Sports Need More Balls

Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette said something interesting the other day.  He said it's "all or nothing" this year for the Flyers.  It's not interesting in a way that it is out of line or irrelevant to the current team, but interesting because he said what every fan wants every coach to say.  There is a disease spreading in sports causing the best teams to be the most obnoxiously humble or quiet.  Lavvy allowed fans a glimpse at the state of mind of this Flyers team that was within a few games of drinking from the Cup.  It is a rare and refreshing thing in sports for a player or coach to make a statement even as innocent as that one.

There have been much more daring and bold statements in the past: Joe Namath guaranteeing a Super Bowl victory, Babe Ruth allegedly pointing over the outfield wall, Matt Hasselbeck and his "we want the ball and we're gonna score!".  Those statements can either be glorifying or damning (in Hasselbeck's case), but they highlight a personality characteristic of athletes that we hate to love.  I'm talkin' 'bout hubris, baby. It is the perfect time of year to bring this up, as it is the 4th anniversary of the Team To Beat incident, 1.23.07.  That day, Jimmy Rollins fired up the city, his team, and everyone else in the NL East.  He didn't do it inappropriately, or without grounds, yet it consumed the national baseball media's attention.  The reason is that sport is entertainment and the players are the entertainers.

I'm leaning towards the side of loving the hubris that professional athletes display sometimes.  Don't get me wrong though, as there is nothing better than the best pitcher in baseball being the hardest working and the least flamboyant.  But Rickey Henderson's stolen base record speech is one of the best, and most self-aggrandizing, of all time and I can't get enough.  There is some degree of finesse involved in flashing the proverbial peacock feathers in sports, and some guys get it.  Tyson didn't quite get it.  Ali did.  Rex Ryan doesn't quite get it.  Buddy did.  LeBron DEFINITELY doesn't get it.  Kobe's gotten it 5 times.  If you aren't getting the pattern, you have to be good and bold, but more the former than the latter.  Once the hubris starts affecting team play, or alienates a certain fan base, or involves any monetary negotiations it becomes distracting and disgusting.  When Jimmy Rollins said that the Philles were the team to beat, he maybe only half believed it at the time, but (and this is rather important) felt that he and his teammates were capable of playing like it.  Fast forward to this year and Brad Lidge saying the same thing and it starts to get old.  If he were Mariano, it would mean something.  It meant something when Rollins said it.

Try and think about a sports world where every player is modest and tells the media that the other team is better.  Think about a sports world where Bill Belichick runs each press conference with his dry pretentiousness.  People may say that celebrations in the endzone are immature and unnecessary, and I agree that they are when they are scripted, but I would not scorn Desean Jackson one bit for falling backwards into the endzone.  These players and coaches are paid endless amounts of money because they are the best in the world, so why not let them get into one another's head?

Lavvy wasn't overstepping his boundaries by saying what he said, and it really wasn't much of a guarantee.  It was the oft unspoken truth about maybe the best team in the NHL.  Aiming for anything less than a championship is unacceptable of any organization or player.  Guaranteeing one when you are clearly not capable of doing so is obnoxious.  I'd like to see more players and coaches be vocal about the abilities and goals of the team.  I think it is good for entertainment's sake, and most importantly for competition's sake.

So please, in the comments below, leave your best example of hubris going either exceptionally well, or horribly wrong.  I'll start it off with Beltran's pathetic attempt to steal the Phillies' thunder in 2008 with his verbal plagiarism of Jimmy Rollins.