Baal Don’t Lie: Five Pagan Deities And The Players Who Love Them
Superstition is part of the background radiation in the life of a professional athlete. In every sport, there are quirks and peccadilloes…
Superstition is part of the background radiation in the life of a professional athlete. In every sport, there are quirks and peccadilloes that must be followed lest misfortune arrive. Some athletes take this more seriously than others. When conventional deities can’t cut the mustard, they hedge their bets by initiating contact with beings on the fringes of humanity.
5. Quetzalcoatl and Russell Westbrook
You would assume that Russ would curry the favor of a Thunder deity. That’s where you’d be wrong. As a child, Russell Westbrook loved dinosaurs and prehistoric reptiles such as plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, pteradons, and pterodactyls. The extinct reptile that really captured young Russ’s imagination was Quetzalcoatilus, a pterosaur with a massive wingspan of 52 feet. Young Russ dreamed of being able to cover the court like that and enforce his will on either end.
Russ first came into contact with the Meso-American deity on a vacation to Mexico. Quezalcoatl agreed to use his power to grant Westbrook increased speed, allowing him to act as a one-man fast break. But it came at a price, one that would be exacted three times. The first was the loss to the Heat in the 2012 Finals. The second was when he tore his meniscus in the 2013 playoffs. Russell thought the third had already been paid for when Serge Ibaka got injured in 2014. He was wrong — the final payment came when Kevin Durant announced that he was leaving OKC.
Only after meeting Victor Oladipo did Westbrook begin to truly understand. “When you think of feathery, it’s nothing negative. So feathery is a positive lifestyle. It’s better than better. It’s better than great, but it’s not heavenly, it’s right under there,” said the IU product, with a wink in his eye. Westbrook smiled. The feathery serpent moved in mysterious ways.
4. Baron Samedi and Lavoy Allen
Lavoy Allen, darling of The Shocker, the Circle City, and the City of Brotherly Love alike, has a secret. Allen loves a relatively obscure branch of the British Invasion known as freakbeat. The inclusion of “Making Time” by The Creation in Rushmore piqued his interest in the genre. Allen tipped his toes in the water, began wading until he found he was very comfortable kicking back and just letting the music wash over him. While not drowning in this poorly thought out metaphor, the group he really latched onto was The Pretty Things. Folks with awareness of the band likely know that guitarist Dick Taylor was an early member of The Rolling Stones, that David Bowie covered their song “Rosalyn” for his Pin Ups album, and that Carl Barât’s post-Libertines band Dirty Pretty Things may have taken their name in homage to the group. Or perhaps it was a nod to the Willie Dixon tune “Pretty Thing.”
In terms of the British Invasion, second-tier if the critic compiling the list is sympathetic to their cause. Most would place them on the third tier, but there’s quite a bit of great music if one is into competently played blues and soul-influenced music that ventures into psychedelia.
It was the latter genre excursion where Allen fully glommed onto The Pretty Things — their 1967 concept album, S.F. Sorrow. Like the first rock & roll song, the first concept album is a thorny topic for the musically passionate and sexually inactive. Most would suggest Frank Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours as being the first concept album. It works as a type of song cycle with thematic unity centered on late night songs of love and loss.
(This really doesn’t matter because the sun will one day expand and wipe out all facets of human endeavor.)
S.F. Sorrow is considered by some to be the first rock opera and critics (as well as The Pretty Things) have suggested that it influenced The Who’s Tommy. There are some similarities: “Pinball Wizard” sounds an awful lot like “Old Man Going” and the plot involves processing the traumas of one of the World Wars, but that’s kind of a given for any boomer-band rock opera.
Anyway, the track that excited Allen the most was “Baron Saturday.” Allen was so taken with the track, that he began dressing as Baron Samedi, a loa in the Vodoun religion. Between being mistaken for Papa Doc while on vacation and the release of The Princess and The Frog, which featured a villain voiced by Keith David who dressed like Samedi, Allen gave it up, something that relieved his teammates. Allen would frequently be in full Samedi garb when arriving to dress for games.
He still keeps a tiny figure of Samedi in his locker. This upsets some of his more superstitious teammates.
