From the Vault: The Sports Delorean – Sports Music Videos

[Column originally ran December 2007, but Pedro Guerrero wearing a pink satin jacket is funny so we're breaking it out again]

If there was an equivalent to the Big Bang for classic unintentional sports entertainment it occurred sometime around the mid-80’s.

Three giant asteroids, each a phenomenon in its own right, smashed together with a force so great it produced some of the most treasured pieces of art the world will ever know.

Rap music. Music videos. Professional sports.

Quite simply it was the perfect storm.

No one is sure when or why it ever became acceptable for professional athletes to join together to make horrific music videos but at some point in time it appeared as if sports team’s across the country, nay, the world felt as if they had to get in on the action.

Thanks in large part to the brilliant people who invented YouTube, sports fans in 2007 have the opportunity to celebrate what may be the single most absurd trend in recent sports history – the team music video.

We’re certainly not the first website to point out these masterpieces. Our friends across the blogosphere at sites like With Leather, AOL Fanhouse, Can’t Stop the Bleeding, We are the Postmen and many others have dug up some of the finest three-minute clips on the web for all to enjoy. But questions still remain. How did they come about? What was motivation for them? How did they ever convince Pedro Guerrero to wear a pink satin jacket in one?

Most people assume that it started with the 1985 Bears and their famous Super Bowl Shuffle. While it is believed to be the only sports team video to be nominated for a Grammy – yes it was actually nominated for Best Rhythm and Blues Vocal Performance – the Shuffle wasn’t the pioneer, it was just the most popular.

The first one to pop up in the NFL is believed to be the 1984 classic “We are the 49ers” which featured Rakim-esque lyrics such as “We are unstoppable/Re-Markable/More famous than Cosby and the Huxtables”. When the 49ers went 15-1 and won the Super Bowl in ’84, apparently some other teams took note of the obvious. Cheesy rap videos = Super Bowls.

The Bears proved that theory to be true the following year with the Shuffle. The Seattle Seahawks did not. To much less fanfare, the Seahawks offered up their locker room blues jam “Cuz the Blue Wave is on a Roll”.

Be forewarned, after watching this clip you may feel an urge turn it over to the proper wild game commission, but rest assured that is not a Bigfoot sighting you’ve witnessed, it’s just Mike Tice dancing.###MORE###

By that point, the ingredients for a top shelf video had been established. All you needed to create an embarrassing piece of sports history were:

-cheesy rap alias’ for all the players
-choreography that causes world class athletes to constantly look around at one another to check if they’re doing it right
-synthesizer music (but that goes for all successful 80’s music)
-guys lip synching while obviously reading words off of a cue card
-white dudes who have no idea why they were invited
-players acting like they’re playing elaborate instruments, preferably horns

And most importantly, they needed absolutely atrocious lyrics like these courtesy of permed tight end Todd Christensen from the LA Raiders adaptation of a Stryper classic which they called “Silver and Black Attack

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?