Dreaded one-liners: The bane of all sports

Tuesday, July 13
July 13, 2010
Ellis Warren Jr.
July 15, 2010
Tuesday, July 13
July 13, 2010
Ellis Warren Jr.
July 15, 2010

This past week was a pretty special week for your resident sports guy.


Not because of the Manning family and their little camp.


Not because Butterbean was in town beating people to a pulp.

Those were both nice, but this week means more for a different reason: National Sports Cliché Week.


Yes, a week to honor all of you coaches and athletes out there who think you’re giving me great quotes for my story, but are actually giving me what I’m trying to avoid.


An ode for you sports announcers who are trying to be crafty and make a play on words, but are actually just being … well, lame.

This is a tribute week to even me, myself, as I fall victim to these same catchy phrases at times while watching sporting events. For example, when the Cowboys marched into the Superdome and beat the Saints, I remember vividly telling people Tony Romo had “the heart of a champion tonight.”


Ouch, too soon?


My bad, sort of.

Regardless of the context you’ve used them; this Casey’s Corner is for everyone who has ever given “110 percent,” or anyone who’s ever “taken it one game at a time.”


Behold, the top 10 best (or worst) sports clichés of all-time.

10. “They’re playing with a lot of swagger tonight” – What does this even mean? What exactly is swagger? When I think of swagger, I either think of WWE star Jack Swagger, or I think of a mid 20s male in a college club with a popped collar, wearing sunglasses indoors with a drink in his hand, while calling people chief. While the above image is still awesome, it has nothing to do with athletics in any way, shape or form.

9. “You can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him” – This one is just a little too oil spillish for me. Contain him? Are we talking about spraying antifreeze on him to stop him from scoring? Not only will officials find that against the rules of the sport, but I’m pretty sure law enforcement would get involved as well. If we must use clichés to define greatness, stick to the ice water in his/her veins one. This one is just too personal for Louisiana right now.

8. “They’ve pushed their opponent on the ropes/They’ve pushed their opponent back on their heels” – This one was born from boxing, where obviously leaning on the ropes is a signal of distress or fatigue. But in other sports, too? It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a losing team falling backward like they’re leaning on ropes. And if people are walking on their heels, of course they’re going to lose – unless they’re playing in the circus league.

7. “From way downtown” – OK, follow my reasoning here. Last time I checked, major sporting events were played in cities, right? Hence why it’s the New Orleans Hornets and not the Slidell Hornets. So if the game is in the city, and we’re trying to indicate distance, why is it not “from way in the suburbs?” OK, it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but either way, downtown doesn’t make any geographical sense.

6. “He’s got ice water running through his veins” – This one is actually pretty cool in the right situation. Like when Kobe Bryant makes a game-winning shot, yes, ice water in veins = cold-blooded shooter, etc… I get it. But it’s so overused that it just needs to go extinct already. Another case of the good having to pay for the bad.

5. “We’re taking it one game at a time” – Ah yes, the infamous one game at a time routine. You cannot watch any postgame interview and avoid this one. I’m still a young lad, so maybe this one is just kind of lost on me. But when did teams play two and three teams at a time? Obviously it’s happened before if people consistently want to emphasize they’re in the business of playing just one team per day. I don’t know, maybe I’m just not the historian I should be.

4. “He’s trying to get a monkey off his back” – Again, maybe one of these things where I need a history lesson. But I’ve never seen this monkey they’re always talking about. I hope when the critter shows up that I’m there, too, because it would make for some award-winning pictures. I’m pretty sure the monkeys will stick to where the bananas are, though, so maybe we can cool off on this phrase a tad.

3. “He left everything he had on the field today” – I know you all have heard the story of the athlete who “gave it his/her everything” on the field. That’s because the same tale is told in every sports game that’s ever played. Not only do I think this one is overplayed, but I also think it’s a bit insulting to the other athletes to say that someone is trying harder than someone else, when in reality almost everyone “gives it their everything” in every game.

2. “There’s no I in TEAM” – Unless you’re at a spelling bee, the letters in TEAM should not be a valid reason for anything. No “I” in “TEAM”, eh? Well let me tell you something, smart alec, there are “I’s” in champion, win and victory. But there are not “I’s” in defeat, loss and loser. Just sayin’.

1. “He always gives 110 percent when he’s on the field” – OK, I was never a math major. But that’s not even possible. The most a person can physically do is 100 percent. Sometimes I might think an athlete is a robot. But until they actually are, 100 percent is a ceiling. Doing anything more than that is statistically impossible. As a former statistician, I really don’t like statistical improbabilities.