• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Click here to download the  free ebook of Alberto Juantorena’s  detailed training workouts leading up to the 1976 Montreal Olympics

SpeedEndurance.com

Success in Track & Field ... and Life

  • Home
    • About
    • Contact
  • Track & Field
    • 400 meters
    • 800m & Mile
    • 1/2 & Full Marathons
    • Long & Triple Jump
    • Hurdles
  • Training
    • Weight Training
    • Abs & Core
    • Injury Prevention
    • Shoes & Spikes
    • Masters
  • Coaching
    • Freelap Friday Five
    • Interviews
    • Sports Nutrition
    • Sport Psychology
  • Archives
  • Shop
    • My account
    • Checkout
    • Basket

Booyah! [SHIN SPLINTS 2015]

You are here: Home / Doug Logan / Booyah! [SHIN SPLINTS 2015]
4
SHARES
FacebookTwitter

January 8, 2015 by Doug Logan Leave a Comment

This is a tale of courage; personal and professional. It explains how a skinny kid from North Carolina, not named Jordan, disrupted and changed the dominant sports network. It describes two ways of dealing with a similar issue: one effective, one, not so much. This is my tribute to Stuart Scott of ESPN, who died last week at age 49. Booyah!

A tribute to Stuart Scott of ESPN

First, though, I have to explain the use of the word to the unfamiliar. Booyah, like Hooah, is a word used by land soldier, Army and Marines, to exclaim, among other things, “Mission Accomplished”. However, it is used widely by the warrior class to express excitement. It has since been brought home by returning troops to a wide swath of cultural groups. How else do you explain its embrace by revelers in a Kentucky tavern, by “ballers” in the Rucker League in Manhattan, by Jim Cramer on his stock picking show on MSNBC and by Al Pacino on the dance floor in The Scent of a Woman? And, Booyah became the signature catch phrase of Stuart Scott.

In the late 1990’s ESPN was beginning its explosive growth arc and establishing itself as a cultural anchor. Its signature property, SportsCenter, was becoming a “must watch” for the sports cognoscenti and fans. The formula included in-depth coverage of most sports, a stable of talented, mostly white male, smart-alecs as anchors, and lots of irreverence, inside jokes and boyish horse-play. It was not very welcoming to outsiders.

Recognizing that there was an urban audience of color that was under-represented on camera, in 1993 the network honchos hired a glib, talented former Tarheel to anchor periodic five minute look-ins called SportsMash. And Scott did not disappoint. In an era when broadcasters used trite clichés or cute catch phrases like “Holy Toledo”, or “Whoa, Nellie” Scott brought in marginal playground trash-talking and the urban patois. He said some athletes were “cooler than the other side of a pillow”, and “just call him butter ‘cause he’s on a roll”. I had to smile once when I heard him channel Public Enemy’s Chuck D and cried out “hear the drummer get wicked!”

See also  SHIN SPLINTS 2014 - Cues, Routines and Rewards

As important to the words he used was his cadence. Only those of us who have needed to communicate orally to publics truly can appreciate an artist of spoken tempo and pace. You could detect in his presentations the rhythms of black churches and their preachers; the call-and-response of Christian catechism; the verbal jabs of one-on-one basketball; the argot of urban barbershops and beauty parlors in the basements of private residences. And, he changed the on-air descriptive vocabulary of sporting events and athletes. And, it was beautiful.

When we were introduced in the lobby of ESPN’s studios, we fist-bumped and I told him how much I enjoyed the way he plied his craft. He smiled ruefully and said not everyone shared my view. By then he had been promoted to the SportsCenter anchor desk and partnered with Rich Eisen.

While I was trying to steer Major League Soccer through the shoals of the late 90’s, I wound up in a confrontation with some top executives of ESPN. The network was one of our broadcast partners in the early years, yet, I could not get them to cover the sport or our league to the degree I thought warranted. A particular irritant was the lack of coverage on SportsCenter. After one of my tirades I remember someone at the network commenting that didn’t I know that Latino men didn’t watch the show and there was no interest among “real Americans”. My view that they had an internal bias was reinforced when, in their inaugural issue, ESPNtheMagazine ran a tennis story by Curry Kirkpatrick where he called a Latino player a “greaser”.

