This Week’s Topics: On Tebow, Tension, And Talking
August 21, 2021 at 4:16 a.m.
This Week’s Topics: On Tebow, Tension, And Talking
By Chip Davenport-
The affable Evangelical quarterback was afforded a shot at tight end in this version of his multiple comebacks. It did not surprise me he was ineffective. NFL teams start out with 90 players invited to training camp, and I still wonder why Jackson-ville filled a training camp slot with a slower athlete in an era where tight ends bring wide receiver speed to the table.
The Jacksonville area is his home crowd, and the franchise and Meyer were part of the publicity stunt. He signed an endorsement deal with Clear Juice on July 21, and I felt his brief, and predictably unsuccessful tryout with the Jaguars just reawakened the opinion I had about him ever since he was drafted.
He’s a shameless self-promoter.
National sports talk radio host, Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd, agreed with me years ago when he read my e-mail (back when he would share them on the air at ESPN Radio) including the following sentence:
“Tim Tebow is the NFL’s and the Evangelical’s (Anna) Kournikova….”
Kournikova was another affable, attractive athlete who never even flirted anywhere close to greatness, but through great management, and her willingness to be a shameless self-promoter, she snagged some serious cabbage with endorsements, and a paparazzi following.
I could not take Tebow seriously as an NFL tight end, so I cynically fell back on my, you guessed it, utterance under my breath of “shameless self-promoter.” He didn’t stand a chance staving off edge rushers and other huge, violent defensive lineman in last Saturday’s preseason game. Take note: many of those guys are going to be on practice squads, or they’ll be interviewing among the rest of us in the business grind. Most of Tebow’s combatants in the front seven of an opposing team are going to be faster and stronger than he.
I hope he’s finished in the NFL, and his continued turning up like a bad penny (who deserves credit for being a good guy) is no more.
The Shield moves on, and so does its 32 training camps. I’ve watched a handful of NFL exhibition games, and I’ve seen tranches of NFL intrasquad scrimmages this month. I want the NFL to consider a way to package and televise the latter.
*****
Aside from the one- or two-quarter dress rehearsal game in pre-season fans get to see there is no better environment than the clash of multi-millionaire alpha dogs inviting guest teams to their training camp, and the urgency and intensity accompanying those scrimmage battles where you get to see the “ones”, the starters.
HBO’s Hard Knocks provides a glimpse of these intrasquad scrimmages each season. While fights brewing, and trash-talk are things The Shield does not want in its regular season action, I believe these escalations to confrontations with real opponents, not teammates, is more watchable than the preseason games.
*****
I have guilty pleasures: Quisp cereal, Ovaltine on my chocolate ice cream, an occasional episode of Rick and Morty, and some alpha-dog escalation of preseason intrasquad scrimmages.
That list is not all-inclusive. I also like hearing myself talk.
I can hear the sarcastic “noooo, no way, noooo” among readers and friends at this very moment.
It’s like the scene where John Candy, in the role of Dewey Oxburger in the 1981 (40 years?) movie Stripes, said, “If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a bit of a weight problem.”
I’ve been a public address announcer for a handful of Warsaw’s varsity and sub-varsity athletic teams the last seven seasons, I’m entering this season, however, with an unmatched level of excitement because I made my debut as the Warsaw Tiger varsity football PA announcer.
This is a big deal, because listening to Ron Henry over the years while I’ve watched Tiger football, he gave me a very practical “lab” in sportsmanship, appropriate spirit, and the understanding of the primary role of a PA announcer: convey essential information of a game’s results to the crowd.
It’s not my first varsity gig. You’ve heard me on the softball diamond, at a wrestling match in the Tiger Den (including the conference championship tournament) from the press box above the track and field oval when needed, and at boys’ and girls’ soccer matches.
These other non-football sports have a little more leeway in certain parts of their event, mostly player and match introductions, where you can take some liberties in energy, volume, and vocally exaggerating certain vowels and consonants in an athlete’s first and last name. Even Ron Henry puts flair in his basketball line-up introductions.
Football, however, is different.
The amount of time I must announce play results to the crowd tends to be at least 115 times per game (but who’s counting). It’s very easy to try to be entertaining based on what is presented at the NFL level on TV, but it’s also very easy to become annoying. My first thought is hearing “RRRRRRockies first doooown” at the Rock Pile in… that town over to the west of us. Dare I say the P word and break homage to the oldest on-going Indiana high school football rivalry?
I shall strive to be “felt, not heard”, and to not be bigger than the event, nor to be bigger than its participants.
The first week of my favorite athletic season of the scholastic sports yea, football, is in the books.
