Sports Interview Shocker

by Steve Martin

The New Yorker
May 6, 2002

In a recent interview on Sports Talk radio, basketball forward Pete (Fleet) Vliet said, "If we're going to win today, we're going to have to put some points on the board." The sports world puzzled over what he meant. "'Points on the board? What kind of points? Does he mean points as in points in the score? And this 'board.' Does he mean game board? Surfboard?" Such was the response of most aficionados. Could he have meant that, in order to win, he was going to have to "score" a number of "points" that would amount to more than the other team scored? Or was he talking about mathematical points of infinitely small mass? Most of us have never heard the words "points" and "board" put together quite like this. "Think of it this way," said Dr. Karl Pepper, the director of the WhaÉ? Institute of Language. "Think of an envelope. Now picture that inside the envelope are all the expressions we think of as normal. Now imagine that someone is taking these normal expressions and pushing them around, enlarging them, so that they "push against" the envelope. This is what concepts like 'putting points on the board' are doing."

Later in the interview, Fleet said, "If we want to win, we're going to have to go out there and play basketball." Head scratcher, yes. Incomprehensible, no. Dr. Pepper analyzed it thus: "This concept is best understood by expressing its oppositeÑif we want to win, we're going to have to go out there and not play basketball. There is no way to win by not playing. Here's an analogy that might help: Think of a box. Now think of all the normal ways of thinking as being inside the box. But now imagine a way of thinking that is so unusual as to be outside the box."

Finally, Fleet ended the interview by saying, "We're not going to win unless we hustle to the ball." Talk-radio sports lines were abuzz. The general interpretation of this final phrase seemed to be "If we want to win, weÑthat is, our teamÑmust arrive at the ball, pick it up, and bounce it around. For if we have the ball our odds of scoring, of putting points on the board (!), are greater than the opposing team's." Of Fleet's last remarks, Dr. Pepper said, "If we conceive of normal thought as existing in a series of envelopes, and these envelopes are put in boxes that are lined up end to end, and these thoughts push perpendicularly to the conventional thrust of ideas, then we are looking at what we are talking about."

It seems that what today's sports figures are saying is that if they try very hard and play better than their opponents, then it is possible to win a game by beating the other team, but only if, at the end of the game, they have more points by at least one.