15 Major Misconceptions in Sports
Sports, unlike other spheres of life and society, value myth as much as they do data—certainly, from the viewpoint of most fans. When something is so dependent on generation-spanning loyalties and deeply influenced by individual moments and chance, the details are usually much less important than the idea.
So, over the years some widely accepted ideas, or truths, in sports have taken hold and kind of let the details fall into place; even if none of it is exactly right. The "why" is rarely nefarious, but more of a product of the very nature of sport itself.
For sports fans, facts and stats matter, but not ALL do—and when these innocent presumptions only come back to haunt you in trivia, they're understandable.
Here are 15 major misconceptions in sports.
The Cowboys Are America's Team
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This whole Dallas-Cowboys-as-America’s Team thing is so tired at this point, but it really seems to be something permanently lodged up the country’s collective craw. First of all, everyone knows there was no official vote, so can we please stop saying that?
The real issue with the Cowboys having some unofficial claim on being America’s team is that everyone in America, outside Dallas, seems to hate them. Even though the Patriots have been creeping up on them, as of January 2015, the Cowboys were once again named the most hated team in the NFL by Public Policy Polling’s annual survey.
Though 18 percent of poll participants identified the Cowboys as their least favorite team, that number was actually down substantially from 23 percent the year prior. The New England effect!
Another thing that likely adds to resentment over the meaningless title is the presumption that owner Jerry Jones was behind it. Obviously it sounds like something he would do, but it was actually Bob Ryan, who is now vice president of NFL Films, who coined the title/phrase in 1978.
If anything, the title feels more like added baggage most years in Dallas, as opposed to a source of pride.
Leo Durocher Said: 'Nice Guys Finish Last'
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Another misattributed quote is “Nice guys finish last,” which is often credited to Hall of Fame shortstop, and later manager, Leo Durocher. He was managing the Dodgers when he supposedly uttered the line in July 1946.
However, it’s not that Durocher has been given credit for someone else’s words, it’s that his own words were cleaned up a bit by a reporter looking for a snappier headline. A sportswriter at the time named Frank Graham, who wrote for The New York Journal-American, transcribed Durocher’s full statement as such:
"“Nice guys! Look over there. Do you know a nicer guy than Mel Ott? Or any of the other Giants? Why, they’re the nicest guys in the world! And where are they? In seventh place! Nice guys! I’m not a nice guy—and I’m in first place. The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place.”
"
So...um...yeah. Turns out the whole thing was a bit more mean spirited than you may have previously imagined.
The Miracle on Ice Was a Gold Medal Game
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Considering the significance of the American men’s hockey Miracle on Ice, in which the U.S. defeated the heavily favored USSR team at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, it’s hard to believe so many people seem to believe it was the gold medal game.
Overcoming the Soviets was a historic achievement that extended well beyond the sports world, but it wasn’t the end of the road for the Americans. We all know the U.S. won the gold medal, but they had to defeat Finland to make it official.
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USC Is a Public University
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I realize there are probably plenty of people, particularly those on the West Coast, that have always been fully aware the University of Southern California is a private university. So if that is the case for you, my sincerest apologies for wasting your time.
That being said, I know that when I found out USC was a private institution—one the $67,000 average tuition and housing costs exceeds that of Notre Dame by $3,000 annually—it came as quite a surprise. Having asked around a lot of social media, I found it came as quite a surprise to many others as well.
All That Glitters Is Gold
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Although the truth has been discussed more and more in recent years, throughout most of Olympic history it was widely assumed the gold medals given out to athletes every four years were, in fact, gold. But, as we know, all that glitters isn't gold—not entirely gold, at least.
Every host country uses their own amalgamation of metals; most recently in Sochi, first-place medals contained just six grams of gold, which was layered on top of 525 grams of silver.
At one pound each, solid gold medals would be worth more than $20,000 apiece. The gold plated silver medals, however, are worth less than $600. Silver medals contained the same amount of silver, but without the gold they were worth just over $300. Bronze medals were valued at under $5.