See also  This Is Your Life - Jesse Owens

This mini-feud peaked when DC United won a major international competition against a top South American team. ESPN did not cover the match. I personally called the network from the stadium and offered a video melt-down of the highlights for airing. I was totally ignored.

That week I let my anger get the best of me and wrote an incendiary letter that I revealed publicly. My choice of words could have been more temperate. It, of course, only won me greater animosity, a rebuke from some of my Board members and only a minute increase in coverage. In short, the only thing I did was to vent my spleen and wounded ego.

Around that same time Scott was called in to the office of an ESPN network executive and was criticized for the way he was anchoring the show. The executive told him he was “using language that most of his audience did not understand”, and told him to “tone it down”.

Scott then took to his weekly written column [I think it was called Holla] and wrote an amazing tongue-in-cheek piece commending his bosses for having the courage to let him express himself in the language of the young and the disenfranchised. Instead of attacking them he praised them! He wisely understood that after writing that laudatory essay there was no way they could shackle or censor him. Check mate. Booyah! He then continued his remarkable career.

In the last seven years Stuart Scott has given us a gift. He has allowed us to watch him die. He has taught us a thing or two about dignity. We saw the ravages of cancer on a daily basis as his body and voice weakened, as he lost weight. Yet he dragged himself to the desk, whether in the studio or on the Monday Night Football sideline and gave us a periodic dose of beautiful prose. Three bouts of the ravages of this awful disease, sapping therapies, remissions and setbacks. And, through it all, his character and spirit shone. Stoicism through adversity is still one of the characteristics I admire the most. And, he taught me lessons.

See also  To An Athlete Dying Young - Remembering Ivo Van Damme

Booyah!

About Doug Logan

Doug Logan Shin SplintsDoug Logan is an Adjunct Professor of Sports Management, at New York University. He was the CEO for USATF from 2008 until September 2010.

He was also the CEO, President and Commissioner for Major League Soccer from 1995 to 1999.

To read more about his background and involvement in Track, Soccer, Rugby and the Music industry, read my Freelap Friday Five Interview.

Click here for his entire series.

Category iconDoug Logan,  Life & Culture

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Recommended

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xbs-aWxyLk

Shop Our Store

  • Bud Winter (9)
  • Championship Productions (6)
  • Clyde Hart (2)
  • Derek Hansen (1)
  • Electrical Muscle Stimulation (2)
  • Jim Hiserman (6)
  • Jimson Lee (4)
  • Uncategorised (0)

Articles by Category

Products

  • Jim Hiserman - Developing 800m Runners: Identifying, Categorizing and Developing 400m-800m Type Athletes $42.99 $39.99
  • Private Coaching - Monthly Plan $600.00 $525.00
  • Jim Hiserman-Developing-Distance-Runnersv2 Jim Hiserman - Developing Distance Runners Volume 2: A Systematic Approach to Developing Individual Success within a Dynamic Team Culture $34.95 $29.95
  • Feed-the-Cats-Clinic-3-Pack-701 'Feed the Cats' Clinic 3-Pack $64.99
  • Tony Holler's Feed the Cats": A Complete Sprint Training Program Tony Holler's "Feed the Cats" Complete Sprint Training Program $49.99
  • Bud Winter and Speed City presents Arthur Lydiard 509x716 Bud Winter & Arthur Lydiard MP3 [Download only] $9.99

RECENT POSTS

  • Oregon22 Coaches Club now Online
  • IFAC 2022: The Return of In-Person Conferences (with Virtual option)
  • Here is our 400m Discussion Recording… over 2 Hours Long
  • The Best Free Coaching Book – post Beijing 2022 Olympics
  • The Ultimate 400m Track Webinar for Coaches & Athletes
  • NACAC Athletics Coaching Science Series 2022
  • Top Six 400m Predictor Workouts (Number 4 is my Favourite)
  • Best 6 Podcasts for 2021 (and Beyond)
  • Why Karsten Warholm’s 45.94 400mH WR is my Highlight of 2021
  • Sprinting: 10 Research Articles for Effective Sprint Training [Part 23]

Copyright © 2023. SpeedEndurance.com is owned and operated by Aryta Ltd. Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}