"it makes my skin crawl" really seemed like a knock on him, you may have meant the behaviour but that's not how it reads.

I accept it K but what I'm trying to make you realise is that at work behaviour CAN be a person's normal behaviour. Just because someone displays the perfect behaviour for their role doesn't make them a fake or assuming that role. I in fact think that a person who achieves being the best in the world at something is far more likely to be displaying their natural behaviour than displaying fake behaviour. Acting would merely add another mental stress to the equation that competitive sportsmen just don't need when they're at that level.

Take Nadal as an example here, watch any of his interviews. He displays the same nicety and perfect behaviour in interview but when he's on court all of that fades away and you can quite clearly see he's a different person, keeping up that front isn't possible at the same time as playing at the absolute fringe. While Federer will look frustrated with himself at times he never shows a break down in his personality.

We can disagree on this. It doesn't really matter anyway.