|
Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Celebrating history’s
best trash talking
Call the toss there, British. British called "heads." It's tails. You lose the toss, British. The settlers win. What will you do, settlers?All right. The settlers say that during the war they will wear any color clothes that they want to, shoot behind the rocks, trees and everywhere. Says your team must wear red and march in a straight line.
-- Bill CosbyTODAY is Independence Day, a date which commemorates one of freedom's greatest moments, a day that changed the face of the world forever. But it is not only that.
It's also the anniversary of one of the biggest trash talkings in history.
That is something your average sports fan can appreciate.
You want in-your-face bulletin-board material? This was the ultimate in-your-face bulletin-board move of all time.
This wasn't some marginal "star" making a worthless throwaway "guarantee."
This wasn't some loudmouth big-mouth hothead babooze letting his bragging go out of control only to back off, backtrack and then blame the media.
No, they signed it, right there, for the world to see: JOHN HANCOCK.
In fact, it is my theory that this daring bulletin-board pronouncement, this Declaration of Independence, is one of the reasons why we won the Revolutionary War. Rather than rile the Redcoats, it baffled them.
Coaches, try putting this up in the locker room and see if it gets a "let's go!" reaction: "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ..."
It was a brilliant psychological tactic. The British looked at that and were filled with one unshakable, unbreakable, undeniable emotion:
Huh?
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? What?
"We have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations ..."?
The most the British soldiers could grasp was that they wanted a piece of this Hancock guy.
These were not deep thinkers; these were people who wore red to a gunfight.
Plus, we had superior coaching. Who could forget George Washington's inspirational speech at Valley Forge when the Army was up against it and the breaks were beating the boys:
"None of you ever knew George Gipp. It was long before your time. But you know what a tradition he is at Notre Dame. ..."
But that's another story.
And people say we don't know our history.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com