Jordan McNair and Other "Tributes"

When I post on this blog, which I will try to do more than I have, I generally try to keep it light. That is mostly in the belief that I find sports to be fun and an easy opportunity at humor. I really cannot do that today, because I am having a hard time with our collective reaction to yesterday’s Maryland vs. Texas football game, and specifically the reaction to the tribute that Maryland’s football team paid to Jordan McNair. For those unaware, Jordan McNair passed away this summer as a result of a heatstroke he suffered during a team workout. The team took the field yesterday with 10 players and took a delay of game penalty, which Texas declined, in order to pay their respect to McNair.

Before I make my actual point, I want to preface it by saying I see the value in these tributes. When something tragic like this happens, a tribute such as the one made by Maryland is necessary to honor the player and their family. Tributes are important, meaningful, and necessary; but they do not hold something more than that. What I am referring to is the reaction to this tribute. I went on to Twitter after watching this and saw tweets including “all class from both sides.” All class. All class, from a school whose actions just led to the death of a student-athlete. Not even going to go with “some class.” Just nothing but class from that school that killed a kid.

I either have no idea what class means, or we all just forgot what this school did because some time has passed. In order to actually honor the meaning of these tributes and the life of Jordan McNair, this cannot be “all class.” Let’s collectively be better next time and not get swept up in something that just looks like its nice. Hopefully there is no next time to be better for, but the unfortunate reality of our sports culture is that it is conducive to really messed up tragedies. In order to prevent that next time, we need to put pressure on places like the University of Maryland to be better, and to hire coaches that are more compassionate towards their players. The way to put pressure on an institution is not to say that a nice gesture that in no way changes their reprehensible actions and culture is one that is “all class.”

Why Did Everyone Misevaluate the Celtics?

There is no real explanation in my mind for why this Celtics is such a surprise. I did not and do not claim to be a league pass, all 82 game-watching NBA fan. That said, I am very good at using hindsight to determine that certain things should have been obvious. This Celtics playoff run is a place where I can utilize that skill. I get that the injuries are legitimate and definitely diminish their talent, but this team is crazy-talented with a ton of former lottery picks. To name a few: Tatum, Brown, Horford, Smart, Morris, Monroe, as well as Rozier being just outside the lottery. The Celtics were the “talent deficient team” in a series where (my favorite team) the Sixers had Marco Belinelli and Robert Covington as key contributors. I love Marco and Covington (not as much Covington but I need to say that for effect) but they would not touch the floor for the Celtics. When you actually look at it, this Celtics roster is absolutely stacked.

We do not look at this Celtics team the same way we look at other teams with a “star” but that is simply because everyone undervalued their stars. Brown, Tatum, and Horford are legit stars no matter what the league pass die-hard NBA fan tries to say; they just are. Unlike the Sixers and Cavs, there is no drop-off after them either. Rozier and Morris are very good, Baynes is… ok. The only other teams in the league that can confidently say they have six guys that play really well on both ends are the Warriors and maybe the Rockets. Every player in the top six for the Celtics can legitimately be a threat to go off and is not a liability on defense. That does not even mention the future which features a 2019 lottery pick and two former all-stars. There is a legitimate argument that the 2019-20 Celtics roster could feature six players that will at some point be all-stars and will be in the primes of their careers (Kyrie, Tatum, Brown, Horford, Hayward, 2019 lottery pick). I got off topic a bit, but it is a serious question to wonder whether this team can be in something like eight of the next ten championships.

Back to my actual point, how is it possible that this was a surprise run for the Celtics? This is not to discredit how well they have played and the job Brad Stevens has done. In fact, it is actually a credit to Stevens’ player development that he was able to get his young players to progress so quickly. However, he did do that and we all knew, even those of use that watched like fifteen Celtics games this season, that Brown and Tatum were awesome and could carry a team despite their age. The wildcard is probably that Rozier is better than expected this playoffs, but his play does not make up the gap for what the national NBA media expected of this team. I guess my final point is not really even an actual point beyond what I have already said. I just have no idea why a team with six players who range from solid to excellent two-way players was ever not expected to be a really tough out in the playoffs.

Worst Sports Announcer Cliche

Announcer clichés are one of the most recurring, yet truly fascinating things about bad sports commentators. From Phil Simms to Reggie Miller, every bad announcer uses this one cliché ad-nauseam: momentum swings. This cliché has become so overused that despite it literally making no sense, it has found its way into our general fan lexicon. That is enough for me to call this an epidemic, and although my audience might not be as large as theirs I will do everything I can to make it known that momentum swings does not make sense.

If you are still reading this but not quite sure why momentum swings do not make sense as a cliché I have two things to tell you: first, thanks for reading this far; second, momentum cannot swing. I do not claim to know science at all, but I do know that momentum goes one way and carries that way. So if momentum exists in sports (it doesn’t but that is for another post) than it cannot swing. If a commentator tells you “this team had a big stretch here which allowed them to seize momentum from their opponent” than that commentator does not know how to speak about sports in any way other than pluralities. I know this because I do sports commentary, and when bad commentators can’t think of what to say or how to say it they find a generality to fill the air and sound insightful.

I was watching Villanova vs. West Virginia in the sweet sixteen of the NCAA Tournament a few weeks ago. Villanova fell behind but somehow according to the announcers, not because they are better or anything, grabbed momentum and won the game. A true miracle how momentum is able to defy what it literally means. This blog that has pretty close to zero readers serves as the watchdog for sports fans that like to think they know what they are watching. As that watchdog I take my responsibility very seriously and I need to call out these things because it is what the people want, or need. My observation is that for the good of the intelligence of the average sports viewer who is trying to get smarter by listening, commentators should stop with clichés like this that do not make us smarter. I dream of a world in which we can all argue and discuss sports without clichés and specifically without ones that are oxymoron’s. With that dream, I hope that sports commentators stop putting these into the sports fan lexicon.