Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2011 4:18 pm
After reading that post on 
ey's blog, I am even more inclined to agree with the "I like what ey had to say" crowd. On the issue of whether he should have said it or not, the classier move may very well have have been to brush aside the egging on from the hosts and say nothing. But I don't think he response was indicative of no class, either. And, given that he did respond, I actually agree with a lot of his response to the backlash here. We all get a little annoyed from time to time with the stock answers we get from our pro athletes "it was a hard fought game" "I'm just trying to do what I can to help the team win", etc. Not that there's anything wrong with them; we've all just heard this crap so often it washes over us like flourescent lighting. We want these guys to be engaging interesting on and off the filed. ey is. We can't also have him ascribe to some outmoded vision of how a professional athlete ought to carry themselves. I think that's hypocritical of us.
I get angry when any of my teams lose, especially the skins (my wife says too angry) to Ttit. I get very happy when I see Ttit, Neuter Damn, the morons at the U, Puke, Univ. of Florida, etc. lose, because I despise those teams. Why wouldn't I want my team to despise them too? And if you feel that way, go ahead and say it out loud. Just make sure you back it up and beat them on the field of play.
I think the generation gap is not so much with the posters on this board, but with the pro athletes, hell anyone, of today versus those of Gibbs 1.0 time. The truth is that we simply hear a lot more, good and bad, from athletes today then we did then. Back then, if it wasn't a sound bite on the news (which wasn't a 24 hour news cycle, either) or put into print, we never heard about it at all. We had a number of of paternalistic people policing what was disseminated to the public. That is no longer the case. For better or worse, our line of communication to athletes is a direct one. To respond to Absinthe's point, I love that my 91 skins had that mindset coming out of the payback game and that they did it with Class by not talking. I guess my only problem with that example is that it seems to suggest that the only way to galvanize a team that way is to stew about it internally without having anything to say. Not sure that's right, solely because that's how it was done before. Whetherey tells me he doesn't like Ttit or not, I EXCPECT him not to, because I do, and he is on MY team. I am not particularly fond of guys being chummy during the game, or before or after it, actually. Professional, cordial, not mean spirited, sure. And in the privacy of their own lives, friends, fine. But I want my team to delight in the failures of OUR enemies. I don't think that's antithetical to good sportsmanship or doing things the "right way", whatever that means.
ey's blog, I am even more inclined to agree with the "I like what ey had to say" crowd. On the issue of whether he should have said it or not, the classier move may very well have have been to brush aside the egging on from the hosts and say nothing. But I don't think he response was indicative of no class, either. And, given that he did respond, I actually agree with a lot of his response to the backlash here. We all get a little annoyed from time to time with the stock answers we get from our pro athletes "it was a hard fought game" "I'm just trying to do what I can to help the team win", etc. Not that there's anything wrong with them; we've all just heard this crap so often it washes over us like flourescent lighting. We want these guys to be engaging interesting on and off the filed. ey is. We can't also have him ascribe to some outmoded vision of how a professional athlete ought to carry themselves. I think that's hypocritical of us.
I get angry when any of my teams lose, especially the skins (my wife says too angry) to Ttit. I get very happy when I see Ttit, Neuter Damn, the morons at the U, Puke, Univ. of Florida, etc. lose, because I despise those teams. Why wouldn't I want my team to despise them too? And if you feel that way, go ahead and say it out loud. Just make sure you back it up and beat them on the field of play.
I think the generation gap is not so much with the posters on this board, but with the pro athletes, hell anyone, of today versus those of Gibbs 1.0 time. The truth is that we simply hear a lot more, good and bad, from athletes today then we did then. Back then, if it wasn't a sound bite on the news (which wasn't a 24 hour news cycle, either) or put into print, we never heard about it at all. We had a number of of paternalistic people policing what was disseminated to the public. That is no longer the case. For better or worse, our line of communication to athletes is a direct one. To respond to Absinthe's point, I love that my 91 skins had that mindset coming out of the payback game and that they did it with Class by not talking. I guess my only problem with that example is that it seems to suggest that the only way to galvanize a team that way is to stew about it internally without having anything to say. Not sure that's right, solely because that's how it was done before. Whether
ey tells me he doesn't like Ttit or not, I EXCPECT him not to, because I do, and he is on MY team. I am not particularly fond of guys being chummy during the game, or before or after it, actually. Professional, cordial, not mean spirited, sure. And in the privacy of their own lives, friends, fine. But I want my team to delight in the failures of OUR enemies. I don't think that's antithetical to good sportsmanship or doing things the "right way", whatever that means.
I mean, if nothing else, that just shows poor judgment.