Trite Trophy: A cliche for all (sporting) seasons
Share with others:
After a sports year dominated by Head-to-Head hits, Helmet-To-Helmet contact, and blatant Hat-On-A-Hat strategies, it is comforting somehow to discover in our deepest literary history a better way to describe our ever-accelerating uptick in violence.
A very long time ago, which is not to say Back In The Day, because we would never say Back In The Day, and because this happened many centuries deep into Greek mythology, which was prior to even the first of the many billions of abuses of the utterly nonsensical Back In The Day, a Game Changer of an Edge Rusher named Termerus became a much-feared bandit by running into his victims head-first.
The sports writers of that era, notably Woody Plutarch, who was no doubt writing the Life of Theseus on deadline due to a late starting time, reported that Theseus slew Termerus (not the same as Slew-Footed) and others by "returning the same sort of violence that they offered to him."
Therewith the first implication of a helmet-to-helmet incident, but blessedly, Plutarch did not call it that. He writes that Theseus was merely responding to "Termerian mischief." Now can we agree that this should likely be the first question to the NFL commissioner at the official Super Bowl press conference:
"What ho, noble Roger, and what of this unchecked Termerian mischief?"
Here I should thank long-time correspondent Charles Partee for referring me to Plutarch's writings, none of which, I'm fairly confident, include the terms Game-Time Decision, Ice Water In His Veins, Bubble Screen, Ball Security, Off The Schneid, Blitz Package, Setting The Edge, Trap Game, Take It To The House, Go All In, nor any of the following:
Making Plays Down The Field, Making Plays With His Feet, Making Plays Down The Field With His Feet, Buying Time With His Feet In Order To Make Plays Down The Field, perhaps with his feet.
It is very hard, I've concluded after only about 50 years of watching football, to make plays without feet.
So, by now, I expect you realize that you have wandered into the ceremonial column that will award the 27th Annual Trite Trophy to the worst sports cliché of the year sometime before the start of "60 Minutes."
("60 Minutes," once an estimable bastion of something called journalism, has itself been reduced to a football cliché, and although coaches love to point out These Games Are 60 Minutes, no one actually plays anywhere close to that.)
But to refresh, the purpose of the annual Trite Trophy column is to expose lazy language to mockery's blistering lamp, whatever that means, in the hope that we can create A Hostile Environment for the folks who traffic in such nonsense. A quick look around, however, reveals that not only have the members of the Trite Committee (me) Lost Their Swagger, but Face Long Odds of ever Getting Their Swagger Back. More pointedly, 27 years of cliché slinging To No Avail pretty much guarantees they've Fallen On Their Faces.
First Published December 26, 2010 12:00 am
