Instead of going off on a tangent in the middle of this post, I'm gonna get this one out of the way right out the gate. "Shark Week" is the most overrated thing on television. I watched the premiere of "Shark Week" last night on the Discovery Channel at 9 p.m. and saw an entire week's worth of television in one hour. Every single show is a bunch of "shark historians" with South African/Australian accents (which is practically the same thing) talking about the increasing number of shark sightings in areas near shore. Sure it's fascinating to see those beasts and what they're capable of, but how many times can you expect me to watch the same story with no variations except the show's title and the location? I get it already: Sharks aren't human predators by nature, they're big as hell and it's not a good idea to get bitten by one. That's about all I need to know. Now lets talk about more idiots in the world of sports.
I can't figure out if athletics bring out the inner-liar in so many people or if there are just that many delirious people that don't realize they have no clue what they're talking about. Either way, there is no single thing that people exaggerate/lie more about than sports. In some cases it's the athletes themselves that are guilty of embellishing their personal accomplishments (which never happens with an athlete that is actually successful) and in others it's naive fans that either make shit up or simply regurgitate statistics they've heard because they don't know any better. The other night I was covering a Reading Phillies (Double-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies) game for work and was forced to listen to a fan tell bold-faced lies for almost the entire nine innings. Because I have other, much more important things to get to in this post, I'll just tell you about the two most laughable things he said. The guy started telling a co-worker and me about some running back that plays football at a local college. Apparently the kid went to high school nearby, so this fan followed his career...Or, not so much, considering what he was about to tell me. I'm familiar with the high school that he played at and believe me, he would've had more competition against 12 year-old girls. That has nothing to do with the story, I just feel like making fun of everything possible right now. Anyway, Old Man River tells us that this dude set the Pennsylvania state record for touchdowns in a season. WRONG. I played against the man who set the record and it ain't that guy. He went on to tell us that he's on full athletic scholarship at his college. EHHH (that's my attempt to type the sound a buzzer makes) WRONG AGAIN. The school this kid goes to isn't permitted to give full athletic scholarships. Instead of pointing out all the inaccuracies in senile guy's stories, I just nodded my head and let him believe he was fooling me. But in my head, I'm wondering two things: How dumb does this guy think I am? And, I wonder if the kid he's talking about even plays college football. So it got me thinking about a few other things that people are constantly lying about.
The first lie that I've heard time and time again is how high someone's vertical jump is. Most of the time this is coming from an athlete because normal people don't discuss how high they can jump. But ask a male athlete what his vertical is and I promise you his answer won't be lower than 30 inches. And unless you're talking to an offensive lineman, I'll bet the answer won't be lower than 33 inches. Is that the truth? Probably not. Sure there are some guys with verts in the high 30's and even low 40's, but those dudes are few and far between. For example, according to topendsports.com, the average vertical for all NBA players is between 28 and 29 inches. The highest vertical recorded at the 2011 NBA pre-draft combine camp was 36.5" by Iman Shumpert. Better yet, do you know who Travis Leslie is? If not, he's a 6'4" guard/forward from the University of Georgia that seemed to be dunking on someone on top plays every other night during basketball season. Wanna know what he measured in the vertical at the pre-draft combine camp? 33 inches. Now I'll admit, some vertical tests are flawed. I cheated my way to a 33-inch vertical when working out for NFL scouts and that may be one of the problems. Some tests allow athletes to believe that they jump much higher than they really do. 'Cause I don't even dream about doing things I've seen Leslie do with ease...This should be illegal:
Lets move on to some things you're more likely to hear on a daily basis. Lots of dudes are obsessed with talking about how much they bench press. I don't get it. Honestly, nobody cares except for your equally-as-roided-up buddy that wears a wifebeater to the gym with you. Nonetheless, to all these Jersey Shore wannabes, the bench press has become the criteria used for ranking masculinity. And just like the vertical jump and the topic still to come, there is a certain number that everyone can do. Everyone you know that works out can bench at least 300 pounds. That is, if you believe their nonsense. Again, there are plenty of guys that actually can bench 300 pounds or more, but there are plenty more that would get their sternum crushed if they were able to get that much weight off the rack. 300 pounds isn't too far out of the realm of possibility, but if you ever hear someone say they bench 350, I want you to do three things: First, judo chop them in the Adam's Apple for being a meathead and talking about how much they bench, then tell them to put the weight on the bar. Finally, and this is the best part of all, watch them drop 350 pounds of steel on their neck while you laugh at their dumbass.
There are lots of things that people lie about when it comes to sports, but the last one I'm going to address is probably the one that we hear the most fabrications about: 40-yard dash time. Listen, almost nobody is as fast as they say they are and that includes athletes. Even non-athletes somehow know what their 40 time is, but it's never accurate. The standard benchmark in the 40 is probably the most ludicrous of them all, and I'm saying it's 4.6 seconds. 90% of people will tell you they run a 4.6 or faster and that's simply ridiculous. I've seen one of the fastest men in college run just under a 4.5 in an electronically timed 40-yard dash. And when I say one of the fastest men in college, I mean exactly that. Dude was in the final heat of the 55 meter dash at the 2007 NCAA Track Indoor Championships. Silly fast. And he's the only person I've ever seen break 4.5 in an electronic 40. The fastest guys that I played football with in college were consistently running in the 4.6 and 4.7 range and they could fly. If you've never been timed electronically, here's a surefire equation for calculating your time: Take the already unrealistic time that you think you run, add at least four tenths of a second, and then you have the time you'd run on the absolute fastest day of your life.
Let me conclude by again acknowledging that there are exceptions to every rule. I've seen the fastest of the fast, the strongest of the strong and guys that can windmill off their vertical. So I know these things are possible. But for that same reason, I also know how many people are downright liars when talking about the numbers they can put up. Why are so many people afraid to admit the true measures of their athleticism? And the list doesn't end at the vertical, the bench press and the 40 time. Its become acceptable to lie about things like your golf handicap, your bowling average, and even things as simple and concrete as your height. I don't know why everybody is constantly worried about being judged, but I do know this: You'll be judged much more harshly when it's actually time to put your money where your mouth is and you can't deliver.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -Mark Twain
-Brusk Dollhairs
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