDSalinger's perpetual classic?
It is hardly a coincidence that in the opening chapter Holden isalone on a hill watching a football game starring the team from theschool from which he is about to be expelled, Pencey Prep. For themillions of people/Holden devotees who passed through school and didnot play sport, here was someone in a place they recognised.
The lionisation of the school sports stars - the jocks - is aparticularly American conceit and it has become jaded by now. But itremains true and universal too.
You can see it in this country. Go to the Hogan Cup and watch thebest young GAA teams. Go to the Leinster Schools Cup and watch thegilded sons of those establishments. Go to the basketball arena inTallaght when the cup finals are on in March. These are all fine andwonderful traditions - sporting institutions themselves - and theyundoubtedly help to promote and instil the values and ethics theincreasingly beleaguered teaching profession is trying to pass on:team-work, pride in the school, the upholding of a legacy, winning,success, fraternity.
But do not pretend for a moment that these competitions do notrevolve around an element of hero-worship, where the boys who staron their respective sports teams stride the corridors and, rightlyor wrongly, are made to feel as though they have the world at theirfeet. And for the outsider looking in, for the kid with no interestor little natural ability when it comes to sport, that concentrationof time and energy on the glorification of this one team, thisentity, these few individuals, can be tremendously crushing.
Ask Janis Ian.
Of course, adolescence is not always a black-and-white divisionbetween the jocks and sensitive souls. For all the out-and-out jocksout there, there are countless other youngsters torn between thethrill and competitive zeal of playing sports and the constant kindof questioning and doubting that accompanies Holden Caulfield'simmortal lost weekend in 1950s NYC.
In fact, there must be many people out there who either receivedor were handed a copy of The Catcher in the Ryewho, after fallingunder the spell of its voice, decided the sporting life, with allits regulations and disciplines, its comical machismo and'inspiring' speeches, was not for them.
There must have been thousands of gifted footballers or swimmersor whatever who were prompted by Holden's contrary take on life todisappear into music and literature and the rest of it.
On Thursday evening, I was flicking between the RTE news and acollege basketball game between Duke and Florida State on ESPN whenthe standard, black-and-white photograph of JD Salinger appearedbehind Eileen Dunne. Even before she began the announcement, it wasobvious the great recluse had bowed out. Salinger's disappearancefrom public life and his steadfast silence that has governed his artis without precedent - although in my opinion, Ciaran McDonald, thegreat stylist on Mayo football teams from '96 to '07 and a man whoseems to share Holden Caulfield's suspicion of phonies, is givinghim a damn good run for his money - and has become almost as famousa story as his most famous creation.
But as I switched back to the basketball, it occurred to me thatDuke, one of the most prestigious and expensive of the Americancolleges, is precisely the kind of institution that Holden railsagainst.
The basketball team has become symbolic of everything the collegeis supposed to represent: clean-cut, selfless, brilliant, sporting,relentlessly successful, immaculately presented and polite, itspeople on the fast track to the brighter life. And because of thosevirtues, it can come across as preppy, self-regarding, smug,superior and acne-free.
Hating Duke and all it represents has become an alternativeAmerican pastime and would have made ideal fodder for Holden'sunforgettable brand of caustic disillusionment.
Now that JD Salinger has gone, it seems inevitable that hispassing will mean that generations across the world for whom TheCatcher in the Ryemeant everything will be prompted to present theirunsuspecting offspring with a copy of the book.
Watch the sales surge in coming weeks. It ought to lead tocomical reactions. Sometimes, the passing of cultural touchstonesjust does not work.
Recently, I had occasion to put a TV show on for a bunch of six-year-old lads. Flicking through the endless and oftenunpronounceable range of cartoon shows available now, I wasastounded and overjoyed to come across one that was old even when Iwas young: Top Cat.
Remember him? Lived in a tin can engaging in an eternal battle ofwits with Officer Dibble, he was a cat, as the theme tune advised,'whose intellectual close friends got to call him TC'. We turned iton.
Within seconds, it was clear a grave mistake had been made. Theseboys eyed me with a look that fell between pity and contempt. Andthey were right. The graphics were minimalist to the point of beingdesolate. Top Cat himself had an annoying kind of voice. Benny, hissidekick, was up to nothing. The children indulged the show for thebones of a minute before one said, as injudiciously as possible:'This doesn't seem to be very good.'
And that was that.
Chances are there is a whole wave of teenagers out there who areabout to become acquainted with Holden Caulfield and who will findthat the voice of this 17-year-old from 59 years ago simply meansnothing to them. But there will be many others who will fall underthe elusive magic of the book and feel, as tens of thousands haveattested, that this cranky youngster is speaking exclusively tothem.
And you can bet money that many of these new fans will belong toschools where sport - the team, the game, The Cup(!), the records,the school anthems, the famous outhalf, the former All-Irelandwinners, the chosen ones - are held up as the ideal of what it is tobe young and alive and searching for something.
And for many, of course, those games and races do nothing butreinforce that sense of not being included, of being outside therealm of conventional popularity and success. For many kids in thedays and years ahead, the news that Holden Caulfield, moody andgrieving, is up there on that hill watching some football game thatmeans nothing to him will be good news indeed.
And many, of course, will become curious about the man whocreated him.
As the famous line goes, 'What really knocks me out is a book,when you're all done reading it, you wished the author that wrote itwas a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on thephone whenever you felt like it'.
Fat chance of that now.
Mr Salinger is finally unavailable.
