I wonder how much of this comes from the Michael Jordan mythology. He’s someone who, despite being possibly the single most competitive athlete ever to exist, ALSO used these weird little tricks and fake conflicts to rule himself up.
So everyone now reads his story and thinks, “I have to do that too! That can make me like MJ!” And “nobody believes in us” is a cheap and easy way to do it.
Though that also goes to show that inventing conflict can be the way that competitive people make themselves competitive. If even Jordan did it, who are we to criticize?
The narrative is far older than Simmons. You can trace it at least to movies like Major League. I might cite the 1980 USA hockey win as the proto underdog story that launched the popularity of the narrative. Now everyone wants to be the underdog.
I’m reminded of this passage from Elif Batuman’s wonderful novel “The Idiot”:
“I found myself remembering the day in kindergarten when the teachers showed us Dumbo, and I realized for the first time that all the kids in the class, even the bullies, rooted for Dumbo, against Dumbo’s tormentors. Invariably they laughed and cheered, both when Dumbo succeeded and when bad things happened to his enemies. But they’re you, I thought to myself. How did they not know? They didn’t know. It was astounding, an astounding truth. Everyone thought they were Dumbo.”
If you watch college football, where the gradient of talent is much higher than the pros, it's even more ridiculous. Players on teams like Alabama, the most dominant program in the past 15 years and preseason favorites damn near every season, will talk about how disrespected they are and how nobody believed in them. Credit to Coach Saban for somehow getting his team to believe this in order to motivate them, but holy hell is it annoying to listen to.
I feel like these "nobody believes in us" narratives are less about trying hard and more about stoking feelings of teamwork and togetherness. Us against the world. It's undeniably motivating, but I agree with Freddie that these players don't typically need motivation. It's also uniting, which is probably the objective rather than motivation.
I'm sure the fact that it's a juicy media story plays a part.
I'm not surprised to hear players say things along the lines of "nobody believes in us." The season is a grind. Training, practices, travel, injuries, all of it. I think a lot of players, even the superstars, have to come up with ways to push themselves, not for the big games, but for the endless hours of work between the games. My unprovable theory is that as rivalries between cites/teams/players fade due to the current nature of the business of professional sports, the "nobody believes in us" theme became more common.
Which is all separate from hearing about it... I'd be fine to retire that line of reporting forever.
It sells tickets'n'things. It amps up the drama. Didn't you watch all five seasons of Friday Night Lights? Coach Eric had to be fired and then hired by the Lions so he could coach and win with the UNDERDOGS.
I feel like this sports mythos is inseparable from the broader capitalist mythos. Success is never *just* family wealth, knowing the right people, having the exact right genetics and training -- there has to be this secret ingredient that theoretically anyone can access.
In media the secret ingredient is usually getting bullied as a kid. The “disrespected” narrative is getting bullied as a kid for grown-ups who are clearly preternaturally talented at their preferred thing, and have been for most of their lives.
(Not to ignore the importance of work. But hard work isn't some separate thing from all the luck and talent but has to go hand-in-hand with it.)
The Bengals’ players also kept harping on how disrespectful it is to sell tickets to a neutral site KC v. Buf AFCCG before the outcome of the divisional round...but their organization was also selling tickets for a KC v. Cinci AFCCG at that time.
If it makes you feel any better, this Boston Celtics (who have the best record in the NBA) have gone on the record saying that literally everyone believes in them this year.
This is deep in our psyche. To root for the underdog in books, films, sports, and the news. To feel a little zing when the underdog triumphs. The comebacks. Even you, who seem to be doing well for yourself now, must feel redeemed from those who did not think you would amount to much. Even at great heights, the acclaimed feel disrespect from someone. You cannot tell me you don't or that this does not motivate you in some way.
Geez. C'mon. Do we really need to hear whining from you about a truth of human nature?
When the Eagles did it in 2017 they managed to make it fun. Best record in the conference but the betting underdog bc of the Wentz injury … they leaned into the ‘dogs’ part and made it fun for fans by wearing ridiculous masks, etc.
FdB maybe still annoyed by it but as an admitted homer think the 2017 Eagles show how you can have the underdog mentality without turning it into some weird combination of whiny emo and the guy grunting as loud as he can in the gym.
Tim Dillon had this hilarious bit on his podcast last year where he essentially said that athletes are all inherently stupid and should never be asked to think deeply about anything bc that’s not their job. Every time they try to think deep they should just block that out, shut up and hit the ball. No one’s paying them to use their brains so they shouldn’t even try.
