Nike Releases Video for Derek Jeter RE2PECT Campaign

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Jim Mone

Have you seen this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X03_bNuihLU) Nike made with all the fans, athletes and celebrities tipping their cap to Derek Jeter?  The video, made in part out of their re2pect campaign to honor the captain’s final season, will absolutely give you chills. Even if you’re not really a Jeter fan, which I will admit I am not, it is simply incredible to see how well respected across all industries, not just sports, Jeter is.

Derek Jeter became Derek Jeter  through great sports ability, a humble attitude, a fiercely guarded private life, and also a little bit of luck. Is he the best baseball player of all time like some would like to believe? Probably not. But somehow in his 19 season career he went from Derek Jeter, shortstop for the Yankees, to Derek Jeter, the face of modern sports in America.  How did this phenomenon happen? And what would an athlete have to do to become the next Derek Jeter?

The most important thing that Derek Jeter accomplished was he played his entire professional career with just one team. That is a huge accomplishment, and incredibly difficult to do. Mostly because you have to play at a level for an entire career that would warrant the same team wanting to keep you around.  There’s a reason only the best of the best are able to stick with one team. And even many others that are considered the best of the best, like Michael Jordan and Brett Favre, move on to other teams later in their career, for various reasons like a desire to play closer to home, or a desire to retire then unretire then retire again.

But the thing that made Jeter so lucky is that he played his entire career in New York, the biggest city in the country. Other athletes who played for only one team, like Chipper Jones and Tim Duncan, weren’t able to gain that sort of name recognition because of the size of the market where they play. This is obviously not something that an athlete has any control over, and Jeter was very lucky to have five other teams pass up on him so he could be drafted by the Yankees in the first place.

One of the favorite things that analyst and commentators love to say about Jeter is that he “played the game the right way.” That sentence sends a shutter down the spine of modern sabermetric baseball fans. And for good reason. Jeter is a career .311 hitter with a career on base percentage of .379, which are both great but not great enough to be considered the best of all time. Only five times in his 19 year career did he put up more than 5 WAR in a season. But what Jeter does do is come out and play every day. He leads all active players in at-bats, plate appearances, and games played.

Another part of playing the right way is playing clean – no steroids.  Jeter has never been suspected of juicing, which is incredible considering he played all the way through the steroid era when it seems like everyone was suspected at one point or another.

When it comes to championships, Jeter has six of them. Dan Marino is largely considered one of the top five best quarterbacks in NFL history, but he always gets a knock against him because he never won a Super Bowl. When people talk about the best athletes to play the first thing they mention is how many championships they won during their playing time. Not only championships, but how they did in those championships. Jeter has won the World Series five time and was MVP of one of them. In nine World Series appearances, he’s had 50 hits for a .321 career average and only had 39 strikeouts. He wasn’t just a guy on a perennial post season team, he was THE guy, every time.

The biggest mystery for what made Jeter who he is is the fact that he has always been extremely guarded of his private life.  There’s no denying that Jeter is very good looking, thus adding to his crossover appeal with non-fans.  But, even though we’ve heard rumors about various girlfriends in the past, Jeter has never been the kind of guy to end up on TMZ or be photographed hitting up the clubs.  He’s kept his private life extremely private while gaining popularity for his play on the field. Maybe it’s the mystery that adds to his desirability.

The thing about Jeter is that he’s very unassuming and humble in interviews. He never lets his name become bigger than the game. You can see how apprehensive he is to talk about himself and to let his final season become about more than the Yankees playing baseball. This is what separates him from other athletes like LeBron James and Michael Jordan.

There really is no way to understand how Derek Jeter became the global superstar that he is. There’s reason to believe he could become the first professional baseball player to be a unanimous choice for the Hall of Fame. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams – none of them can say they were a unanimous HOF choice, and all of them have a strong argument for having had a better career than Jeter. But in today’s society, when you put all of the accomplishments that Jeter did achieve, both on and off the field, it’s virtually impossible to believe any other athlete could ever be so dominant on the field and gain so much respect off of it.