San Francisco 49ers’ wide receiver Anquan Boldin stirred the drink recently when he said embattled Niners’ running quarterback Colin Kaepernick – who trained during the offseason to become more of a classic pocket passer – just needs to be himself.

“…I think he just has to block out everything else around him, stop listening to what people want, what people have to say about you, stop listening to what people want to see you do and just be yourself," Boldin told SiriusXM NFL Radio, via CSN Bay Area, on April 9.

"I think sometimes when you try to go off the suggestions of other people and try to please other people, you forget who you are and what got you there,” Boldin added. “I think if he just goes out and (is) himself, he'll be just fine. And that's the thing I try to tell him. 'Go out and be Kap. Don't try to go out and be anybody else, because that isn't what got you to this point.”

Wise words about identity, a much misunderstood subject that’s a crucial theme in “The Penalty for Holding,” the upcoming second novel in my series “The Games Men Play.” Like Colin, my hero, Quinn Novak, is a quarterback at the crossroads trying to balance pleasing others and remaining true to himself. It isn’t easy in our selfie world, which often spurs a 180-degree reaction. In his April 12th column “The Moral Bucket List,” The New York Times’ David Brooks wrote:

“Commencement speakers are always telling young people to follow their passions. Be true to yourself. This is a vision of life that begins with self and ends with self. But people on the road to inner light do not find their vocations by asking, what do I want from life? They ask, what is life asking of me? How can I match my intrinsic talent with one of the world’s deep needs?” ...

Picked up my first-ever copy of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, which I bought for one reason and one reason alone – an image of a man.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I have to write about Greenwich actress Kelly Rohrbach, one of the featured “rookie” models, in my guise as editor of WAG magazine. But mainly I bought the Swimsuit issue for the two-page Levi’s spread featuring San Francisco 49ers ‘quarterback Colin Kaepernick, his teammate Vernon Davis and model Samantha Hoopes. (The Niners play in Levi’s Stadium.)

The ad campaign is about the most wholesome thing in the mag, which veers now and again into Playboy territory. The cover in particular has the media once again wringing their hands over whether or not SI went too far with a depiction of Hannah Davis in an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, not-yellow-polka-dot bikini, the bottom of which she has pulled down to the top of her pubic region. This is a popular new trend in posing models – having them hook their thumb or thumbs in one or both sides of the pants or skirt to hint at the treasures and pleasures beneath. Colin does it on the cover of the fall/winter issue of VMan magazine. And a young woman holding a basketball does it in the Feb. 15 edition of T, The New York Times Style Magazine. ...

The ‘I’ in all things

SI’s swimsuit issue and the power of (the male) sex