Obviously this is incredibly crude and there are some athletes that are insanely intelligent. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it almost every time they step up to the mic post game. You have to remember at the NFL level, the vast majority of these guys have been absolutely worshipped from a young age. At 12 years old they’re dominating their pee wee football league, at 17 they’re kings of high school dominating their league, they then get a college scholarship and go to some major college where they are royalty on campus and treated as such. All along the way football is their ticket and their life is structured in such a way that ‘everything else’ that makes a person interesting matters as little as possible. It’s no surprise that they reach the NFL and don’t have many interesting thoughts about the world, they never really had to think deeply about anything. Even the NFL players that ppl consider “smart” (like Aaron Rodgers) still usually sound like idiots around actual smart people.
I think we demand way too much out of athletes today, we expect them all to be positive role models. It’s just not realistic given the life so many of them live from a young age. It doesn’t mean they’re bad people, or that they’re inherently dumb, it’s just that they grow up in a world where character and intelligence don’t matter much.
Again, obviously there’s exceptions (look at John Urschel), and it actually varies from sport to sport. For example, I’ve been listening to JRE MMA podcasts more lately, and it’s been somewhat surprising how thoughtful and interesting s lot of the top fighters are. It makes sense though, considering the glamour only comes at the very top of those sports. There’s not 100,000 people watching their first amateur fights, and it’s an absolute grind to the top. They often also get their ass kicked along the way, as opposed to just always being the best. As a result these guys tend to develop personalities along the way.
I don’t know, I kind of buy the NBIU thing. NFL athletes play at an extremely high level all season, and need to get to an even higher level in the playoffs, so any bit of psychological motivation to get their can help. Having a bit of a chip on your shoulder can certainly help with focus, especially during an NFL playoff run where there are plenty of distractions (media etc). I’m not going to pretend I understand the psychology or professional athletes, but the difficulties of maintaining focus at while performing at a high level (and pushing yourself to that extra level of performance) seems to be an issue on most fields.
Same reason players coaches tend to not trash talk other teams - trash talk will end up being used as motivation for the opposing team. It may be all BS, but it doesn’t matter if it helps someone perform even better.
I think the respect narrative is a ubiquitous thing in the history of sports perpetrated by the top sports writers and talking heads mostly on radio, but now on podcasts and streaming too, and infested into and repeated by sports fans. Winning games and championships is the only way to change a legacy narrative of suckiness. But I have no problem with this cycle and how it motivates athletes to reach deeper in energy and effort.
Everything is team sports now.
Democrats and their MSM clones have adopted the same model negative branding Republicans. And it works. Republicans, even though powered by resentment from their fans, are less effective because they don’t have the same media influence and reach given the Democrat favoring government abuses of power in tech and social media to silence conservative voices. But try they do. Democrats suck is the message that repeats in their heads (I think there is truth to this myself). And hearing that motivates Democrats to vote party line out of resentment so they can suck more.
At least in professional sports there are rules, and reasonable consistent rules enforcement, to ensure fair competitive play. Not so in politics today where the rules are exploited, abused and ignored for political team advantage.
I do think that lack of respect motivating a team to perform is unique to football where raw energy and extra effort can return better results on plays. It does not work for say NBA play where talent and teamwork matters more.
The worst in playing that card were the Georgia Bulldogs. Preseason #1 team, never lost the ranking, and did not lose a game. Players after the title game saying that people thought they were going 7-5. Like literally nobody thought that. Not one person.
It's not as fun if no team or athlete ever "defied their critics," even if nobody ever defined, you know, who those critics actually were...
...or if they even existed. This mentality has seeped into college football dynasties over the last decade. After this year's College Football Playoff Championship, some (not all) of Georgia's players (who were celebrating a 65-7 drubbing of TCU), went on camera claiming they "defied the critics" who predicted they'd only win five or six games. The problem is that nobody ever said this or anything like it. Clemson has been guilty of this, too. During their CFB Playoff runs, Dabo Swinney mockingly used the "little ol' Clemson" moniker to prove to everyone that they actually were good enough to win titles against teams like Alabama, and while they may not have been as dominant a team as Georgia has been the past two years, nobody ever seriously doubted they were title contenders. And speaking of Alabama, at least to Nick Saban's credit (which pains me to admit), he made the argument this past season that his team would've been the betting favorite among the four playoff teams. But he's also been guilty in the past (or members of his staff, anyway) of letting his players believe they were serious underdogs, and that members of the "national media" didn't believe in them, which is utter nonsense in the Nick Saban era of Alabama football.
It's a bit different than the NFL example you gave, but it's in the same neighborhood re: incentive. Georgia had every incentive to become one of the very few teams in CFB to ever win back-to-back titles. A CFB Playoff trophy is certainly *enough* incentive on its own, but to accomplish consecutive title campaigns is a next-level achievement. They did that, and frankly they made it look rather effortless at times. I don't know why we can't have teams and athletes just be...really good at the one thing they've been recruited or paid (or both!) to do instead of manufacturing adversity where there is little or none to be found.
