Lincoln Riley, Steve Spurrier, Michael Jordan and the fine art of trash talk
[This is part of Yahoo Sports’ morning newsletter, Read and React. To get the best sports news and commentary delivered to your inbox every weekday morning, go here to subscribe.]
Coaches and athletes know how valuable motivation can be. They know the proverbial bulletin-board quote can juice up an underdog, can overturn a favorite. So most times, they avoid giving their opponents any extra edge, and in the process either burble up mayonnaise-on-white-bread quotes, or vault to the far opposite extreme.
Lou Holtz used to praise Notre Dame's opponents so highly you'd think those cupcakes were a match for the Avengers. Nick Saban still runs down his own Alabama teams so badly you wondered if they'll be smart enough to find the field, or healthy enough to walk on it when they get there.
That's why it was so much fun to hear Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley throw off any nervous-coach instincts Thursday and give the rest of the Big 12 a motivation cast in iron. When asked which of his opponents he loses sleep over, Riley replied:
“Every now and then you get asked these questions. In your mind, you go politically correct or tell the truth. So, the truth is: none of 'em.”
Yessss. That's the stuff.
The knockout blow
The best trash talk, like the best punches, doesn't start or continue fights: it ends them. Trash talk artistes like Michael Jordan and Steve Spurrier didn't need to layer verbal jabbing on top of their fearsome attacks; they did it just for fun. Larry Bird took delight in telling you exactly how he'd beat you, then go right out and do it.
Consider some of the great trash-talk lines of all time:
• "The Mailman doesn't deliver on Sunday." - Scottie Pippen to Karl Malone just before Malone was to shoot crucial free throws in Game 1 of the 1997 NBA Finals. Malone missed both.
• "Kentucky has a heck of a punter, I know that." -Spurrier after his South Carolina Gamecocks demolished Kentucky 54-3 in 2011.
• "There’s no one that can match me. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I’m just ferocious. I want your heart, I want to eat his children.” -Mike Tyson in 2000 after a 38-second knockout, in a challenge issued to Lennox Lewis. (OK, this one didn't work out. Lewis didn't have children at the time, and he knocked out Tyson when they did meet two years later. Still: scary as hell.)
A dying art?
Another good element of Riley's line? It proves trash talk isn't dead in the social-media-gotcha, we're-all-friends era. You drop a killer line, you walk away from it like an action-movie hero from an explosion, and you don't worry about how many people are snitch-tagging your target on Twitter.
There's nothing finer than finding your opponent's weak spot, getting inside their skull, setting up camp ... and then burning the whole thing down. Let's never ever lose that in sports, please.
(Got a favorite trash-talk line? Hit us up at readandreactnewsletter@yahoo.com and let us know.)
[This is part of Yahoo Sports’ morning newsletter, Read and React. To get the best sports news and commentary delivered to your inbox every weekday morning, go here to subscribe.]
____
Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