3. Apollo and Tom Brady
Tom Brady was never supposed to be a star in the NFL. He was going to collect paychecks backing up Drew Bledsoe. That was until Bledsoe was injured in 2001 and Brady stepped into the role of QB and led the Patriots to a Super Bowl. Basking in the glow of his first Lombardi Trophy, Brady couldn’t help but marvel at the storybook nature of the season. He stroked the Apollo mission coin he’d been gifted as a youngster and thought about what the future might hold for him.
“That was a gift,” said a disembodied voice. It was without hostility, filled with the warmth shared between old friends when they can just sit in each others’ presence and happily not say a word.
The coin grew hot and Brady instinctively dropped it. He noticed that the figure of Apollo was moving and shifting, as if alive. “I’ve taken a liking to you and rewarded you with this dream season. I only ask that you follow my dictates and not let avarice and ego poison your heart,” said Apollo. “Absolutely, your will is my command,” said Brady.
Years passed, and the trophies and accolades piled up. But then Spygate happened and Apollo punished Brady for his failure. “Things will still go well for you, but your reputation will suffer as the years go by. Like a poison, it will spread outwards until everyone but your own fans turns against you. No matter how well you play or what you do, there will be hostile feelings towards you.”
And like Cassandra before him, Brady suffered the wrath of Apollo.
You may find yourself feeling sorry for poor Drew Bledsoe, but fear not — Dionysus took pity on him and set him on a path to making his own wine.
2. Ryan Fitzpatrick and Odin
Most sports fans are aware that Ryan Fitzpatrick attended Harvard. If you’ve ever watched a game where Fitzpatrick was playing QB, it’s all the announcing crew can talk about, because there’s not much in the way to say about Fitzpatrick’s QB play. It is to him what jokes about the Warriors blowing a 3–1 lead in the Finals are to certain parts of Twitter.
It is his curse, along with commentary regarding his facial hair grooming style.
Norse mythology is at the heart of problem, as is the case for other forms of societal ills like Scandinavian death metal bands that take themselves way too seriously and the people in my Twitter mentions calling me a cuck.
Fitzpatrick’s academics are bonafide. It wasn’t just his ability to chuck the pigskin that earned him a shot at attending the alma mater of such esteemed public figures as Bill Oakley…or Ross Douthat.
His entrance essay channeled his love of Norse mythology in an essay analyzing Götterdämmerung, the last of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Like Tom Brady, Fitzpatrick drew the attention of a deity — Odin in this case. His physical prowess and intellect curried the favor of the gallows god.
He made an offer to Fitzpatrick: access to the deeper knowledge of ages long past. But knowledge requires sacrifice. The All-Father gave up one of his eyes for it. What would Fitzpatrick give?
The Harvard Crimson man thought about it. “I offer my immortality on the gridiron for greater glories to come,” he finally said.
At least that’s what I tell myself after another mediocre game, though that could merely be the Jets effect.
Zaza Pachulia and Chernabog
Night on Bald Mountain, a piece by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, is featured in Fantasia, a Disney film composed of various animated segments scored to classical music from a wide range of composers, focusing heavily on programatic music of the Romantic era.
It’s a classic. It was also Zaza Pachulia’s favorite American film growing up. He’s always been an odd duck, whether he was a Hawk or a Buck. He assumed, incorrectly, that Americans were classical music buffs, so upon being drafted into the league, he fervently pored over works from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras to cover his bases. He was nervous that not knowing enough about Medieval, Renaissance, or Modernist compositions would bite him in the ass.
He was in for a rude awakening. But Zaza loved the rap music he encountered, especially in Atlanta — that shit was paradise for him.
But occasionally he returned to his first love: classical music. During a team Halloween party, he dressed as Chernabog from Fantasia. His teammates just thought he was a bat or a demon. It left him exasperated.
Like other athletes before him, his devotion to a deity that only people who regularly suffered swirlies in high school would recognize got him noticed.
Chernabog, a forgotten Slavic deity (odd thing for a man born in Georgia with Turkish citizenship to care about) contacted Zaza. Didn’t ask for anything further devotion, but offered the big man a surprise in the future.
And that’s the real and true story behind Zaza’s historic speech following Game 6 against Boston in the 2008 playoffs.