The examples are too many to cite, but here are a few:
Days before a crucial late season NCAA college football game in November 2003 between arch-rivals Michigan State and the Michigan Wolverines – a game that could determine who went to the Rose Bowl – a Michigan State defensive lineman publicly called out the Wolverines quarterback and offensive line.
It was later disclosed, not surprisingly, that the comments from Greg Taplin had become bulletin board material for the Michigan offensive line. The game was a fairly lopsided Michigan victory, and their offensive line dominated Taplin and the State defensive line all afternoon.
The Indianapolis Colts were outstanding in the first two games of the 2003 NFL playoffs. Their success shed the club – and its All-Pro quarterback Peyton Manning, who played brilliantly in both games – of its label as playoff failures, a club that could not play its best when it really mattered.
Not content to let their play speak for itself, Indy tight end Marcus Pollard was quoted as saying (only days before the Colts were to face New England in the AFC Championship game in Foxborough, Massachusetts): “If we keep playing like this, they might as well give us our Super Bowl rings right now.”
Of course, football fans – and Colt fans – know only too well that the Patriots defense overwhelmed, outperformed and almost completely shut down Manning, Pollard and the Colts as the Pats won handily.
Ex-Chicago Bull Jalen Rose, now with the Toronto Raptors, went back to Chicago in late January, 2004 to play the Bulls in the Windy City for the first time since he was traded. He was quoted as saying, before the game, that he was looking forward to playing his ex-team, and evidently noted, “The Bulls are the worst team in basketball.”
Of course, the Bulls hammered the Raptors convincingly, which makes it difficult to assess, in light of Rose’s pre-game analysis, what the Raptors now are.
Of course, these stories are hardly uncommon in the world of sports. It is a world full unbelievably talented athletes, many remarkably dedicated.
It is also a world full of bravado, testosterone, WWE-style posing after dunks and end-zone celebrations.
It is not surprising that athletes will, on occasion, predict their own success. In fact, when their words turn prophetic, as was the case in 1969 when Jets quarterback Joe Namath called his shot before the Super Bowl and (correctly) guaranteed a win against the heavily-favored Colts, he was the swashbuckling sports hero of the highest order. The game ultimately earned him Hall-of-Fame honors for a career that was otherwise very solid, but not extraordinary, other than for its flamboyance.
That said, when bold athletes speak out and promote themselves or trash their opponents before “the big game”, there are way, way more stories that end up exactly the way things did for Taplin, Pollard and Rose than for Namath.
There is no doubt that the media, particularly beat reporters who cover any given professional team in sports markets across North America, love it when an athlete steps beyond the often tightly-controlled club house environment and says something beyond, “….we played as a team, gave 100%, left it on the field, etc…”
Great – especially controversial – quotes make for stories that write themselves and properly highlighted, increase readership or viewership and ultimately circulation. From a business perspective, anything out of the boring, plaid, milquetoast norm creates headlines, sells well, and potentially increases revenues for the media outlets serving up the stories.
Athletes may say bold, unexpected or colorful things for a whole host of reasons: they let their guard down; they wanted to send a message to their coach, their teammates or the opposition; they’re tired of saying the same old, same old.
But sometimes athletes say things simply because they don’t take a second to consider the consequences. Not that providing fuel for the opposition is a particular tragedy, even in the world of sports, but since winning does matter at the pro level, giving your opponent extra motivation seems like an ineffective strategy in the vast majority of cases. History backs that up.
There are also times that athletes likely feel pushed to break out of their self or team-imposed “box”, usually by the media who often complain that too many athletes have nothing to say.
That is why reporters tend to love, in the hockey world, a Brett Hull or Jeremy Roenick, because they rarely miss a chance to air a view on any number of subjects, whether it is particularly well-thought out or not.
(After hockey superstar Joe Sakic of the Avalanche appeared on the Jim Rome show some time back, a Toronto-based hockey columnist wrote in a major publication: “…the interview demonstrated once again one of the problems selling of hockey in the U.S. Hockey players, unlike many other athletes, almost always are dry and boring interviews, even if they are probably the most sincere guys in sport. Unfortunately, the way sport sells nowadays is by trash talking and being controversial. But other than Brett Hull, hockey guys just aren’t up to it.”
Yet most athletes have not built up the ‘media equity’ that superstars like Hull and Roenick have built up, (whereby when those players make comments that some may feel are out of line, the media will not condemn them, but will usually put their comments in a, “oh, that’s just Brett talking again..” context).
Most athletes, as in the Sakic example, face the pressure of being called bland, boring, of having nothing of consequence to say.
Yet, if they do take that risk and say something out of the ordinary, the media will generally be the first to slap them into place.
What to do?
Every athlete, like any individual, must of course follow their own comfort levels, their sense of what they want to project, how they want to come across and how they wish to be perceived -- if it that matters to them.
Somewhere between bravado and blandness there is often the opportunity to provide the ever-eager media, who need a story a day and quotes to build their story line, whatever it is, with thoughtful comments. Either thoughtful reflections upon a particular game, analysis at a level beyond “we gave 100%”, or when the opportunity arises, a peek inside, comments that reveal something about the values that that individual athlete may genuinely hold dear.
Once an athlete is known for being accessible, patient, responsive, and having something beyond the bland to contribute – in good times and in difficult times – he or she becomes golden to most reporters – who might prefer something sensational, but will at least respect a thoughtful approach instead.
