“That’s a clown question bro.”
Athletes are the dumb morons who shoved our friends into lockers, made us eat our boogers in front of our crushes, craned us, beat us up. And if those jocks ever "go pro", they grow up to be just another man child with little or no intelligence... right? That seems to be the overarching theme that is the stereotypical jock, and the media isn’t helping. A lot of the stereotypes about jocks stem from 80s movies and stories passed down, some of which possibly have truthful origins. It doesn't help that there are plenty of intelligent athletes who have to play the dumb jock in interviews. This isn’t being written to befall the poor multi-million dollar, superstar athlete. The real victims are us as unfortunately the public is missing out on some great insight due to the media’s sensationalism.
“But bro. These jocks just say ‘uh huh. Give my team 110%, gahuck’. What’s there to sensationalize?” That’s just it. I don’t say it metaphorically that these athletes are taught how to interact with the media. They are told not to make any controversial statements because their job is to win games, and even if controversy about their words don’t affect the way the team plays, if the team coincidentally starts to do bad, the management will blame the players.
If a player says “we’ve played well every game against this team I have no doubt with our defense and their injured offense, we have a good chance of beating them” but they lose, what's usually the media's reaction? Headlines often looking like “Overconfident team sleeps on weak opponents” followed by an article questioning the club's character. Next the head coach will be inspected on how he practiced and let this happen, and he’s going to have to demonstrate that he’s making changes so it won't happen again.
If a player is already struggling or at any odds with his job security already, that could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for him. That's why players usually just can't take the chance. Being open and honest just isn't accepted. Many of these players are intelligent people as well. Bryce Harper was a straight A student through high school. There have been questions about maturity for him, but before pro ball, he had a very good track record as a student. Robert Griffin III was on pace to go to Law School in college, with a 3.67 GPA according to "http://lsatwiz.com" and was a consistent honor roll student who also earned a Bachelors degree in Political Science and a masters degree in Communications in four years. Ben Watson of the Saints – A Duke transfer and graduate of Georgia University – recently weighed in on the recent Michael Brown shooting and was so insightful yet tactful, that his response went viral and can be found here "https://www.facebook.com/BenjaminWatsonOfficial/posts/602172116576590".
What’s worse is once the media finds someone open enough to speak their mind, the media immediately asks loaded questions meant to trap those athletes. Bryce Harper responded to an interview question saying “That’s a clown question bro.” and it became an instant hit! Articles and memes were everywhere surrounding the teenager. Known as the bad boy, controversial jerk, Bryce had just said another silly catch phrase and was too cool to answer the interviewers question – but the thing is, it WAS a clown question.
Bryce was about to take a road trip with his team to Canada where the legal age to drink was 18, so after the Nationals had just finished their game, a reporter decided to ask Bryce – a 19 year old mormon who isn’t allowed to drink in the U.S. or for religious reasons – “Bryce you know, of course in Canada, you are of legal drinking age, a celebratory Canadian beer would seem to make sense after a hit like that. Favorite beer?”. Bryce had already struggled with being called immature and a brat all year, so to ask him something like that clearly, was a ‘Clown question’. We see this all the time with celebrities as well. No one wants to be the next Kanye West.
There is the rebuttal that “if these people are so smart, why can’t they just say smart stuff without putting their foot in their mouth?” and it’s true. Some can, and do speak intelligently without putting their foot in their mouth, but usually it’s players who are super stars that aren’t at risk of losing their job or becoming a free agent. Why risk it? These players are paid to win games, not give sports analytics and while I’ll be the first to admit, there are plenty of athletes who seem to have dumb stuff come out of their mouth every opportunity they get (Charles Barkley, you’re doing no one any favors) it’s a shame that intelligent athletes don’t get to speak their mind without a real risk of brush-back. It's a real shame because I hear people say, "I can't stand listening to those dumb interviews". Whenever I do hear a player talk about their game - and I mean REALLY talk as most are aware when they're being vague - they’re usually the most insightful because their on the field, closer then any broadcaster every will get. So by censoring them, we’re the ones who lose out on knowing what’s going on, on the field.
The problem is that the media isn't being objective with their analysis of player’s interviews. This will
never change obviously however, because without the subjective opinions, the media would be out of a job. The -Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals sensationalized, over the top reports, grasping at straws where there are none, these can go though. With the problems with Adrian Peterson, and Ray Rice among others, there are plenty of worthwhile stories that don't need to be blown out of proportion.
-Alan Clark