Steve Nash Is Canadian
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This one isn’t really a big deal, but there is a commonly held misconception that recently retired NBA point guard Steve Nash is Canadian. I know at some point I heard that and just assumed that was the end of the story.
Now it’s not that Nash isn’t Canadian—he holds Canadian citizenship, but was actually born in South Africa. Nash’s mother is Welsh and father, who played professional soccer in Johannesburg, is English. Meaning he holds British citizenship as well.
According to his official bio, the Nash family eventually settled in Western Canada after his father’s soccer career reached its end.
The NFL Is a Non-Profit...Wait, What?
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This one is a little confusing to everyone, because we all know the NFL is the richest sports league in the country, with revenues approaching $10 billion annually. That’s quite a tidy haul for a tax-exempt entity claiming to be a non-profit.
According to CNBC, the NFL has been classified as such since 1966, “when it merged with the American Football League, benefiting from a clause that provides tax-exemption to ‘business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade, and professional football leagues.’”
Man! What a tough break for the NBA, MLB and NHL—if only they had the good fortune of all being football leagues too, nobody would have to pay taxes! As the humble commissioner of a little upstart nonprofit, Roger Goodell, made $44 million last year.
Adrian Peterson's Nickname Is Not 'AP'
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Given his ongoing legal entanglements, it’s safe to say Vikings running back Adrian Peterson isn’t exactly held in the same regard as he once was. And, given everything that’s gone down in the last year or so, it’s hard to imagine he ever will be again.
That being said, it’s still worth noting that, even in his heyday, there were throngs of sports fans out there who couldn’t quite nail down the guy’s nickname. Many referred to Peterson as “AP,” which are his initials. But his real nickname is “AD,” which stands for “All Day,” given to him by his father.
Though he never made a big deal about the common misconception, he made his preference clear during a Reddit AMA in August 2013.
Michael Phelps Eats 12,000 Calories a Day to Train
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Back when American swimmer Michael Phelps was training for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, a story about his supposed diet went viral, being reported all around the world. Though the details vary from publication to publication, with each version seemingly more outrageous than the last, the gist of it was that Phelps was consuming upwards of 12,000 calories a day to fuel him in the pool.
The New York Post went so far as to publish his typical menu in a day, which included two pounds of pasta and eight eggs (three fried in sandwiches and five in an omelet), among the other buckets worth of food. The only problem with the story was that, according to Phelps, it was completely false.
“I never ate that much,” Phelps said in an interview with Ryan Seacrest in 2012. He added, “It’s all a myth. I’ve never eaten that many calories.”
Professional Athletes Are All Ridiculously Rich and Overpaid
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Are athletes paid far better than most of us for doing a job many people would do for free? Yes. There is simply no denying professional athletes in the four major sports leagues are compensated generously for their efforts.
But “generously” is a vague term, one that doesn’t come close to telling the entire story. When referencing athlete salaries, we tend to dismiss them all as greedy and ungrateful, as if they’re all making Alex Rodriguez money. While in reality, the average salary for an average player is a mere fraction of what top earners take home.
And it’s the athletes who take on the most physical risk who get paid the least. The NBA’s average salary in 2013 was $5.15 million. MLB’s was $3.2 million. Compare that to the NHL at $2.4 million and NFL at $1.9 million. With an average career length of three years, NFL players have 2-3 years less than athletes in other sports to make those supposed big bucks.
With salary caps, rookie wage scales and a whole host of measures put into place to safeguard ownership profits, the truth is most athletes aren’t nearly as rich as you think.
A Hokie Is a Chicken or Turkey
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Ask a college sports fan who is not a current or former student at Virginia Tech what’s a Hokie, and there’s a 98 percent chance you’ll get one of the following two answers: 1. A turkey or chicken of some sort. 2. I do not know, and I do not care.
