# Sports Journalists Don't Do Their Job Regarding God **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 6, 2009, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199 "2009-12-06T15:35:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/61 "2009-12-08T04:25:49Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > It kind of makes sense though. > Athletes by nature aren’t your most intelligent schooled people. Math, science, and your various intellectual pursuits are not what got them to where they are today. So it kind of makes sense that they fall back onto the supernatural to explain the world around them. > I was amazed by how much superstition there is in professional sports. Jinxes, good luck routines, pitchers magical power necklaces, etc. > Thanking a super being for for special powers (or inspirational support) fits in well with their persona. Imho, I remember a backlash ~1990 when athletes would answer “because I’m awesome” when reporters asked them why they won. Iirc, Rickey Henderson was the one who started it by constantly referring to himself in the third person: Rickey: Why did Rickey Henderson win? Rickey Henderson will tell you why. Rickey Henderson won because Rickey Henderson worked hard and sacrificed. So, many athletes (even though they were being 100% honest) would be labeled “arrogant” when they claimed any credit for a win. So, athletes had to deflect any credit to God to avoid getting media hate. At the time, I thought that sports writers were secretly jealous, bitter old men who knew they weren’t good enough to play the game they cover, but were forced to be around those that could. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/62 "2009-12-08T04:37:16Z")
I think Bo Jackson was the first one to refer to himself in the third person. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/63 "2009-12-08T05:33:39Z")
Doesn’t have anything to do with god, but on the subject of sports journalism, David Foster Wallace wrote a beautiful piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer about athletes and cliches. It’s in one of his books as “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart.” It’s about how frustrating and disappointing athletes’ biographies are because they seem to be devoid of any actual human emotions. He suggested that the reason that athletes give such facially bankrupt and mundane descriptions of their feelings, like for instance in response to questions posed by reporters, isn’t that they’re especially inarticulate or stupid but that those are the real answers: > [@](#): > > How can great athletes shut off the Iago-like voice of the self? How can they bypass the head and simply and superbly act? How, at the critical moment, can they invoke for themselves a cliché as trite as ‘One ball at a time’ or ‘Gotta concentrate here,’ and mean it and then do it? Maybe it’s because, for top athletes, clichés present themselves not as trite but simply as true, or perhaps not even as declarative expressions with qualities like depth or triteness or falsehood or truth but as simple imperatives that are either useful or not and, if useful, to be invoked and that’s all there is to it. So maybe when Kurt Warner talks about winning in terms of being blessed, he’s just answering the question to the extent that he understands the question to have an answer. In the same way that it would be a waste of time to ask most athletes, No, but how do you _really_ feel after winning the championship? maybe it’s a waste of time to press an athlete over his thanking god for a victory, because that’s all there is to it. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/64 "2009-12-08T06:42:09Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > He suggested that the reason that athletes give such facially bankrupt and mundane descriptions of their feelings, like for instance in response to questions posed by reporters, isn’t that they’re especially inarticulate or stupid but that those are the real answers: Hmm, maybe you’re on to something there. In interview after interview after book after book, the greatest athletes are unable to describe how they do what they do. One that comes to mind is Ladanian Tomlinson being asked how he cuts off his back foot, and he is always unable to come up with an answer…he does it because that’s what he does. Maybe crediting God is just a better way of saying “I don’t know.” ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/65 "2009-12-08T10:11:44Z")
**Gibbler** , if you make me agree with Diogenes then you have to know that you are profoundly wrong and/or cats and dogs living together, etc. I can’t even figure out quite what your argument is. Are you asking him to support the idea that an athlete thanking God for helping him to win is effectively proclaiming the use of magical, external forces? If so, why is this something he needs to defend? If God intervenes in the world, it’s inherently supernatural, hence “magic”. If the athlete is crediting God’s intervention for the win, then he’s saying something supernatural happened to influence the outcome of the game. From that point on, you hammer Dio for having a double standard for not being able to provide a “cite” for that, something that’s obvious. You seem to be trying to pound some point home that’s either obviously wrong or so obscure I can’t figure it out. