Remember the PE coach you had when you were a kid? Middle-aged fellow, hated life, perhaps kicked a dog or two along the way, worked the night shift at Denny’s perhaps. Or what about the trite, hackneyed maxims that he would yell… “It’s gut check time!” (Good, so allow me to punch you in the Amstel Light-inflated stomach)… “Give me a 110 percent!” (If I gave you such a percentage, might that buy you a new pair of Sansabelts?)… “Feel out the opponent!” (Frankly, I believe that’s a felony in some states)…
It was these overused sentiments that turned a nation of youths off team sports and, who knows, maybe are a contributing factor to this country’s obesity epidemic among the prepubescent set. Such garbage made me secretly hope Coach Airhead would find his karma when he suffered a paper cut while attaching his signature to that President’s Physical Fitness (thanks for running the mile and doing a chin-up) certificate. As if that didn’t make you want to impale someone with one of those cheap plastic team trophies, the art form known as the cliché continues in all walks of society. Corporate executives preaching team unity, the doctor imploring you to execute before he gives that empty plastic cup for a urinalysis, and even the teller at the bank telling me I have to make some adjustments.
If you have flipped on a sporting event at some point in your life, the cliché is more omnipresent than a Duke University thesis. From the abomination that is the press conference to the coach’s interview and the in-game observations, maxims, platitudes, and truisms are as ever-present as the inevitable Cialis ad (by the way, a case of priapism would send me running to call Ripley’s, not a doctor). How wonderful it is to watch an overjoyed/dejected athlete talking about how they answered the bell — better go see an ophthalmologist about that, I didn’t hear anything — or how they were outplayed and beaten by a better team. Really? I certainly keep thinking the Washington Generals’ victory is right around the corner. Don’t forget the other phenomenon, the reporter running up to the coach at some point in the game to get some reaction along the lines of “Our offense (or defense) needs to step up (or has played well).”
The funniest part of the whole coach/athlete cliché paradox is that the minute someone says something that is not in the script, it makes headlines. Analysts ascend their ivory tower like some sort of sports version of Rapunzel to decry the guaranteed win or “bulletin board material” that has been uttered. There once was a day where coaches and managers had such a relationship with the media, statements that, today would give sports analysts the vapors, were de rigueur. These missives have gone the way of the handlebar moustache (thanks Jim Bouton!). What we are left with is some sort of insight that looks like a player is saying something without really saying anything. My favorites are “you gotta give ‘em credit” and “it is what it is.” Of course, it is what it is. Thanks, good sir, but I know circular logic when I hear it! I think former President Clinton can claim credit for that one, when he suddenly forgot what the definition of is, is (as if there needs to be one). It’s gotten so bad that even the bastion of reliable information, Wikipedia, even has an entry on sports clichés (in addition to one on asparagus pee, of course).
By now you understand that athletes have to take it one day at a time, one game at a time, one minute at a time, one second at a time, one molecule at a time, one atom at a time, one quark at a time… Yeah, and there’s no I in Teemu, either, kemosabe… In the event that you will be watching some sporting event in the near future, please be advised that you will subjected to a cliché machine, so prolific that it will rival the output of James Patterson. So, if you’re in the driver’s seat, be careful you don’t burn out the clutch.
What can be done about this? Absolutely nothing. But, I make a vow to protest the glut of inane minutiae… I will: look 3 months ahead, get lackadaisical, go for the peripheral (NOT the jugular), be a slightly lighter horse, show flashes of mediocrity, make sure I’m on a different page (maybe the table of contents or appendix), lower the bar, have such bad chemistry with cohorts that the lab will explode, run on extra low octane (like Cosco select), make sure to be have plenty of shallowness, and go from worst to abominable. Because, folks, I have no swagger, I put up small numbers, the only weapon I have is a cat pistol, and, for goodness sakes, I’ve never been on a mission… I’m Jewish, for crying out loud!
Danny Lee has been involved in sports media for over seven years … While at UCLA, he turned his grade school doodles into a position with the Daily Bruin, and continues his diatribes to this day.
