Trash talk in sports: Use it wisely

Trash talking in sports. Without question, pre-game smack talk provides some of the more entertaining storylines and water cooler conversations across the sporting world.

Sometimes a few choice words can fire up your team or fire up your opponent. Some people don't believe in trash talk or providing the opposition with bulletin board material, and I tend to agree with them.

This past week, New York Jets safety Kerry Rhodes said that he and his Jets would try to embarrass Tom Brady and the Patriots. Also this week, University of Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin made headlines because of his pre-season trash talk about University of Florida head coach Urban Meyer.

Well, when the teams hit the field, all of the talk went out the window, but the players on all sides of the ball probably still had some extra motivation.

Tennessee actually played respectably, but the Vols ran into a guy named Tim Tebow and lost 23-13. Sure, Kiffin could say it was a moral victory, but at the end of the day, Meyer and the Gators are still the top team in the country and Kiffin is 0-1 in the SEC.

Rhodes and the Jets, on the other hand, backed up their bold words and then some. The Jets defense swarmed Brady all afternoon, embarrassing the high and mighty Patriots and preventing them from scoring a touchdown for the first time since 2006. Now Rhodes can play off his comment as confidence and not cockiness, and hey, he's right.

Even though this weekend's pair of trash talkers did all right for themselves, they got me thinking about other famous instances of smack talk gone wrong. Let's take a look back at some of the more memorable instances of trash talking that backfired. Hard.

In 2007, a Pittsburgh Steelers' back-up - yes, that's right - back-up safety Anthony Smith guaranteed that the Steelers would beat the then-undefeated New England Patriots. The fact that his teammates and coaches tried to downplay Smith's comment probably let him know he may have been a little too bold. Then, Tom Brady showed him that he had been a lot too bold.

The Pats beat the Steelers 34-13. As if that weren't bad enough, Smith blew multiple coverages and Brady threw two touchdown passes that seemed to be targeted specifically at the receivers Smith should have been covering. He wasn't. Oops.

Sometimes smack talk happens during the heat of battle, on the field during a game. That was the case during the 2003 NFC Wild Card Game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers.

Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who was drafted by the Packers before moving to the Seahawks, spoke a little too soon. After winning the overtime coin toss, Hasselbeck confidently and excitedly declared, loud enough for the TV audience and Lambeau Field crowd to hear, that "we want the ball and we're gonna score."

Well, many of you probably remember how that went. A few minutes into the Seahawks' first drive, Hasselbeck completed a pass for a touchdown - to the wrong team. Green Bay's Al Harris picked off Hasselbeck and returned it 52 yards untouched to the house, giving the Packers the win and a birth in the NFC Championship Game. Get 'em next time, Matt.

And trash talk doesn't just happen in contact sports. Even the quiet and reserved golfer will occasionally turn to a little gamesmanship. In 2006, nearly irrelevant Canadian golfer Stephen Ames was set to face Tiger Woods during the first round of the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, a tournament Woods has won three times.

Ames, in an act of typical country club backhanded-compliment trash talk, said that Woods was a true champion because he hit the ball so poorly, yet still managed to win tournaments. When asked if he thought he could beat Woods, Ames said, "Anything can happen, especially where he's hitting the ball."

Well, anything could happen. Woods beat Ames like a rented mule. Ames didn't win a hole during the match and lost nine and eight. If Woods had been playing my 10-year-old brother, he literally couldn't have won any faster.

At the end of the day, maybe trash talking doesn't make much of a difference. Maybe, as the old cliche says, games are decided between the white lines and nowhere else. But, as much as I think talking smack does more harm than good, it's always entertaining to watch a big mouth have to eat his words.

So as football season heats up and playoff baseball inches closer and closer as October approaches, keep an ear out for the next low blow or unnecessary guarantee. If there's one thing I can guarantee, it's that someone, somewhere, will chirp a little too loudly a little too soon.

When they do, tune in, because win or lose, the intensity will be high, the respect level will be low, and when it's all over, someone will be saying I told you so.

Contact staff writer Reilly Moore at reilly.moore@richmond.edu