Some of our greatest athletes are among the most fervent believers in using disrespect -- or the perception of it -- as fuel for their deeds.
Michael Jordan was widely considered the finest basketball player ever for much of his career. But no matter how many accolades he received, he kept his antenna tuned for any hint of slights coming from opponents or commentators. If anyone suggested an opponent might give Jordan difficulty, he worked himself into a competitive rage and, often, destroyed his would-be rival on the court.
Going into the 1992 NBA Finals, for example, some experts said that Portland Trail Blazers star Clyde Drexler was a serious threat to Jordan's throne. Jordan abruptly silenced that talk with a record 35 points in the first half of his first game against Drexler's team.
Type "Jordan" and "perceived slights" into Google and you get more than 8,000 hits. The motivational method became just as great a calling card as Jordan's wagging tongue or Nike sneakers.
Michael Phelps followed the Jordan model in Beijing last summer. His former rival, Ian Thorpe, had said before the Olympics that no one could win eight gold medals in one meet. When Phelps saw Thorpe in the stands for one of his races, he remembered the comment and used it as motivation.
"Oh, yeah . . . I welcome any comments," he told NBC's Bob Costas after completing his historic run. "All they do is fire me up, and all they do for America is fire us up. Before the relay we were fired up, and that just made us more fired up and fueled us even more to get ready to swim. I always welcome it, and I love when people say that somebody can't do something because you want to go out there and prove it that much more."
Such motivational tactics also hold a place in Baltimore football history. Before the 1958 NFL championship game against the New York Giants, Colts Coach Weeb Ewbank reminded his players how many of them had been cast aside or flat ignored by other teams.
He told John Unitas that he'd been obtained for a 75-cent phone call. He told Raymond Berry that he was slow. He told Andy Nelson he was too small.
By the end of his rant, Ewbank had a team with six future Hall of Fame members thinking of itself as a band of misfits. The players had to prove they belonged on the same field with the glamorous Giants, he said.
As they reflected on Ewbank's words 50 years later, surviving Colts gave mixed views on how effective they were.
"But it was a hell of a speech," Hall of Fame member Gino Marchetti recalled. "Maybe it did help us."
Some athletes are just as happy to leave the respect talk on the shelf. Asked this season about a lack of national buzz around the Ravens, center Jason Brown said, "Really, when it comes down to it, I don't care."
Titans Coach Jeff Fisher said that teams have "plenty of respect" for the Ravens.
"Maybe he needs to read the paper or watch TV," Fisher said about Brown. "Obviously, they got plenty of respect from us. You know, if that's the way you want to handle and motivate, then so be it."
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childs.walker@baltsun.com