I wonder how much of this comes from the Michael Jordan mythology. He’s someone who, despite being possibly the single most competitive athlete ever to exist, ALSO used these weird little tricks and fake conflicts to rule himself up.
So everyone now reads his story and thinks, “I have to do that too! That can make me like MJ!” And “nobody believes in us” is a cheap and easy way to do it.
Though that also goes to show that inventing conflict can be the way that competitive people make themselves competitive. If even Jordan did it, who are we to criticize?
The narrative is far older than Simmons. You can trace it at least to movies like Major League. I might cite the 1980 USA hockey win as the proto underdog story that launched the popularity of the narrative. Now everyone wants to be the underdog.
I’m reminded of this passage from Elif Batuman’s wonderful novel “The Idiot”:
“I found myself remembering the day in kindergarten when the teachers showed us Dumbo, and I realized for the first time that all the kids in the class, even the bullies, rooted for Dumbo, against Dumbo’s tormentors. Invariably they laughed and cheered, both when Dumbo succeeded and when bad things happened to his enemies. But they’re you, I thought to myself. How did they not know? They didn’t know. It was astounding, an astounding truth. Everyone thought they were Dumbo.”
If you watch college football, where the gradient of talent is much higher than the pros, it's even more ridiculous. Players on teams like Alabama, the most dominant program in the past 15 years and preseason favorites damn near every season, will talk about how disrespected they are and how nobody believed in them. Credit to Coach Saban for somehow getting his team to believe this in order to motivate them, but holy hell is it annoying to listen to.
I feel like these "nobody believes in us" narratives are less about trying hard and more about stoking feelings of teamwork and togetherness. Us against the world. It's undeniably motivating, but I agree with Freddie that these players don't typically need motivation. It's also uniting, which is probably the objective rather than motivation.
I'm sure the fact that it's a juicy media story plays a part.
I'm not surprised to hear players say things along the lines of "nobody believes in us." The season is a grind. Training, practices, travel, injuries, all of it. I think a lot of players, even the superstars, have to come up with ways to push themselves, not for the big games, but for the endless hours of work between the games. My unprovable theory is that as rivalries between cites/teams/players fade due to the current nature of the business of professional sports, the "nobody believes in us" theme became more common.
Which is all separate from hearing about it... I'd be fine to retire that line of reporting forever.
It sells tickets'n'things. It amps up the drama. Didn't you watch all five seasons of Friday Night Lights? Coach Eric had to be fired and then hired by the Lions so he could coach and win with the UNDERDOGS.
I feel like this sports mythos is inseparable from the broader capitalist mythos. Success is never *just* family wealth, knowing the right people, having the exact right genetics and training -- there has to be this secret ingredient that theoretically anyone can access.
In media the secret ingredient is usually getting bullied as a kid. The “disrespected” narrative is getting bullied as a kid for grown-ups who are clearly preternaturally talented at their preferred thing, and have been for most of their lives.
(Not to ignore the importance of work. But hard work isn't some separate thing from all the luck and talent but has to go hand-in-hand with it.)
The Bengals’ players also kept harping on how disrespectful it is to sell tickets to a neutral site KC v. Buf AFCCG before the outcome of the divisional round...but their organization was also selling tickets for a KC v. Cinci AFCCG at that time.
If it makes you feel any better, this Boston Celtics (who have the best record in the NBA) have gone on the record saying that literally everyone believes in them this year.
This is deep in our psyche. To root for the underdog in books, films, sports, and the news. To feel a little zing when the underdog triumphs. The comebacks. Even you, who seem to be doing well for yourself now, must feel redeemed from those who did not think you would amount to much. Even at great heights, the acclaimed feel disrespect from someone. You cannot tell me you don't or that this does not motivate you in some way.
Geez. C'mon. Do we really need to hear whining from you about a truth of human nature?
When the Eagles did it in 2017 they managed to make it fun. Best record in the conference but the betting underdog bc of the Wentz injury … they leaned into the ‘dogs’ part and made it fun for fans by wearing ridiculous masks, etc.
FdB maybe still annoyed by it but as an admitted homer think the 2017 Eagles show how you can have the underdog mentality without turning it into some weird combination of whiny emo and the guy grunting as loud as he can in the gym.
Tim Dillon had this hilarious bit on his podcast last year where he essentially said that athletes are all inherently stupid and should never be asked to think deeply about anything bc that’s not their job. Every time they try to think deep they should just block that out, shut up and hit the ball. No one’s paying them to use their brains so they shouldn’t even try.
