A BALANCING ACT OF GREAT PROPORTIONS…YAWN

Nik Wallenda is once again in the limelight.  The grand limelight that is, after his recent conquest of becoming the first human being to walk across the Grand Canyon.

Much like when Wallenda also became the first person to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls just over a year ago, Wallenda again raised eyebrows and the hairs on the back of the necks of millions of television viewers nationwide and worldwide.  Everyone was on the edge of their seat as Wallenda walked the 1,400 feet across the canyon on a two inch steel cable that traversed the Grand Canyon over the Colorado river.  All along, Wallenda performed the walk without a harness or safety net.

It was a made for TV event, much like the walk over the Falls.  It was televised with breathless announcers talking in hushed tones and espousing nerve wracking rabble about what could go wrong or “worst case scenarios”.  In my opinion, it is also a complete sham.

I heard a national sports talk show host yesterday talking about how Nik Wallenda’s walk over the Canyon is the greatest sports feat of all time.  Bigger than any triple crown or rushing record or Olympic decathlon gold medal or ANYTHING.  Really?  

This host’s rationale is that it is something that no other athlete in the world can do.  There are hundreds of great players in each sport and dozens of great Olympians and so on, but Wallenda is the only person in the world who is able to perform feats like these.

THERE IS A REASON FOR THAT. 

Most of these athletes don’t bother wasting their time learning to walk a tightrope over natural wonders of the world.  It’s pure folly.  I don’t even feel like it has anything to do with sport.  

Sure, Wallenda has to be in great shape and have amazing and precise balance, as well as superhuman endurance.  I will give him that.  But you will have a hard time convincing me that tightrope walking is a SPORT!  What Wallenda did is an individual accomplishment, a spectacular feat.  It is not a sport.  There is a big difference between competing in the balance beam and tightrope walking across anything.

Plus, how amazing an accomplishment is it really?  Wallenda simply walked.  Fourteen hundred feet.  Suspended fifteen hundred feet above the Colorado river.  Scary?  Of course.  I certainly would never consider trying something like that, nor would anyone else.  Why?  Well, the risk is far greater than the reward for the rest of us.  For Wallenda though, it is something he has been doing his entire life.  He could probably accomplish the feat blindfolded.  He knew the chances of encountering any major problem on his walk was so low, that he had nothing to worry about.  It’s like anything else…you do it enough, it becomes second nature, and I’m just not that impressed anymore.

I have nothing against Nik Wallenda personally.  He is a good christian, who is very good at what he does.  He has an amazing intestinal fortitude, and wants to show everyone that they can do whatever they put their mind to.  It is very honorable, but by now, I think we all get it.  We get the message already, now it is time to just go away.  Anything more and I think the public will see that it is just self-aggrandizing and pure publicity for Wallenda.

I hope for the sake of himself and everyone else, Nik Wallenda will now choose to tightrope walk into the sunset.