Win, THEN Celebrate
Lindsey Jacobellis had a wide lead at the end of the first-ever Olympic race in boardercross. And then she blew it with a showboating trick gone awry. She tried a little trick (a “method air”) to please the crowd and enjoy the moment–and then crashed on her butt. She got to her feet just in time to see the would-have-been second place finisher ride right past her to an easy gold medal finish.
Far be it from me to criticize the skills of Jacobellis. She could outride me any time, any place, with her eyes shut and her body wracked by the stomach flu.
It’s her judgment that is questionable. Granted, the men’s winner, Seth Wescott, tried the same trick in nearly the same situation. He succeeded. If he values having a gold medal, he should count himself lucky.
I have some idea of the enthusiasm that snowboarders have, even if I never have tried a “method air.” So the attraction of, as the argot goes, throwing down a little trick is understandable. And in the bag of snowboarding tricks, the method air is pretty tame stuff–something that a pro can execute in her sleep 19 times out of 20.
It’s that 20th time that is the problem. In sport as in life, the unexpected happen. The NFL kicker with the long, true leg, shanks a 30-yard field goal that would have won the game. A Cy Young award-winning pitcher can throw a wild pitch.
The key is not to eliminate accidents–that’s not possible–but to minimize the possibility of their happening by not doing things you don’t have to do to win. In this case, showboating, while necessary for a superpipe competition, is not necessary for a racing event. There’s no need. So why bother?
Pundits and fans alike started thinking of comparisons to understand the magnitude of what it meant to “pull a Jacobellis.” Mike Wangrin, of the San Antonio News Express, has compiled the best list of analogies I have seen to date.
Here’s his list:
“Sean Jackson had broken free for an apparent 53-yard touchdown reception in the 2005 Army All-American Bowl at the Alamodome when he spread his arms in a swan dive and dove toward the end zone. He landed at the 1-yard line.”
A good start, though it didn’t change Jackson’s NFL prospects. And though Wangrin doesn’t give any account of the game’s final score, it doesn’t matter. The All-American Bowl is an all-star game–an exhibition.
Cleveland linebacker Dwayne Rudd celebrated what he thought was a game-ending sack of Kansas City quarterback Trent Green by ripping off his helmet and tossing it in the air while pounding his chest. Problem was, Green had lateraled the ball to tackle John Tait. Rudd was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, and Morten Andersen kicked a 30-yard field goal for Kansas City’s 40-39 victory.
OK, we’re getting closer. A better analogy might have been a showboating pass (if there is such a thing) conducted with 1 second left by QB that leads to a game-winning interception.
Kansas State was leading Colorado 76-74 with two seconds left in the first round of the 2003 Big 12 basketball tournament in Kansas City when the Buffaloes’ inbound pass was picked off by KSU’s Pervis Pasco, who began running with his index finger pointing skyward. He was right — there was still a little more than a second left, and he was called for traveling. Colorado’s James “Mookie” Wright banked in the winning 3-pointer at the buzzer.
This works as well as the NFL example above–but it also suffers from having to depend on the intervention of an official. No ruling from a ref was required to give Tanja Frieden (the actual if not projected winner) the chance to seal the deal.
The Mets were down 5-3 in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series and the Red Sox were an out away from their first title since 1918. The Shea Stadium scoreboard operator had already programmed the message “CONGRATULATIONS RED SOX, 1986 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS.” Sox starter Roger Clemens had just finished shaving in preparation for postgame interviews. Fellow pitcher Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd popped a bottle of champagne. And then … Mookie Wilson … ground ball … Bill Buckner … heartache.
More on the mark. All that was required for a Sox win was for Buckner to do his job–field a routine grounder. All Jacobellis had to do was do her job–finish out the race without “style” but success.
Wangrin offers four other examples, none of which are as good as the Buckner goof:
– Chinese officials listen to the announcement of who will be awarded the 2002 summer Olympics. They hear Beijing, and start celebrating–even though “Beijing” was uttered not as the name of the winner but as the first in a list of cities that were finalists.
– The 2001 World Championships in swimming. The Australian team was disqualified after a premature celebration of a would-have-been victory.
– A Kentucky-LSU contest in basketball. (Premature celebration by UK fans was involved, but the difference was what happened on the field.)
– A water polo match between Hungary and Italy (unnecessary penalty involved).
– Carl Lewis (showboating cost him a world record but not the race).
A wise man once said “there is nothing new under the sun.” So there have likely been other, and better examples.