The storied head football coaching history of the University of Notre Dame is replete with legendary names such as Knute and Ara. More recently, the monikers of Fighting Irish coaches — as well as their won/lost records — have come down to earth, with a Tyrone and a Charlie taking the past two turns at the helm. Now, after yet another mediocre season, the New York Daily News reports that Charlie Weis is gone.
It won’t be significant longer than yesterday!
I wish to relegate yet another hackneyed sportswriter cliche to the literary garbage can to accompany “it is what it is” and “controls one’s own destiny” in that abominable collection of shoddily written detritus. Today’s trite construct is:
“If [such and such happens/doesn’t happen], it’s going to be a very long day.”
Writers of such trash need to go back to school — not only to learn how to write, but also to close the scientific knowledge game caused by them sleeping through fifth grade science class. No matter what the Nittany Lions do today, unless the Mayans are correct, Saturday will be approximately as long as any other day. There are minute variations based on many esoteric astrophysical parameters, but how Penn State’s offense performs is not one of them.
Next on the list, two gems: “at the end of the day” and “the [insert famous athlete name here]s of the world”, not to mention using the present tense to describe future activities.
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Iowa Controls Its Own Destiny
This isn’t about Iowa. This isn’t about the Big Ten championship. This isn’t about the Rose Bowl.
This is about the stupid-ass sportswriter’s cliche I used in the headline above.
The hackneyed piece of garbage has become so commonplace that it gets by editors who should know better. That, of course, is not much of a surprise. These days, too few writers can write and too few editors can edit. Neither seem to give half a rat’s ass about the quality of writing out there.
When was the last time you read a sports article that was well written and engaging — one that didn’t read like the spew that comes out of Jim Rome’s mouth? But I digress.
No one — no one — controls his own destiny. I’ve said it, so it must be true.
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