This past month there have been two exemplary instances of catastrophic embarrassments in professional sports. The first (of two in the game) came from goal keeper Karius of Liverpool FC:

What a mistake from Karius as his throw gets blocked by Benzema and ends up in the back of the net! pic.twitter.com/F5KsQ8ts1Y

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) May 26, 2018

The second came from Smith of the Cleveland Cavaliers:

JR Smith pulled the biggest JR move at the end of Game 1 and set #NBATwitter on FIRE (➡ @remymartinus) pic.twitter.com/ZhWhZrZDnl

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 1, 2018

Both players were lambasted mercilessly. What goes neglected is the lack of apprehending the risks and therefore the courage these players possessed to even earn the chance to fail so ingloriously. Athletics is a marvelous magnification of the human condition at times. Lack of bravery prevents such opportunities of failure, but also success. Most are not willing to pay that price.