Chip Davenport is a freelance sports reporter and columnist for the Times-Union. Opinions expressed are his and do not necessarily reflect those of the company.
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The affable Evangelical quarterback was afforded a shot at tight end in this version of his multiple comebacks. It did not surprise me he was ineffective. NFL teams start out with 90 players invited to training camp, and I still wonder why Jackson-ville filled a training camp slot with a slower athlete in an era where tight ends bring wide receiver speed to the table.
The Jacksonville area is his home crowd, and the franchise and Meyer were part of the publicity stunt. He signed an endorsement deal with Clear Juice on July 21, and I felt his brief, and predictably unsuccessful tryout with the Jaguars just reawakened the opinion I had about him ever since he was drafted.
He’s a shameless self-promoter.
National sports talk radio host, Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd, agreed with me years ago when he read my e-mail (back when he would share them on the air at ESPN Radio) including the following sentence:
“Tim Tebow is the NFL’s and the Evangelical’s (Anna) Kournikova….”
Kournikova was another affable, attractive athlete who never even flirted anywhere close to greatness, but through great management, and her willingness to be a shameless self-promoter, she snagged some serious cabbage with endorsements, and a paparazzi following.
I could not take Tebow seriously as an NFL tight end, so I cynically fell back on my, you guessed it, utterance under my breath of “shameless self-promoter.” He didn’t stand a chance staving off edge rushers and other huge, violent defensive lineman in last Saturday’s preseason game. Take note: many of those guys are going to be on practice squads, or they’ll be interviewing among the rest of us in the business grind. Most of Tebow’s combatants in the front seven of an opposing team are going to be faster and stronger than he.
I hope he’s finished in the NFL, and his continued turning up like a bad penny (who deserves credit for being a good guy) is no more.
The Shield moves on, and so does its 32 training camps. I’ve watched a handful of NFL exhibition games, and I’ve seen tranches of NFL intrasquad scrimmages this month. I want the NFL to consider a way to package and televise the latter.
*****
Aside from the one- or two-quarter dress rehearsal game in pre-season fans get to see there is no better environment than the clash of multi-millionaire alpha dogs inviting guest teams to their training camp, and the urgency and intensity accompanying those scrimmage battles where you get to see the “ones”, the starters.
HBO’s Hard Knocks provides a glimpse of these intrasquad scrimmages each season. While fights brewing, and trash-talk are things The Shield does not want in its regular season action, I believe these escalations to confrontations with real opponents, not teammates, is more watchable than the preseason games.
*****
I have guilty pleasures: Quisp cereal, Ovaltine on my chocolate ice cream, an occasional episode of Rick and Morty, and some alpha-dog escalation of preseason intrasquad scrimmages.
That list is not all-inclusive. I also like hearing myself talk.
I can hear the sarcastic “noooo, no way, noooo” among readers and friends at this very moment.
It’s like the scene where John Candy, in the role of Dewey Oxburger in the 1981 (40 years?) movie Stripes, said, “If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a bit of a weight problem.”
I’ve been a public address announcer for a handful of Warsaw’s varsity and sub-varsity athletic teams the last seven seasons, I’m entering this season, however, with an unmatched level of excitement because I made my debut as the Warsaw Tiger varsity football PA announcer.
This is a big deal, because listening to Ron Henry over the years while I’ve watched Tiger football, he gave me a very practical “lab” in sportsmanship, appropriate spirit, and the understanding of the primary role of a PA announcer: convey essential information of a game’s results to the crowd.
It’s not my first varsity gig. You’ve heard me on the softball diamond, at a wrestling match in the Tiger Den (including the conference championship tournament) from the press box above the track and field oval when needed, and at boys’ and girls’ soccer matches.
These other non-football sports have a little more leeway in certain parts of their event, mostly player and match introductions, where you can take some liberties in energy, volume, and vocally exaggerating certain vowels and consonants in an athlete’s first and last name. Even Ron Henry puts flair in his basketball line-up introductions.
Football, however, is different.
The amount of time I must announce play results to the crowd tends to be at least 115 times per game (but who’s counting). It’s very easy to try to be entertaining based on what is presented at the NFL level on TV, but it’s also very easy to become annoying. My first thought is hearing “RRRRRRockies first doooown” at the Rock Pile in… that town over to the west of us. Dare I say the P word and break homage to the oldest on-going Indiana high school football rivalry?
I shall strive to be “felt, not heard”, and to not be bigger than the event, nor to be bigger than its participants.
The first week of my favorite athletic season of the scholastic sports yea, football, is in the books.
Chip Davenport is a freelance sports reporter and columnist for the Times-Union. Opinions expressed are his and do not necessarily reflect those of the company.
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