Twitter was all over it as soon as the moment above was aired — “good job, good effort” quickly became a punch line, the joking t-shirt, an email signature line, a sarcastic joke among basketball fans.
But it wasn’t a joke to 9-year-old Jack Meyer who was saying it.
In a cynical world where we would only have said that sarcastically, to be a Celtics troll on a Heat team that just dropped Game 5 at home, this young boy was being a true fan. You know, like you used to be once. He loves his team and was trying to be supportive in their darkest hour. He was genuine.
The Sun-Sentinel found and caught up with Meyer.“For those people who thought I was being sarcastic, you’re wrong,” Meyer said at his family’s Coral Gables home Wednesday. “I was being enthusiastic. I was saying the truth. I would never hurt the Heat’s feelings like that.”
“Based on their expressions, they didn’t seem happy being beaten by four points. I wanted to cheer them up,” he said. “I really meant it.”There was a time when we all were pure fans like that, a window that now may be shortened by the Internet. But I, for one, hope Meyer holds on to that as long as he can. The sports world — and the world in general — could use more of that and fewer cynical trolls.