Pull yourself 50000ft above for a second.
What is the function of sport?
1. A competitive measure;
2. An educator;
3. A pasttime, leisure or an all of the above type of exercise;
4. A pathway to virtue from a quasi-religious standpoint.
The socially dominant values in which a given sport yields on the competitive level is a vehicle to The Truth. What is The Truth? The Truth is something along the lines of attaining moral virtue and to the point of a given person or group of persons flourishing.
The job of sports writers is to highlight heroics and triumph from within the microcosm of sport and capture the attention of viewers by relating it to their everyday socioeconomic life cycles, including how to overcome struggles In the outside world.
For instance, if New York City endured a two-day brownout, and the electricity went on right before a Senators-Yankees doubleheader game in 1923, and George Herman "Babe" Ruth hit three homeruns leading the Yankees to two wins, the headline should read along the lines of Ruth turns on the lights at Yankee Stadium and a perfect photograph capture would be of a baseball soaring into the upper deck at Yankee Stadium with spotlights in the background and The Babe at home plate still holding the bat he just swung.
And the idea was to write it in the newspaper and enclose the sports page underneath world and local political and economic news.
When we get to the youth level, us humans in the third function of sport, as a pasttime, live vicariously and seek motivation from the youth sector just the same.
What's next? or next season expands one's thinking about the future in a healthy way, also a good dynamic for real life.
An untrained ninth grader running 4:15 in mid-May having never run a step in his life before the season is a way to trigger our nostalgia and think about the possibilities. The free education. The state and national titles. The pro contract. The Olympic berth. A possible medal. The Wheaties Box. The posters and video games.
It's awesome!
Thats why it's exciting to encapsulate someone's life as a child prodigy. It creates the synaptic energy that allows everyone to think positively of the future. It's readily contaigous and disseminates quickly.
Humans look to the youth for inspiration.
One of the more iconic moments in recent memory was when Solinsky broke 27 minutes in his debut at the 10000 meter distance on the track. Hocker, Kessler, Willis, et al are some of that same fabric indeed.
Specifically, Kessler rising the ranks to be among the elite was very exciting. It gave the sports writers something to write about and relate it to the everyday consumer. It gave the fanatics a reason to tell a next set of persons.
And now that he's there, it's old news. That's what he is experiencing.