VT’s mascot is something called a “HokieBird,” which, according to their official website, is a domestic fowl evolved from a turkey, and evolved because their sports teams were once called the “gobblers.” “The official definition of a ‘hokie’ is a ‘loyal Virginia Tech fan.’”
But in reality, a Hokie has absolutely nothing to with chickens, turkeys or birds of any sort. Apparently “it was coined by O.M. Stull (class of 1896), who used it in a spirit yell he wrote for a competition.”
Jackie Robinson Was the First African American in MLB
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The late, great Jackie Robinson is widely known as the first player to break MLB’s long held color barrier, playing his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 18, 1946. Over his storied career, Robinson achieved countless firsts, but he actually wasn’t the very first African American player in the majors.
That honor belongs to a man named Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played the 1884 season in the majors, a year that took quite a toll on him. In addition to being denied entrance to many hotels in the south and receiving multiple threats on his life, according to the Los Angeles Times, once “a mob of 75 men was waiting for him if he played a game in Richmond, Va.
Additionally noted in the article, “Historians also believe William Edward White, who played one game in 1879, was the first black player in major league history."
Mascots Are Volunteer Superfans
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Mascots are goofy and something many fans deem superfluous, but the fact that most teams, both professional and collegiate, in the U.S. have one, means they offer some sort of intrinsic value that cannot easily be quantified in its entirety.
That’s not to say we can’t partially quantify their value. At the collegiate level a mascot is generally a student volunteer that operates as part of/in conjunction with the marching band. But in the professional ranks, we’re not talking about a volunteer superfan behind the mask.
Many mascots are full-time employees, with healthcare packages and comfortable annual salaries. In fact, some are very comfortable. While some make in the $40,000-$50,000 range, the Miami Heat’s mascot, Burnie, is living large on $100,000 per year.
Vince Lombardi Said: 'Winning Isn’t Everything, It’s the Only Thing'
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Legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi, from whom the Super Bowl championship trophy gets its name, was, like many sports greats, a one-man quote machine. Although a number of great quotes are attributed to him, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” is the most famous.
As it turns out, however, Lombardi is not the one who said the phrase. There has been some debate around this subject, including one impressively comprehensive academic paper investigating the origin of the popular phrase, which has actually been attributed to a few different people over the years.
In reality, it was UCLA coach Red Sanders who first spoke the famous line in 1950. Three years later it became well known nationally, as a line in the 1953 John Wayne film Trouble Along the Way. In a review of the movie, the New York Times improperly attributed the quote's origin to the film.
Salary Caps Create Parity
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Common sense tells us implementing a salary cap is the best way to even the playing field between large- and small-market teams, creating some semblance of parity. The NFL, NHL and NBA all have salary caps in place, though the NBA’s luxury tax system means it’s not quite as rigid as the other two.
First of all, there is nothing even resembling parity in the NBA, so let’s get that out of the way right now. And it is generally accepted the NHL has done the best job at leveling the playing field in the salary cap era, so they’re out of the discussion too. The NBA and NHL just cancel each other out.
That leaves us with the NFL, which implemented a salary cap in 1994, and MLB, which has opted for a welfare-like revenue sharing system in lieu of a salary cap. In 2014 the difference between the top NFL spender and the bottom was less than $20 million. In MLB it was almost $200 million.
Yet for two consecutive years, ESPN’s Jayson Stark has made a very compelling case that greater parity actually exists in MLB. Rightfully noting that, particularly in the AFC, there have been about five teams legitimately in contention in that conference dating back 15 years. Adding that the bottom of the barrel has remained largely unchanged throughout that time as well. The NFC is only slightly less predictable.
Although the points he made in 2014 are essentially the same as those he made in 2015, Stark makes a very convincing case that the so-called parity in the NFL is nothing more than an illusion and/or successful marketing scheme. While the idea that more money equals more championships in MLB these days, it isn’t exactly as simplistic as it sounds.
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