For nine years, Shoeshine Boy’s heroic alter ego blessed many via his appearance on Saturday morning’s weekly slate of cartoons. “There’s no need to fear; Underdog is here!”
“…When in this world the headlines read
Of those whose hearts are filled with greed
Who rob and steal from those who need
To right this wrong with blinding speed
Goes Underdog! Underdog! Underdog! Underdog!
Speed of lightning, roar of thunder
Fighting all who rob or plunder
Underdog. Underdog!”
As we currently find ourselves wrapped in both the madness of March and current election cycle, I find myself dreaming of those simple Saturday morning cartoons… Underdog! The underdog is the little guy — the David in the world of Goliaths, the competitor thought to have little chance to win, with little to no societal status. The beauty of the underdog — if we pause long enough to see it — is that he is someone who is “humble” and “lovable.” In fact, his humility is much of what actually makes him so lovable.
I find myself thinking that encouraged humility is rare these days; it’s as if we’ve allowed humility to somehow have become equated with weakness or being imposed upon. Thus in this world where we continually aver to “stand up for oneself” and “not take crud from anybody,” we’ve somehow suppressed the consistent encouragement of humility.
We also applaud ample behavioral contradictions… all the ongoing chest thumping and bumping, the social media rants and frequent “take that’s,” the disrespectful protests and deafening cheers — like it doesn’t matter who else may be affected by our behavior. And when it doesn’t matter who else is affected, conceit — the opposite of humility — creeps in.
Conceit often seems a more accepted societal position. And when we willingly embrace that excessive pride in oneself and our way of thinking, we forget that in humility, there is something beautiful; in the underdog, there is something beautiful…
There is something beautiful in the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, when the underdogs labeled as the 13th, 14th, and 15th seeds all win on the same day…
There is something beautiful when a tiny mid-major school succeeds over a prominent basketball powerhouse…
There is something beautiful in the “little guy” banking in a miraculous, last-second three point shot — perhaps the “best shot ever,” as some would go on to say.
No one expected these “little guys” to win.
That’s it; there is no expectation of winning in the underdog. If you win, it’s a gift. It’s an opportunity. It’s a blessing. Blessings should never be confused with entitlement or expectation.
And yet infused in our society, we tend to utilize a colloquial language so inundated with self… “I, me, my, myself,” my spouse and I often say. Too many of us too often employ a vocabulary centered on self. “We” are often the subject of our sentences.
It’s like the athlete or politician who believes they’re God’s gift to the world. Friends, let me be very clear: we are never God’s gift to the world; the world is God’s gift to us. I think the underdog knows that.
The majority of “Underdog” cartoons ended with a common scene. A crowd of people would look up to the sky, saying, “Look in the sky!” “It’s a plane!” “It’s a bird!”
An elderly woman would then exclaim, “It’s a frog!”
“A frog?!” said another.
To this, Underdog replied:
“Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog,
It’s just little old me. Underdog.”
Little old me… the little guy. Humble. Lovable. There’s something beautiful in that.
Respectfully…
AR