To everyone critiquing Patrick Mahomes’s dad bod, give your head a slap

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Some years ago, I was hanging around in the visitors’ clubhouse at Rogers Centre. I was waiting to talk to someone while the team milled about in various states of undress. The etiquette here is that you stare vaguely at the ceiling.

Above the general murmur, there was a great burst of hacking from offstage. A famous all-star pitcher came shuffling out of the shower. He had on a bath towel and slides.

In his uniform, he was an imposing physical presence. Out of it, he gave the impression of someone who ordered in a lot. Round shoulders, spindly legs, a gut that looked like a bowling ball taped to his midsection. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in a YMCA locker room, but here, surrounded by all this flesh-and-blood Greek statuary, he stood out.

He walked over to his locker, put one hand up against it and continued coughing. I felt a strong need to run over and begin fanning him with my notebook. He looked awful.

He pitched in that series and it was like a magic show. He showed hitters the ball as it came out of his hand. Then it would disappear and reappear in the catcher’s mitt. Ta da.

He didn’t resemble what we now think a pro should look like, but he more than performed like one. During his career, he made many millions of dollars and won championships. But I feel weird about identifying him here because I do not want to seem to be making fun of him.

His physical averageness did not make me admire his talent less. It made me respect it more. His body was built in service to his gift. No more than was required, and no less.

I would have thought that would be the unanimous response, but apparently not. For the past week, the internet has had great fun with video of Patrick Mahomes, postgame, in the Kansas City locker room, giving a speech with his shirt off.

Mahomes is in fantastic shape. We don’t need to see him undressed to know that because we’ve already seen him run around for three hours on weekends while unusually large and fast men try to kill him. Once in a while, one of them folds Mahomes up like an ironing board and he does not immediately quit football and call for an air ambulance. Only a person in great shape can do that.

But Mahomes also doesn’t look like what we now think the pros should look like. His arms aren’t socks filled with softballs. There is the hint of a roll around his stomach. He has what one outlet called “an unassuming physique,” which makes one wonder what physiques ought to assume.

Mahomes tried to turn the uproar into a joke – “Yoooo, why they have to do me like that!?!?!?,” he wrote on X. That was a mistake, because it freed others to offer their own opinions.

The attention was so general for a couple of days that Mahomes’s father felt the need to go on TV to apologize on behalf of the bloodline.

“Patrick works really hard. He’s at the gym all the time. He works out three times a week,” Pat Mahomes Sr. told CNN. “He’s unfortunate. He got that from me, too. That’s in his DNA.”

The guy’s won two Super Bowls and will make US$60-million this year. Yes, very unfortunate. Does he have a GoFundMe? I’d like to help out.

Most of the people who defended Mahomes did so in terms that suggested his critics were kind of right. ‘Dad bod’ got thrown around a lot. The conclusion seemed to be that, sure, Mahomes looks three sacks of potatoes with a head, but hey, that’s okay.

We have reached a strange point in society if what Mahomes looks like no longer counts as remarkably fit. If I looked like Mahomes does right now, I’d never wear a shirt again. I’d show up to work in a bow tie and slacks.

That any reasonable person could look at him and scoff shows how warped our sense of our own bodies has become. I suppose that, like everything else, it’s the internet’s fault.

Also, if anyone talked about a female athlete the way they’ve been talking about Mahomes, they’d be so thoroughly cancelled that their credit cards would stop working. The low-key bigotry that once typified the way some people ‘joked’ about women’s sport hasn’t gone away. It’s just looking for new outlets.

It’s more than a bit depressing to see someone as accomplished as Mahomes squirming under that lens. Goes to show – if you scratch hard enough on any one of us, you will eventually uncover an insecure kid.

We once accepted that pros were better than us, and not worth comparing ourselves to. Now we do that constantly. Every retired pro has a workout program they’d like to sell you. Many of them post workout tips. They spend a lot of time on the internet telling you that how they look is attainable for all of us.

No. Give your head a slap. It’s not.

When you stand beside a Roy Halladay or a Serena Williams or a LeBron James, it is hard to accept that the two of you are the same species. They are like you, but better. No amount of gym time, creatine and body modification was going to turn 20-year-old you into Shohei Ohtani.

Because it’s not just that these people are genetic outliers. It’s that they’ve spent years turning what God gave them into a purpose-built tool. To compare oneself to them is asking for a lifetime of unhappiness. It’s like saying, ‘Sure, I like my job, but how come I haven’t discovered the next general theory of relativity? Maybe if I got brain surgery …’

The misery this creates comes oozing out whenever one of these people falls short of our imaginary standard. Our shame has turned to bile. Hence, all the normies rushing in to poke fun at Patrick Mahomes. He has failed in his responsibility to make the rest of us feel bad about ourselves. What a skunk.

Every body has a purpose. If your body is fulfilling its purpose – getting you to work, not aching all the time, letting you do fun things you like – be happy. It won’t last forever, and one day you will miss it. That is the one and only physical thing most pros have in common with the rest of us.