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/66 "2009-12-08T14:16:10Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > What I think would be funny is after Kurt Warner praises God for assisting with the winning touchdown, the reporter then goes to Brian Urlacher and says, “Brian, Kurt Warner says God made you lose the game; your comments?” Andre Agassi deals with this in his autobiography. He writes about a match he lost to Michael Chang and how irritated he was that Chang credited the victory to God. He said it was absurd that God would get involved in a tennis match and was annoyed at the idea that God wanted him to lose. For the rest of the book, whenever he plays Chang and wins, he throws in a dig at Chang’s piety. As background, Agassi’s no atheist, but Chang is very Christan and very public about it. It makes you wonder how many other athletes are annoyed by this behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/67 "2009-12-08T15:32:46Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > **Gibbler** , if you make me agree with Diogenes then you have to know that you are profoundly wrong and/or cats and dogs living together, etc. > > I can’t even figure out quite what your argument is. Are you asking him to support the idea that an athlete thanking God for helping him to win is effectively proclaiming the use of magical, external forces? If so, why is this something he needs to defend? If God intervenes in the world, it’s inherently supernatural, hence “magic”. If the athlete is crediting God’s intervention for the win, then he’s saying something supernatural happened to influence the outcome of the game. > > From that point on, you hammer Dio for having a double standard for not being able to provide a “cite” for that, something that’s obvious. You seem to be trying to pound some point home that’s either obviously wrong or so obscure I can’t figure it out. Jesus Christ, are people (impersonally, of course) retarded? Here’s **Dio** ’s argument, in a nutshell: I think God is horseshit. When athletes say that God, a incorporeal thing that I don’t believe in anyway, intervened in the physical world to affect the outcome of a sporting match, I want an explanation as to how this amazing thing happened. I am turning that blade on **Dio**. I think Dio’s account of “fairness” is horseshit. Or at least not very compelling as a fiat statement (which, when you think about it, is one of the atheist’s main problems with statements about God—what incredible irony!). So I asked **Dio** to do what **Dio** demands of all theistic believers–talk is cheap, I want a clear account of how this fairness or propriety (both of which, let’s not kid ourselves, have been grist for the philosophic mill since Socrates, so let’s not be fatuous and say things like “You could look it up in the dictionary”) works and requires the outcome you say it requires when athletes talk about God. **Dio** can’t provide this, and that’s not his fault. Fairness and propriety are tough philosophical nuts to crack. But according to **Dio** ’s rules (and a lot of the other militant atheists in these parts), you shouldn’t be able to say anything unless you _can_ provide such an account. Now, this would shut **Dio** up if he played by his own rules…so… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/68 "2009-12-08T15:48:10Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > _I_ blame Satan. I blame Saban. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/69 "2009-12-08T16:09:58Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > I am turning that blade on **Dio** No, you’re not. You’re being extremely pedantic and petty by insisting on a strained definition of fair, and demanding a cite for what is essentially an opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/70 "2009-12-08T16:14:56Z")
As a journalist would be if he asked the OP’s “how do you know God helped?” question. I totally agree that it is stupid that athletes thank God for their victories, especially considering that they don’t blame him for losses. However, it is even stupider for the public to expect athletes to say anything clever or insightful or even not cliched in a postgame interview. This goes triple for boxers. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/71 "2009-12-08T16:25:17Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > No, you’re not. You’re being extremely pedantic and petty by insisting on a strained definition of fair I’m not insisting on a strained definition of fair. I am asking for **Dio** ’s explanation why it is “only fair” to expect athlete’s to explain how God affected the outcome of the game. I could just as easily say: It is wrong to make people rationalize their experiences of the Divine. Far from being “only fair,” it would be wrong and embarrassing for a sports journalist pedantically to ask an athlete how, precisely, God affected the game and why God favored one team over the other. > [@](#): > > and demanding a cite for what is essentially an opinion. Did you forget what **The Cleveland Steamer** and **Dio** have demanded in this thread? Or are you just irony-impaired? ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/72 "2009-12-08T16:46:31Z")
Please remember that we are required to make arguments without insults. Confine your remarks to the task at hand, please. I’m not issuing any warnings, but you’re getting close, **Kimmy\_Gibbler**. **Ellen Cherry Game Room Moderator** ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/73 "2009-12-08T16:56:03Z")
> [@The\_Cleveland\_Steamer](#): > > You never see a sports journalist question a player that claims God was with him. > > How about this follow-up: > You just claimed that God deserves all the praise and that he was with you, what evidence do you have to support this claim or even that God exists? Do sports journalists typically question _any_ claims that players make? Is it really “their job” to cross-examine the players? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/74 "2009-12-08T16:56:41Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > I’m not insisting on a strained definition of fair. I am asking for **Dio** ’s explanation why it is “only fair” to expect athlete’s to explain how God affected the outcome of the game. Already answered, but it’s still asking a cite for an opinion. > [@](#): > > I could just as easily say: It is wrong to make people rationalize their experiences of the Divine. No one in this thread has done that. > [@](#): > > Did you forget what **The Cleveland Steamer** and **Dio** have demanded in this thread? Or are you just irony-impaired? I haven’t demanded anything. