Sports Cliches

Through the years in the news business I have interviewed all types of people and the ones I find really entertaining are athletes and coaches.

Coaches and athletes are incapable of communicating without using trite, worn out cliches, many of which do not have any real meaning.

There's one cliche that really drives me up the wall -- one that's way overused, even by coaches and athletes who I consider somewhat articulate (is that an oxymoron?). It's the expression "one game at a time."

Any time a team qualifies for a playoff spot, I always ask the the head coach the obligatory question: "What 's your strategy for advancing in the playoffs?" The standard answer is: "We plan to just take it one game at a time."

To which I always want to reply: "Well, no duh, coach. You don't really have a choice, unless you can figure out a way to play two games at a time."

Perhaps my all-time favorite interview was once with a star basketball player. He was brilliant on the court, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer off the court. It was a must-win playoff game and the team was down 25 points at halftime. In the second half, the team caught fire and ended up winning by nearly 20 points. I asked the star player what the coach said in the locker room during the halftime break to get the players so inspired. His reply was, "Coach told us we needed to score more points than the other guys." What brilliance. What a profound statement. No wonder the school paid the coach such a high salary.

Baseball players also have their pet cliches. I once interviewed a slugger after he got the key hit to win a critical game. I asked him to talk about what it was like when he came up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning, knowing that the game was on the line. His reply was, "I just went up to the plate looking for a pitch I could hit." Gosh, what a great plan. I wonder if any baseball player ever steps in the batter's box looking for a pitch that he cannot hit.

Some other sports cliches I wish would go away --

• "This team has great chemistry." (Does that mean they pass out steroids in the locker room?)

• "Our team leaves everything out on the field." (Who's gonna clean up after them?)

• "We just need to stay within ourselves." (Nah, I think you'd do better if you had an out-of-body experience. Then, the other team could not hurt you and you wouldn't feel any pain).


• "It's the playoffs and anything can happen." (Truer words were never spoken. But anything can happen before and after the playoffs also. Sort of reminds me of something Yogi Berra once said: "You can observe a lot of things by watching.")