With Mike Tyson staging a blatant “I need money so I’m going to pretend to resume my career to take people’s cash” comeback last weekend, it got me thinking. I happened to be watching the press conference a couple days before the match in which the two sides took the opportunity to talk themselves up and get the media to preview the fight. Tyson came off as an idiot, threatening Kevin McBride’s promoter that his extensive bragging would get his fighter killed.
But actually it was anything but an idiotic move; it wound up getting the fight extra press and anticipation from almost every media outlet. Whether Tyson really knows what he is doing when he says these things is debatable, but over the years he has made himself more than just a former champion, but a boxing legend. All by being a crazy person. However, Tyson is by no means alone in this practice. Really, like it or not, it is all the rage these days. The sad thing is most of the country or at least the tabloid press falls for and goes along with it.
At this point celebrities doing unusual things (well, in Tyson’s case unusual is usual for him – he lost all credibility when he thought biting off someone’s ear was a good idea) are garnering press all over the place. Just look at the “relationship” between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, right before they release new movies; Russell Crowe throwing a phone at somebody as “Cinderella Man” hits theatres (in his and Tyson’s situation, I think their agents just told them to stop taking their happy pills for a day); and, of course, Janet Jackson’s nipple “slip” at the Super Bowl, right before she released a new album. You’d be naive to think all of these are coincidences. Who knows which ones are or aren’t, but I believe agents are realizing the truth in the old adage “no press is bad press” and that odd stunts get ink. I mean, look at me, I’m spilling over two-thousand words on this thing.
A lot of people might think these crazy people are bad for sports, music and movies. I couldn’t disagree more. I feel like it’s these wild, larger-than-life figures that help to make the game, the industry and Hollywood that much more transcendental. Everyone likes a freak show. Don’t tell me traffic slows to a standstill when there is an accident because one lane closes down for 50 feet. Yeah, it bottlenecks but it’s the people craning their necks and gawking at the damage that takes the longest. I do it too, if I’m waiting that long to get by something I’m at least going to get a good look at it.
So I was thinking, without Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, would this country have cared about boxing as much as it has all these years? There’s no doubt it would still exist, people like to see others messed up, remember? But those two have made boxing significant and infused it with charisma and intrigue. What I was wondering is why doesn’t every sport have a player like Mike Tyson? Then I realized that all the successful ones do. Pretty much every sport has what I like to call a “Tysonality” that keeps the media going and sells tickets. So, to move on from this incredibly long introduction, here is my list of “All-Star Whack Jobs,” presented in no particular order:
Basketball: Ron Artest
At first, I immediately thought Dennis Rodman for this one, but Rodman was never suspended by his own team because he wanted to promote an album he produced. A few years ago, Artest had the image of a scrappy young player who played solid defense. Within the last year alone, he has almost surpassed Tyson in craziness with the infamous bench-clearing brawl he began in Detroit – and not with the other team but with the fans. Seriously, any game he plays in from now on will require security guards equipped with cattle prods and tear gas to keep everyone in line. He also edges Rodman out in that he is more purely just mad rather than weird. I could make a whole other list of the “Rodmantality” in some athletes such as Ricky Williams. The only issue with Artest is I’m not sure he helps the game but he definitely gets it press and aside from the awful product the Finals is putting forth right now, the NBA is as big as it has been since Jordan (and Rodman) was around.
Honorable Mentions: Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Latrell Spreewell
Tennis: John McEnroe
There’s no question about this one. This guy was like me when I play video games or watch the Celtics: “Are you serious?!?! Mother-” (throws something across the room, Russell Crowe style). He is such a personality that he has a talk show now. How many athletes can claim that? You could say Magic Johnson could claim it, but he probably blocked it out of his memory. Most of his games were before my time, but my favorite McEnroe moment is the legendary, “You cannot be serious! That ball was on the line, chalk flew up!” And then later on to the line judge, “You are the pits of the world! Vultures! Trash!” Man, what a guy.
Honorable Mention: Anna Kournikova, not because she’s crazy but because she makes guys crazy.
Poker: Phil Helmuth
I think just about everyone hates this guy. If you’ve never watched World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel or any World Series of Poker events or anything poker and don’t know who this guy is, you probably still hate him. I like to watch him lose. There’s nothing I love more than watching a pot where he is like 85 percent to win and his opponent sucks out on him. He’s like a robot who can’t comprehend luck, or lack thereof. He seriously once said, “If it wasn’t for luck, I’d win every event I play in.” Just think about that for a second. If it wasn’t for luck, I’d win every event I play in. He is probably the biggest sore loser on the face of the earth. In fact he is such a sore loser, he’s a leprosy loser. OK, bad joke but he’s a crazy man, and good for poker in the process.
Honorable Mention: Phil “The Unibomber” Laak
Baseball: Bill “Spaceman” Lee
Bill Lee was a Yankee hater before they ever made those lame hats. He hated the Yankees in the best spirit of a competitive rival. He started fights, but you still had to love him for it. He single-handedly made the number 37 one of my favorite numbers when I saw a biography about him. I sincerely wish he played in my lifetime, I would have been his biggest fan. He has so many awesome quotes that he’s said to various reporters, I can’t even list them all but I’ll put a few of my favorites:
“There is nothing in the world like the fatalism of the Red Sox fans, which has been bred into them for generations by that little green ballpark, and the wall, and by a team that keeps trying to win by hitting everything out of sight and just out-bombarding everyone else in the league. All this makes Boston fans a little crazy and I’m sorry for them.”
