Coach Talk

Heard on the radio: "We're here to assist people with assistance of every kind."
What better assistance is there than assistance?

Sports Talk
Does it ever bug you how coaches and sports commentators speak of past events in future tense?
In the post-game interview, coaches invariably say something like: "If we make that pass we're within a touchdown and we've got a game."
Too late, coach. You DIDN'T make that pass. And it wasn't a game. You were blown out 35-7.
Who started that? And why did everyone else have to follow his lead? Why is it so hard to say: "If we had completed that pass we would have been within a touchdown. But we still would have lost"?

Murray State Coach Matt Griffin has been suspended for this week for comments he made in his postgame press conference following last weekend's loss to Illinois State. He was not suspended for mangling the English language but for criticizing the officiating.

His comments included: "The one hold I'll give the stripes some credit. They called that one right on us. But nothing else, though." Anyone want to translate? How did the Ohio Valley Conference office even know Griffin was criticizing the officiating?

It must have been the other comments: "A couple of these guys are 2-year-olds. They shouldn't be at this level. That's that."
That is, indeed, that. And perfectly clear.

Any chance of getting the OVC — or the NCAA, NAIA, NFL or NBA, for that matter — to start suspending coaches whose comments don't make any sense? No, on second thought, maybe they should get bonuses. Their comments are pure entertainment.

Take this one from John Madden: "Hey, the offensive lineman are the biggest guys on the field. They're bigger than everybody else. And that's what makes them the biggest guys on the field."
Ah. Mystery solved.

And I leave you to contemplate this Madden prize, delivered at a rare introspective moment: "Real frontier-busting math explores new worlds. ... If you can communicate that experience, somewhere between math and uncertainty, life experience provides the balance."