A look at the five words sports commentators -- and fans -- rely on to dumb down the conversation.
Dec 21, 2011 - The best and worst thing about sports is people talking about sports. At its best, sports commentary is thoughtful, reasonable, insightful, and possibly humorous -- a window into the game that you can't see without the commentator. Writers at SB Nation work hard to create those conversations; you can also find it online at The Classical and Grantland, on TV during The Scott Van Pelt Show, and in your ears with The Evening Jones and The Basketball Jones (and other, non-Jones podcasts).
Unfortunately, the biggest platforms are reserved for the loudest voices (How many smart conversations happen when someone is yelling?). You see this everywhere: ESPN, sports talk radio, the unfortunate comment sections of stories online. People have built careers by taking a compelling sports narrative and distilling it to easily digestible moralizing. They toss around simplistic, derivative epithets to stoke an angry fire in fans. It is intellectual gruel, a slurry of opinion intended to provoke rather than inform.
So how do we -- People With Operational Frontal Lobes -- combat mainstream media's tendency to favor emotion-baiting stupidity? By identifying what's bad, and then ignoring it.
With that in mind, here are five crutches of the lazy sports commentator. You will see and hear these words -- always in ALL-CAPITAL SHOUTING -- from people who enjoy sports but not the act of reasoned critical thinking, such as the drunk meathead at the bar, older racist relatives, and Gregg Doyel. It should be noted that none of these words are being used incorrectly, per se. But they are signposts on the road to mental oblivion, appearing more and more often as you approach that particular cliff.
1. PHONY. An athlete is a PHONY if he exhibits the same capitalistic traits as every employee in America: leaving one company for another company that pays better or is otherwise more desirable. Sometimes, a PHONY will leave a city -- let's say Cleveland -- for a glamorous, warm-weather city with nice beaches and thousands of incredibly sexy Latina women even though he had professed a desire to stay in crappy, cold, dying Cleveland forever. This entirely hypothetical athlete may be an unapologetic villain whose unrivaled egomania long ago obliterated whatever remnants of self-awareness he may have had, but on sports talk radio he's simply a PHONY. It's easy shorthand that I can't use without feeling hypocritical -- I've tweaked my resume while at work; I've gone for "lunch" that was a job interview.
2. FRAUD. Similar to PHONY in many regards, FRAUD has more utility for the sports idiot, as it also applies to any athlete who has used performance-enhancing drugs (regardless of whether those drugs are illegal). Do I think that records broken with the benefit of steroids are tainted? Yes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to join the "A-FRAUD" chant at Fenway when Alex Rodriguez comes to bat. I'd much rather make fun of his fetish for muscular women.
3. CLOWN. An athlete is a CLOWN if he performs his job with anything less than Soviet grimness. Touchdown dances (Chad Johnson), elaborate handshakes (Jose Reyes), and colorful personalities (Clinton Portis) are all fine if the athlete displays immaculate performance on the field. But any decline in output is surely because that CLOWN is indulging in DISTRACTIONS. I mean, we're not paying him MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to GOOF OFF! All athletes should dedicate 100 percent of their lives to performing their jobs with none of the joy that attracted us to the game as children! Ugh.
4. PUNK. The way sports jackasses use this word is so divorced from my preferred interpretation of the word (generally reflecting an anti-establishment stance) that I can barely grasp what they mean by it. As best I can tell, it's a catch-all slur for anyone who doesn't play the game THE RIGHT WAY. I can only define PUNK by its antonym: GRITTY.
5. THUG. A THUG is anyone who plays a physical game TOO physically. A THUG can be an actual thug, such as Bill Laimbeer or Ndamukong Suh, or it can be any black athlete with tattoos. James Harrison is often derided as a THUG, and that's unfair to Harrison -- it doesn't accurately represent the extent of his thuggishness. In a terrific essay about concussions for The Classical, Sean Conboy described Harrison as "a villain out of a nightmare, fully realized and sitting on the edge of the bed in all his brooding batshit glory."
That is how you should talk about James Harrison, about athletes, about anyone and everything: with thought, with care, and with effort. We can do better, and we can start by avoiding these five words when talking about sports. If you hear any of them without accompanying modifiers or a balanced argument, you are consuming sports commentary gruel. Spit it out.
24 comments
Comments
My uncle uses all of these
And he is annoying as hell to watch games with.
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by John Stephens on Dec 21, 2011 3:22 PM EST reply actions
I’m pretty sure these are the top five words they teach at the Tim McCarver and Joe Buck School of Sports Broadcasting.
by upstate underdog on Dec 21, 2011 3:28 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
How do you feel about "ClownFraud"?
I'm just an animal looking for a home and share the same space for a minute or two- Talking Heads
by Tracy Rocker's Appetite on Dec 21, 2011 3:31 PM EST reply actions 3 recs
I think that one's ok
PAC-12 refs: "Where the bad officiating doesn’t stop when the whistle blows."
by Quack Patty on Dec 21, 2011 3:41 PM EST up reply actions
You can throw "Soft" in there
That’s one of the worst too
by JaDubin5 on Dec 21, 2011 4:10 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
"Gamer" too
I still don’t know what a gamer is within the context of professional sports.
