As Kevin Smith is getting ready for the big basketball game against their rival University, he puts on his headphones to relax, not knowing that he is about to have the worst game of his career at the college level at home. He goes out there and plays almost the whole game and only scores 7 points on 1 of 17 from three and 3 of 28 from the field. The team lost by over 20 points to a team they beat on the road just weeks ago. Everyone in the crowd is yelling and booing at his poor performance and he is deeply saddened by this. The next day he still has to get up and walk through campus to go to class.
As he is walking to class, he can tell that people are staring at him and mumbling under their breath.
Someone from across campus yells, “You suck Kevin.”
He turns and looks, but could not see who it was. As he turns back around some guy bumps into him saying, “Thanks for losing us the game, you could not have played worse.”
Angry and frustrated by all the fans, he needed to do something to block it all out and focus on the next game.
He stopped remembering he had his Bluetooth headphones somewhere in his backpack. After digging and searching, he finally found them and put them on. He plays Above the Noise by McFly. He chose this song because of the Beats by Dre commercial he saw the other day where Tom Brady was proving all the doubters wrong.
Now he can walk through campus and block out all the doubters and haters and focus on the next game.
The next game comes around and he plays the same song right before warm-ups and has the best game of his career dropping 45 points.
In the press conference after the game, he tells reporters that “sometimes you just got to block everyone else out so you can focus on what’s important.” And walks out with his headphones on.
Haters gon' hate Flickr
Author's note: I took the Odyssey: Passing the Sirens story and instead of it going back to the ancient times, I turned it in what athletes are facing every day on social media and when walking through campus.
Bibliography: Odyssey: The Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis translated to English by Tony Kline (2004)
I really like the idea you had about taking an older story and replacing its components with their modern day equivalents to give the story a refreshing perspective. I wonder what would have happened if the game had been closer, or someone else had stepped up when Kevin's performance fell flat. I really like the story overcoming adversity and those who don't believe in you to come back to your previous excellence and support the people who are counting on you to do well.
ReplyDeleteHey Michael! I really enjoyed reading this story! I loved how you made it in the modern day and wrote about something that you probably enjoy watching and doing! I'm an advertising major and reading this made me picture a commercial in my head. You could very well make it a beats commercial and it would deliver the same purpose! Nice job!
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