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/75 "2009-12-08T18:16:04Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Jesus Christ, are people (impersonally, of course) retarded? Oh, right, very impersonally. > [@](#): > > I am turning that blade on **Dio**. I think Dio’s account of “fairness” is horseshit. Or at least not very compelling as a fiat statement (which, when you think about it, is one of the atheist’s main problems with statements about God—what incredible irony!). So I asked **Dio** to do what **Dio** demands of all theistic believers–talk is cheap, I want a clear account of how this fairness or propriety (both of which, let’s not kid ourselves, have been grist for the philosophic mill since Socrates, so let’s not be fatuous and say things like “You could look it up in the dictionary”) works and requires the outcome you say it requires when athletes talk about God. You keep throwing around fairness as a quote word, and I’m not even sure what you’re referring to. He never used the term. He’s also not applying some standard to the athlete in question that he doesn’t apply to himself. The athlete made a positive claim - that God intervened in the game to help him win - and so he’s asking him to clarify that belief - how did that happen, why did god favor you, etc. You seem to be saying that unless Dio can ask himself the same question, he’s being unfair to the guy. But Dio is not making positive declarations of things that require proof or at least explanation - he is posing the question to someone else who made such claims. > [@](#): > > **Dio** can’t provide this, and that’s not his fault. Fairness and propriety are tough philosophical nuts to crack. But according to **Dio** ’s rules (and a lot of the other militant atheists in these parts), you shouldn’t be able to say anything unless you _can_ provide such an account. Now, this would shut **Dio** up if he played by his own rules…so… In order for Dio to ask someone to explain their belief that God intervened to win them a football game, he must be able to provide an answer to that question himself? Is that what you’re saying? I don’t think I’m retarded - I think you’re off in your own little world arguing points with obscure assumptions that you haven’t shared with us. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/76 "2009-12-08T18:24:32Z")
Maybe I can help everyone out here, just so nobody gets banned over the eleventh most ridiculous argument to ever grace these boards full of ridiculous arguments. **Diogenes** : > [@](#): > > Hey, if the athletes are going to go around saying that magical, external forces affected the game, then it’s only fair to ask them for more details. **Kimmy** then asked for a cite for the above. The point being that he wanted **Diogenes** to show his work regarding how he knows it’s “only fair.” Which, you see, parallels the OP’s call for a reporter to ask an athlete to show his work regarding how he knows god was “on his side.” **Kimmy** is saying that fairness is as ethereal and subjective as religion, when you get right down to it, so a call for objective data with respect to the former is justified by the same reasoning that justifies it in the latter case. You see? Athlete says “god is real,” reporter says “what’s your evidence?” **Diogenes** approves, and says “that is fair.” **Kimmy** says “what’s your evidence?” ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/77 "2009-12-08T18:28:26Z")
Aha. Thanks. I understand now. I think it’s a silly and pedantic argument, but at least I know where it’s coming from. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/78 "2009-12-08T18:34:42Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > **Kimmy** is saying that fairness is as ethereal and subjective as religion, when you get right down to it, so a call for objective data with respect to the former is justified by the same reasoning that justifies it in the latter case. That’s where he fails. Fairness is not some elevated concept that baffles philosophers all over the world. A five year old kid knows what’s fair. People can generally agree what’s fair. Additionally, \*\*Dio \*\*was simply stating an opinion. If an athlete said he won because he employed the Gibbler Method, is it unfair to ask him what that is and how it works? If he won because of the Chitwood Diet, is asking about that unfair? If he says it’s the Contra shoes, is asking what they do unfair? Why is asking how God made him win unfair? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/79 "2009-12-08T18:44:53Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > Maybe I can help everyone out here, just so nobody gets banned over the eleventh most ridiculous argument to ever grace these boards full of ridiculous arguments. > > **Diogenes** : > > **Kimmy** then asked for a cite for the above. The point being that he wanted **Diogenes** to show his work regarding how he knows it’s “only fair.” Which, you see, parallels the OP’s call for a reporter to ask an athlete to show his work regarding how he knows god was “on his side.” **Kimmy** is saying that fairness is as ethereal and subjective as religion, when you get right down to it, so a call for objective data with respect to the former is justified by the same reasoning that justifies it in the latter case. > > You see? Athlete says “god is real,” reporter says “what’s your evidence?” > **Diogenes** approves, and says “that is fair.” **Kimmy** says “what’s your evidence?” This is still retarded because I wasn’t saying the athlete should be asked to provide evidence that God is real, but only that he should be asked how he thinks God affected the game. It’s also false to say that the word “fair” is ethereal or undefinable. No it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199/80 "2009-12-08T18:49:22Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It’s also false to say that the word “fair” is ethereal or undefinable. No it isn’t. “That seems fair” is a very common phrase. I don’t think anyone would be perplexed upon hearing it. Imagine this conversation : \*“How about you wash the dishes and I’ll clean the kitchen? Does that seem fair.” “I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. How can anyone say what’s fair?”\* How likely is that to take place? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-journalists-dont-do-their-job-regarding-god/520199.md?page=5)