"I could never be a thug, they don't dress this well." - Malice
by Julius Coxswain on Dec 21, 2011 4:27 PM EST up reply actions
I think Gamer is just as at-home in coachspeak. I’m pretty sure it means somebody who inexplicably performs above expectations in games despite not working hard enough at practice. It’s the nice side of calling somebody lazy when you like their results, essentially.
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by The AMT on Dec 21, 2011 5:40 PM EST up reply actions
Just Like Allen Iverson
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by Jessy S on Dec 22, 2011 12:20 AM EST up reply actions
Thug
I always thought of “thug” in the sports context as a professional athlete who seems more concerned with doling out violence during a game than he does with winning. I really don’t have a problem with using the word that way. It seems appropriate.
What really irks me is when commentators pluralize the names of superstars indicating that there are many of them out there. Example: “The way you defend the Tom Bradys of the league is….” as if Tom Bradys are just out there to be had. There is one Tom Brady. That is all. Just say Tom Brady. Caleb Hanie is a professional QB, but he is not Tom Brady. You could defend against Caleb Hanie with a hangover and a morphine drip. Aaron Rogers is not Tom Brady, nor is Tom Brady Aaron Rogers. Both are great, but they play the position differently.
Don't pay attention to anything I just wrote. It's total bullshit.
by Slum C on Dec 21, 2011 4:37 PM EST reply actions
The two I can’t stand are Lover and Hater. THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND!!!
\\\oo///
by Billy Hoyle on Dec 21, 2011 4:40 PM EST via mobile reply actions
To be fair
The “just don’t look” philosophy is very difficult. It’s hard to ignore something when it’s everywhere. Take Brett Favre, he pops up every now in again in rumors that he will come back. He never does. But there it is, on SB Nation front page, some dumb rumor. It’s hard not to click just to see the ridiculousness of the rumor, so we do. Brett Favre (and SB Nation) wins. Drew’s MMQB take down is always great on KSK, but I always read Peter King so I can try and guess what Drew’s gonna say. PK wins. I think Tunison is an asshole. I try not to read him, but every now and again I accidentally click on a retweeted link. Ape wins.
Colin Cowherd is a genius because everybody knows how much of an ass he is. His profession is assholery and he makes a sackful because of it.
by Mark Mandingo on Dec 21, 2011 4:58 PM EST reply actions
Those last 3
can also be defined as “Black athlete who doesn’t play the game the way I, a white commentator, think they should.”
Sharlon Schoop - honkbalspeler extraordinaire.
Trolls are like cockroach Nazis. Sure, you CAN try to reason with them, but they won't listen, and if you respond to them, they invade your Sudetenland.
Or something.
That metaphor got away from me.
by Viliphied on Dec 21, 2011 5:34 PM EST reply actions 6 recs
I'd much rather make fun of his (A-Rod's) fetish for muscular women.
I’d rather make fun of A-Rod’s fetish for himself.
by SWRT on Dec 21, 2011 5:43 PM EST reply actions
Another lazy word...
which I HATE: choke
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
by sddbaker on Dec 21, 2011 7:11 PM EST reply actions
That answer was so clutch
:-)
by Tyler Bleszinski on Dec 21, 2011 11:34 PM EST up reply actions
punk.
the closest synonym i can find for punk is diva, but that still misses the mark.
The Rose Bowl is too mainstream anyway.
by KeenanAllenFett on Dec 21, 2011 11:55 PM EST reply actions
How about "high motor"?
This is typically used by analysts (football especially) when describing a white player that makes plays. Never heard a black player labeled as “high motor”.
YURP
by TheYurpman on Dec 22, 2011 12:07 AM EST reply actions
Any article and writer that takes a shot at Greggggg Doyel
Gets a hefty rec from me. Did you know he played football in high school and received an award or two?
¡Viva La Revolución!
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by ecuamerican on Dec 22, 2011 1:23 AM EST reply actions
Another word I hope to never hear during a telecast
Scrappy (usually in reference to a small, white receiver)
MexicAN AmericAN VegAN
by Mike Garza on Dec 22, 2011 2:33 AM EST reply actions
Or a slow, poor hitting infielder.
"The time has come to get deeply into Football. It is the only thing we have left that ain't fixed." - HST
by JerBear50 on Dec 24, 2011 2:02 AM EST up reply actions
I read each of the five words in Wilbon's voice
I assume that was the author’s intentions.
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by Swamp Thing on Dec 22, 2011 3:07 AM EST reply actions
My word is "swagger."
A completely meaningless, utterly bullshit word in this context.
by Tracer Bullet on Dec 22, 2011 10:00 AM EST reply actions
"Plays like a kid out there or just has fun playing is the worst".
It’s usually used in the context of a guy like Brett Favre. “Favre just plays like a kid out there, he just has fun” which is usually code for he a made a throw into triple coverage that somehow was completed even though he had four better options on the play. Also does nobody else have fun playing the game other than Brett Favre? Is it just him?
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by aramnath on Dec 22, 2011 12:04 PM EST reply actions
We’re sports fans! It’s so much easier to boil down our thoughts of athletes to certain buzzwords!
I don’t drink when I analyze literature, but I drink like a mad man when I watch the Packers go scoreless in the first half against the Chiefs. It’s my nature.
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by Chris Sarda on Dec 26, 2011 4:59 AM EST reply actions
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