I See Dead People Too Much

I don't mean to seem insensitive (really, I don't), but can athletes and the TV heads that goad them on please just stop talking about recently deceased relatives?

I wasn't sure if I was watching the British Open today or the joint memorial service of the Woods and DeMarco families. I know the TV people think such emphasis is very dramatic, but I find it all just a little too creepy. In the real world, i.e., the one not inhabited by athletes and not shown on television, people die every day. Their relatives go to work soon thereafter and do what they have to do. Appropriate allowances should be and usually are made, and life, as it must, goes on.

But why these athletes feel compelled to bring us all into what should be their private emotional spheres is beyond me. Just think how weird it would seem if your co-worker in the next office talked about dedicating the next staff meeting to his late father or started pointing to the sky every time he wrote a good brief because his recently deceased mother encouraged him to go to law school. Yet, athletes do this sort of thing all the time, and people apparently think nothing of it. I, for one, prefer more private forms of mourning.