“The other day they asked me about mandatory drug testing. I said I believed in drug testing a long time ago. All through the sixties I tested everything.”
“Hell, if KY Jelly went off the market, the whole California Angels pitching staff would be out of baseball.”
“People are too hung up on winning. I can get off on a really good helmet-throw.”
“I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won’t matter if I get this guy out.”
And the one that qualifies him as a true Tysonality, “If it had been me out there, I’d have bitten his ear off. I’d have Van Gogh’ed him.”
He even called Pedro-charger Don Zimmer the “designated gerbil” once. This man is my hero.
Honorable Mentions: John Rocker, Carl Everett, Barry Bonds
Football: Terrell Owens
T.O. has done some pretty amusing commercials. Everyone in Philly was in love with him not too long ago, and now they all hate him. I’ll admit, he’s said some pretty stupid things over the past year (implying McNabb became tired during the Super Bowl and the loss was on his shoulders) and I have no idea why he thinks he deserves a new contract after just signing a $49 million one last season. He was injured for a big part of the season… what other player would do that? But the putting a marker in the sock to autograph a touchdown ball is pretty cold-blooded, and there’s no arguing he knows how to market himself as a larger-than-life star. Maybe he had been healthy a week before the big game and he just was planning it so that he would come back from injury in a Curt Schilling-esque way to win a championship, but either way his performance in the Super Bowl was no less than amazing. Most teams would be better with him than without. He’s a great player and he’s very marketable – cancer in the locker room or not.
Honorable Mention: Deion Sanders
College Athletics: Bobby Knight
Bobby Knight totally dissed my craft once, saying, “Everyone learns to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.” It’s a very narrow view, to be sure. But the fact is he’s a Tysonality through and through and he’s been a favorite of the media in his own way for years. But what we’re really talking about is the old Bobby Knight from Indiana. He’s really calmed down since moving on to Texas Tech. Sometimes I wonder if he was misinterpreted while at Indiana. Maybe a few choice incidents taken out of context took things to another level, because he has backed up the previous quote with a reputation of greatness as a college coach. Not only has he produced NBA players, but he has maintained good academics and focused on more than just basketball. And he’s also made one of the better sports quotes I’ve heard: “Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.”
Honorable Mentions: Chris Hovan (I couldn’t think of anything good, but in my defense he painted his entire face before every game at BC), Liam Ezekial (rumors say he would bite himself before games to feel pain)
Golf: Happy Gilmore
All jokes aside and acknowledging that the plot of “Happy Gilmore” is pretty ridiculous, I still actually find the front office people of the PGA’s reaction to Happy in the movie to be believable. A filthy-mouthed maniac would be great for golf. Ratings would skyrocket. Right now, I never watch golf except for highlights of holes-in-one. I know my column name is a golf pun combined with the first letter of my name (and I mean it in the figurative sense of the term anyway), but seriously, other than this you won’t see much additional mentioning of anything golf-related in this column. Except, however, if a Happy Gilmore came along. I would start to watch PGA tour events he participated in religiously and you can bet you’d be hearing about him (or her – that would be even more interesting) in this column pretty soon after an emergence.
Honorable Mention: Rory Sabbatini
Hockey: Nobody
I’m going to go ahead and attribute the fact that there are very few hockey players with a discernible personality as part of the reason that not only does the NHL not even exist anymore, but no one even really cares that it doesn’t. Sure, the NHL had its share of Jordan-like players such as Gretzky and Carlton Fisk-type moments like Bobby Orr’s game-winning shot and subsequent dive straight into the air, but what the NHL really needs is a crazy person. It needs someone with a Tysonality who will just check people all over the place and threaten to eat their children. I’m not even kidding. It would be fantastic for the league. It’s sad – but that’s what people really want when they watch hockey – a good fight. Just like how NASCAR fans (not a sport and also no personality beyond southern drawls, so it doesn’t get a category) just go to see a car crash. I’ve heard hockey is also planning on making the nets wider, I think that is a fantastic idea. I’m totally off on a tangent at this point but they should also make personalized rinks for every team with their own dimensions and shapes. That would be so cool. Imagine the other team missing a shot left every time because the net was moved six inches to the right just to mess everyone up.
Honorable Mention: P.J. Stock
Now, take a look at the sports that have one of these Tysonalities and take a look at the one’s that don’t. Soccer, hockey and golf get no real respect as spectator sports at the professional level. Maybe it’s a reverse correlation and players within these sports would have more opportunity to be big if their sport was big, but I think it’s a little bit of both. It’s somewhat of a Catch-22 where what these sports need to get big is to have a larger-than-life player, but for a player to achieve that status they need to be competing in a popular sport that people care about. I’m a believer that these lesser sports can make it happen, everything’s got to start somewhere. Who knows, it wasn’t long ago that football was invented, so 25 years from now I might be writing about a superstar lacrosse player or a sport that doesn’t even exist right now. But that’s more likely to happen if that sport has a Tysonality.
— Tim Coughlin can be reached at [email protected]
