01-20-2014, 12:50 PM
It's always funny to me how these standards change. Ali's been brought up a few times, yet he's in "living national treasure" these days. But it's not really remembered that his trash talk -- while often hilarious -- also went welllllll over the line, for example his implying Joe Frazier was an Uncle Tom. Erased and forgotten; I bet if you did a national survey on "Ali's trash talk," you'd get positive responses and memories.
Anyone who's been exposed to youth tennis knows there are a few too many people who are enamored with John McEnroe's antics. Michael Jordan, of course, was an infamous trash talker. People are still talking about Pippen's "Mailman don't deliver on Sundays" crack to Karl Malone. And so on. These things change; the "classiness!" brigade will flip-flop on a few athletes before their lives are done, even if it's not Sherman specifically. (My guess is, in twenty years, Manziel's remembered as a lovable rogue.)
The odd thing here is the Stanford angle and its role. A few people on this thread seem to think Stanford fans are taking special umbrage or something, but I don't think that's the case at all. Far as I can tell, everyone's talking about Sherman today, whether cardinal-and-white or not. I bet Sherman's alma mater does give the taunts a special charge, though; if he were, say, an Indiana grad it might get less attention. At any rate, to ignore Stanford's recent contributions to poor sportsmanship and trash talking is a bit rich: we are the guys who gratuitously challenged a fumble up 30 in the fourth quarter against Wake; we are the guys who went for two to get to 50 against SC; we are the guys who immediately took to Twitter to taunt DeAnthony Thomas about the "we should score 40" prediction; we are the defense which finger-wags, poses, and dances after good plays. In fact, there was a recent debate on this board that the big problem with David Shaw is that he is insufficiently dickish to his opponents.
And it's amusing to me, to see on twitter and facebook or wherever, jokes about Sherman's communications degree or a "lack of articulateness" or whatever. Replay that speech -- there's barely any hesitation to it. That is smoothly delivered. To say that, on the spot -- after three hours of grueling, physical play? There's a word for that, and "articulate" is one of them. You might not like the message, but that is fine public speaking. No one said effective communication had to be of a message you liked. Purely in an instrumental sense, Sherman did his degree proud.
The general hullabaloo is still really weird to me. It's weird that people are all worked up about it; Sherman's words really meant nothing of consequence for really anything. Yet people are freaked out about it. It says something about a society, when it can't handle a dude speaking a message of no particular social importance for approximately 30 seconds. I'm not sure what it says, but it's not good.
Personally I enjoy a few villains and trash-talkers in sports. I guess there's a point when there are too many, but I don't think that's the case right now. Tastes might vary, but trash talking is fun, in moderation. I've done it myself! If you're honest, you probably have too.
Anyone who's been exposed to youth tennis knows there are a few too many people who are enamored with John McEnroe's antics. Michael Jordan, of course, was an infamous trash talker. People are still talking about Pippen's "Mailman don't deliver on Sundays" crack to Karl Malone. And so on. These things change; the "classiness!" brigade will flip-flop on a few athletes before their lives are done, even if it's not Sherman specifically. (My guess is, in twenty years, Manziel's remembered as a lovable rogue.)
The odd thing here is the Stanford angle and its role. A few people on this thread seem to think Stanford fans are taking special umbrage or something, but I don't think that's the case at all. Far as I can tell, everyone's talking about Sherman today, whether cardinal-and-white or not. I bet Sherman's alma mater does give the taunts a special charge, though; if he were, say, an Indiana grad it might get less attention. At any rate, to ignore Stanford's recent contributions to poor sportsmanship and trash talking is a bit rich: we are the guys who gratuitously challenged a fumble up 30 in the fourth quarter against Wake; we are the guys who went for two to get to 50 against SC; we are the guys who immediately took to Twitter to taunt DeAnthony Thomas about the "we should score 40" prediction; we are the defense which finger-wags, poses, and dances after good plays. In fact, there was a recent debate on this board that the big problem with David Shaw is that he is insufficiently dickish to his opponents.
And it's amusing to me, to see on twitter and facebook or wherever, jokes about Sherman's communications degree or a "lack of articulateness" or whatever. Replay that speech -- there's barely any hesitation to it. That is smoothly delivered. To say that, on the spot -- after three hours of grueling, physical play? There's a word for that, and "articulate" is one of them. You might not like the message, but that is fine public speaking. No one said effective communication had to be of a message you liked. Purely in an instrumental sense, Sherman did his degree proud.
The general hullabaloo is still really weird to me. It's weird that people are all worked up about it; Sherman's words really meant nothing of consequence for really anything. Yet people are freaked out about it. It says something about a society, when it can't handle a dude speaking a message of no particular social importance for approximately 30 seconds. I'm not sure what it says, but it's not good.
Personally I enjoy a few villains and trash-talkers in sports. I guess there's a point when there are too many, but I don't think that's the case right now. Tastes might vary, but trash talking is fun, in moderation. I've done it myself! If you're honest, you probably have too.