Obviously this is incredibly crude and there are some athletes that are insanely intelligent. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it almost every time they step up to the mic post game. You have to remember at the NFL level, the vast majority of these guys have been absolutely worshipped from a young age. At 12 years old they’re dominating their pee wee football league, at 17 they’re kings of high school dominating their league, they then get a college scholarship and go to some major college where they are royalty on campus and treated as such. All along the way football is their ticket and their life is structured in such a way that ‘everything else’ that makes a person interesting matters as little as possible. It’s no surprise that they reach the NFL and don’t have many interesting thoughts about the world, they never really had to think deeply about anything. Even the NFL players that ppl consider “smart” (like Aaron Rodgers) still usually sound like idiots around actual smart people.
I think we demand way too much out of athletes today, we expect them all to be positive role models. It’s just not realistic given the life so many of them live from a young age. It doesn’t mean they’re bad people, or that they’re inherently dumb, it’s just that they grow up in a world where character and intelligence don’t matter much.
Again, obviously there’s exceptions (look at John Urschel), and it actually varies from sport to sport. For example, I’ve been listening to JRE MMA podcasts more lately, and it’s been somewhat surprising how thoughtful and interesting s lot of the top fighters are. It makes sense though, considering the glamour only comes at the very top of those sports. There’s not 100,000 people watching their first amateur fights, and it’s an absolute grind to the top. They often also get their ass kicked along the way, as opposed to just always being the best. As a result these guys tend to develop personalities along the way.
I don’t know, I kind of buy the NBIU thing. NFL athletes play at an extremely high level all season, and need to get to an even higher level in the playoffs, so any bit of psychological motivation to get their can help. Having a bit of a chip on your shoulder can certainly help with focus, especially during an NFL playoff run where there are plenty of distractions (media etc). I’m not going to pretend I understand the psychology or professional athletes, but the difficulties of maintaining focus at while performing at a high level (and pushing yourself to that extra level of performance) seems to be an issue on most fields.
Same reason players coaches tend to not trash talk other teams - trash talk will end up being used as motivation for the opposing team. It may be all BS, but it doesn’t matter if it helps someone perform even better.
I think the respect narrative is a ubiquitous thing in the history of sports perpetrated by the top sports writers and talking heads mostly on radio, but now on podcasts and streaming too, and infested into and repeated by sports fans. Winning games and championships is the only way to change a legacy narrative of suckiness. But I have no problem with this cycle and how it motivates athletes to reach deeper in energy and effort.
Everything is team sports now.
Democrats and their MSM clones have adopted the same model negative branding Republicans. And it works. Republicans, even though powered by resentment from their fans, are less effective because they don’t have the same media influence and reach given the Democrat favoring government abuses of power in tech and social media to silence conservative voices. But try they do. Democrats suck is the message that repeats in their heads (I think there is truth to this myself). And hearing that motivates Democrats to vote party line out of resentment so they can suck more.
At least in professional sports there are rules, and reasonable consistent rules enforcement, to ensure fair competitive play. Not so in politics today where the rules are exploited, abused and ignored for political team advantage.
I do think that lack of respect motivating a team to perform is unique to football where raw energy and extra effort can return better results on plays. It does not work for say NBA play where talent and teamwork matters more.
The worst in playing that card were the Georgia Bulldogs. Preseason #1 team, never lost the ranking, and did not lose a game. Players after the title game saying that people thought they were going 7-5. Like literally nobody thought that. Not one person.
It's not as fun if no team or athlete ever "defied their critics," even if nobody ever defined, you know, who those critics actually were...
...or if they even existed. This mentality has seeped into college football dynasties over the last decade. After this year's College Football Playoff Championship, some (not all) of Georgia's players (who were celebrating a 65-7 drubbing of TCU), went on camera claiming they "defied the critics" who predicted they'd only win five or six games. The problem is that nobody ever said this or anything like it. Clemson has been guilty of this, too. During their CFB Playoff runs, Dabo Swinney mockingly used the "little ol' Clemson" moniker to prove to everyone that they actually were good enough to win titles against teams like Alabama, and while they may not have been as dominant a team as Georgia has been the past two years, nobody ever seriously doubted they were title contenders. And speaking of Alabama, at least to Nick Saban's credit (which pains me to admit), he made the argument this past season that his team would've been the betting favorite among the four playoff teams. But he's also been guilty in the past (or members of his staff, anyway) of letting his players believe they were serious underdogs, and that members of the "national media" didn't believe in them, which is utter nonsense in the Nick Saban era of Alabama football.
It's a bit different than the NFL example you gave, but it's in the same neighborhood re: incentive. Georgia had every incentive to become one of the very few teams in CFB to ever win back-to-back titles. A CFB Playoff trophy is certainly *enough* incentive on its own, but to accomplish consecutive title campaigns is a next-level achievement. They did that, and frankly they made it look rather effortless at times. I don't know why we can't have teams and athletes just be...really good at the one thing they've been recruited or paid (or both!) to do instead of manufacturing adversity where there is little or none to be found.