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Anyone else tired of "lack of respect" quotes...

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by stix, Jan 6, 2009.

  1. Oggiedoggie

    Oggiedoggie Well-Known Member

    "God had 20 bucks on the other team."
     
  2. Actually, I'm not tired of "lack of respect" quotes, or storylines. They're the best ones!

    The "us against the world" mentality of coaching has been used by everyone from Billy Martin to Tom Coughlin. I have especially enjoyed watching the Northwestern women's lacrosse team use this motivational strategy as they have now won four straight national titles. They not only have a sense of belief and purpose, but look askance at those who think that they can't possibly win.

    There was a quote that I particularly enjoyed getting, one which totally defined a rural small-town team's desire to turn back 30 years of history: "(Opposing team) is placed on a pedestal, and we're down here with our corn." The team won the state championship in their sport that season. The quoted player got a Division I scholarship.
     
  3. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

    Try covering a Christian school.
     
  4. micke77

    micke77 Member

    i get sick and tired of the "lack of respect" quotes..hell, we of the sportswriting fraternity don't get a helluva lot of respect at times, but do many of us make a habit of putting it out there for everyone to hear? it's a shallow way, i think, of coaches and players trying to pump up their team.
    can i also ask that we start asking for a moratorium on quotes that include "lack of focus and intensity?"...did athletes and coaches just start getting "intense" and "focused" in the last couple of years.
     
  5. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    I'm tired of pre-game trash talk being considered a story. I had a stringer who on a few occasions turned in a story where the angle was that the other team came in all cocky and talking trash and left with its tail between its legs.
    I was familiar with the team in question and don't recall any of its players saying anything out of the ordinary. That kind of made me wonder if I wasn't doing my job correctly because I either didn't hear the trash talk or didn't choose to hear it or heard it and didn't think it was a big deal.
    After all, you see that story in the NFL all the time. An opposing player shoots his mouth off the week before a game. His team loses. He gets shut down and ends up eating crow.
    I suppose if you don't take that angle you've flunked journalism 101, but I think that angle gets overplayed. Who doesn't go into a game saying they'll win? Why is it a story?
     
  6. Some Guy

    Some Guy Active Member

    I don't mind Christian athletes thanking God. Doesn't mean I have to use it.

    Usually, they don't mean, "Thank you God, for letting my team win and causing that catastrophic injury that made the other team lose." Usually, they're thanking God for their God-given talents, for the opportunity, etc. In much the same way a Christian might say a prayer of thanks after landing a big job, or promotion or something.
     
  7. clutchcargo

    clutchcargo Active Member

    Even more common are the dumb quotes about "how we overcame adversity."

    Huh?

    Where in the world of sports is there such a thing as adversity?

    Adversity is getting a leg or arm, or both, blown off in Iraq and returning to the United States to put your body and life back together.

    Adversity is NOT overcoming a hangnail and a scuzzball agent to hit .269 while a few idiot fans boo you in NY.
     
  8. zagoshe

    zagoshe Well-Known Member

    My favorite "we get no respect moment" -- a local high school coach whose hoop team won the state title about ten or 12 years ago when I was still learning about the business used the "nobody thought we could do this, nobody picked us to be here" to which one of the other more veteran reporters said to him after the post-game was over.... "coach, to be fair you've been the No. 1 ranked team in the state since the preseason" (which they were and they only lost two games, both close ones, both to much larger schools from higher classifications, one of them to a team from a different state in fact. But if this team had lost to any team in it classification, the guy should have been fired, they were that loaded) to which he responded "nobody cares about rankings".

    I then used a phrase in my lede something close to "Team X won the state title they were picked to win in the preseason by just about every person who did the picking, but Joe Blow is hoping they won something more -- respect."

    I then used all of his quotes about nobody picking them to win and followed with two graphs about how they had been called the best team in their classification in 20 years and how they were an overwhelming favorite in every game they played and didn't really have a close game in the playoffs. It made him look like an idiot and he knew it because he made some comment about me "selling him out" the next time we talked.

    I learned a valuable lesson though because I got a lot of letter and calls (this was before e-mail was really prevalent like it has been the past eight or nine years) from parents and fans of the team angry that I focused so much on the coach and that respect stuff in my story and so little on the players.

    The lesson I learned was this -- coaches say a lot of dumb things as do athletes and they say a lot of things that are cliches, annoying or piss us off -- that doesn't mean we have to quote them, particularly if said quotes really add nothing to the story, detract from the story or are just irrelevant in some way shape or form.

    It is also bad form to try and use a coach or player's words against him to make yourself look like a smart guy or whatever.

    It is why I never,or almost never, use quotes like "thanks to God" and "we get no respect" and "nobody picked us" in my stories or things of that sort.
     
  9. micke77

    micke77 Member

    And please, would some coach or player -- usually it's the coaches -- quit referring to a game as "war." I hate that and probably a lot of it has to do with my dad having served in two World Wars and gotten wounded several times. that's "war", my friend. there is absolutely no comparison. these coaches and players don't intentionally mean harm from it, but they also have absolutely no comprehension of what going through a real "war" means. they might like to sound bravado and macho, but it is very hollow in my own view.
     
  10. Come on, man. They're talking about adversity in the context of the sport. It's pretty cynical to dismiss its importance to them. Nobody out there, I'm sure, believes that their adversity is the same as someone returning from Iraq. I experience adversity on deadline, but I wouldn't pretend it's the same that my ancestors experienced battling the union in the war of northern aggression.

    Sometimes I feel for these guys. On one hand, we make fun of what they do as unimportant and silly. On the other, we absolutely kill a guy like Randy Moss if we feel he's not giving body, mind and soul to the cause on every play.

    Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
     
  11. micke77

    micke77 Member

    WaylonJennings....yea, guess you're right. I get on this "soap box" every now and then and -- again --believe it's sensitivity (and some cynicism) developed from having grown up in a military family. i need to kick myself every now and then to be reminded that those coaches and players haven't experienced things that maybe I have and granted, they're meaning no harm.
     
  12. I've always been baffled at how supersensitive military people are. People respect them, and I wish they'd realize it. Shit, I get chills when I watch something like "Band of Brothers" or "Generation Kill," or even read about Vietnam, wondering how young men could summon that sort of courage.

    And yet ... it seems a lot of people with military experience or connections are constantly searching out perceived slights. I'm surprised they aren't more comfortable in their own skin. Is that why they do it? For the praise? I would hope not.

    Anyway, I digress ...
     
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