Speaking of Being Overbowled…

…this turkey is getting really tired of listening to the same abominable catch phrases in the commentary of every bowl game. You could say I’m bowled over by the atrocities.

Overbowled? Bowled over? Eh? I digress whimsically.

The number one nominalization of an adjective for the fifth year running is athleticism. While I realize that abilities differ among players, is it really fair for announcers to deem one possessing of athleticism (whatever the hell that is) and another not, directly or by implication? I’ve really had enough of the athleticalistic crapola. Not coincidentally, the ex-players in the announcing booth are the worst offenders, usually preceding athleticism with the adjective sheer. One would think that having experienced just about anything that might happen on a football field would give them grounding in a diversity of subjects they could recall as needed during the game for which they’re charged with providing color commentary (i.e., dead air time filler material). Instead, we get sheer athleticism. Over and over again, already.

Sheer athleticism. What a concept! See-through draperies are called sheer. So, this guy is such an athlete that you can see right through him? Oy! Or maybe they’re saying shear. They can’t catch him to dip him and shear him, so he must be athleticosmolistic. A sheep among sheep. In spite of the homonym confusion between sheer and shear, it is fairly clear to this turkey that in announcers’ small minds athleticism is not to be used without its favorite modifier. It is a de facto compound word because of de fact dat dese schmucks talk funny.

May they all have an athletigasm watching their favorite athleticisticos.

And why is it always a little shovel pass? The shovel pass is sometimes called a shuffle pass by announcers who were partially deaf during their childhood football watching days when the concept of the shovel pass originated. They heard it wrong and they have been using it incorrectly ever since. Wouldn’t you just love to see a big shovel pass someday?

Misdirection also seems naked without the overused and superfluous modifier little. “Georgia used a little misdirection on that play, which went for big yardage.” (Who is Georgia, and why the hell is she so misdirected?)

Of course, whenever there’s a fight on the field, announcers must cannily call it a little extracurricular activity. Never mind that college football is itself an extracurricular activity, albeit not a little one. Do these guys get paid by the syllable? What the hell is wrong with saying “a fight”? Is there a rule book somewhere that prescribes this lingua franca of football as mandatory for hack announcers? Damnit, I need to get a copy, if anyone has a spare.

Book-burning evokes foul memories of nefarious activities sanctioned by tyrannical dictators, but this is one book that really does need to be burned!

Brian Griese, of great quarterbacking lineage — which didn’t seem to pan out all that well in his case — as well as dubious sports announcing lineage (his daddy famously committed an ethnic slur about a NASCAR driver during a football broadcast), won the Nittany Turkey Vacuous Announcing Award for tonight’s color commentary during the Baylor-UCLA game, which Baylor dominated. “Baylor is certainly making a statement here,” he said. No, Brian, Baylor is kicking ass. Making a statement is what you get paid to do in the damn broadcasting booth. Alas, too many of your little statements are nothing but sheer athleticism. And that goes for most sports announcers these days.

Hell, during the San Jose State vs Bowling Green game, my home theater receiver hiccupped, killing the audio channel that carries the announcers’ voices. I know how to fix this when it happens — just switch the source to something else and switch it back — so I did. I shouldn’t have. It was very peaceful watching the game for a while with just the crowd noise instead of the constant, insipid babbling from the booth. Perhaps I’ll just disable the damn center front channel from now on.

I sure as hell miss Howard Cosell’s bombast. It was original. He was one of a kind. But he’s been dead for 17 years and who has stepped into his mighty bluchers? No one, alas. But that’s another story for another post.