Chelsea vs Club America in Palo Alto at the Stanford Stadium

Note the guy wearing the John Terry jersey (#26) in the foreground.

The real John Terry is on the field.

There were plenty of people dressed as soccer players at the game. More precisely—they were wearing their jerseys. I remember the first time I saw someone wearing a uniform identical to a famous athlete's uniform (it was long ago, naturally), and I remember thinking, "What the f***? Who's that guy to wear a uniform that only [whoever it was] should wear?" It seemed to be simultaneously pathetic and yet still an affront. I also remember thinking, "why not take off that jersey, make up your own with your own name on it, and wear that?" That's someone who would capture my respect instantly, or at least give me pause—who is that person?

Let us open our bibles (ie, as usual, our Emerson) to the essay "Uses of Great Men":

Thus we feed on genius, and refresh ourselves from too much conversation with our mates, and exult in the depth of nature in that direction in which he leads us. What indemnification is one great man for populations of pigmies! Every mother wishes one son a genius, though all the rest should be mediocre. But a new danger appears in the excess of influence of the great man. His attractions warp us from our place. We have become underlings and intellectual suicides. Ah! yonder in the horizon is our help;- other great men, new qualities, counterweights and checks on each other. We cloy of the honey of each peculiar greatness. Every hero becomes a bore at last. Perhaps Voltaire was not bad-hearted, yet he said of the good Jesus, even, "I pray you, let me never hear that man's name again." They cry up the virtues of George Washington,- "Damn George Washington!" is the poor Jacobin's whole speech and confutation. But it is human nature's indispensable defense. The centripetence augments the centrifugence. We balance one man with his opposite, and the health of the state depends on the see-saw.

Right—the old centripetence and centrifugence. I'm not sure either is actually a word, but that's Emerson for you.