Homer’s Blog

In my travels over the centuries touting my books The Odyssey and The Iliad I have had the fortune to see how other American cities cover their local sports franchises.  In doing so, I have focused on the adjectives sports newscasters and radio talking heads use to describe players and coaches and how their approach compares to the Minnesota press.

 It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ventured outside the land of Homersota that many draw the following conclusion:  The press in Chicago, New York City, Detriot, Denver, Miami, and Los Angeles is much more reluctant to throw out definitive superlatives such as courageous, great, fantastic, and elite.  Not because on occasion they aren’t deserved, but because they understand those adjectives rarely apply.

In stark contrast you are likely to hear these words nearly everyday on KFAN, WCCO, and FSN.

Recent Examples:

-Gardenhire is an elite manager (Dubay)

-Mason is an elite coach (Allen)

-The Vikings’s secondary could be elite (Dubay)

-Morneau’s defense is fantastic (Allen)

-Childress is a great coach (S. Hartman)

-Radke is courageous to be pitching (S. Hartman and Walters)

In particular the word elite is thrown around in such a casual and misguided manner that it has become meaningless.  Do informed followers of Big Ten football really believe Coach Glen Mason is elite?  If these depictions were accurate, wouldn’t fans have purchased Super Bowl, Rose Bowl, or World Series tickets at sometime in the past decade?

The next time the Minnesota press uses complimentary adjectives ask yourself if their use is appropriate or simply hyped-up boot licking.

Webster must be spinning in his grave.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 at 9:09 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.