Living on the east coast I experience various questions and assumptions about California. In the last couple of years my beloved Bay Area sports teams have been pretty good, and so these questions and assumptions have risen to the surface more often.
When it comes to Bay Area sports figures no one comes up more often in conversation than Tim Lincecum. Timmy (even though he hails from Seattle) seems to embody a primal image of the “Californian”. He fits the “dude/bro/stoked/gnarly/chill/man” stereotype.
Because he looks like this:
Trying to explain California to people who have never been there and only know MTV and sports is difficult. They are missing something important. Something I learned when I was teaching kids math in the state’s public schools.
Most of the kids I taught look like this:
I hope that Colin and Sergio continue to perform well on the field, but I also hope that they take their public image seriously. There are a lot of kids in California who will look up to these guys.
Pay attention, rest of the world, these guys represent California way more than Tim Lincecum.
And that’s a good thing.
stephenboutrywords 