When someone in the limelight is interviewed, it is nice when he or she thinks about the response and provides an insightful answer.
For that matter, it's nice when this happens in everyday conversation as well.
But it doesn't always happen. Think about, for instance, how it plays out sometimes in the world of sports.
If you are a football fan, you've probably noticed countless interviews after recent bowl games or NFL playoff games.
And you may have noticed that often the player or coach being interviewed simply parrots a comment or phrase that has been utilized hundreds of times before.
Instead of simply answering the question, he or she will insert a generic response.
This doesn't happen 100 percent of the time but it does happen.
In fact, it happens so often that one must wonder if our entire culture is in need of more creativity, independent thought, clear analysis, and lively conversation. (We would be wrong to assume this is just a football issue).
But for the sake of illustrating the point, look at the following post-game comments.
• "There's a lot of love on this team." That's not really original. Affection tends to grow between individuals who work through experiences together. Special bonds might form in a particular year on a particular athletic team, but we hear the phrase about love so frequently that we don't know if it's real or if it's just that everyone feels better after a win.
• "It was a great team effort in all phases of the game, offense, defense, and special teams." Football is a team sport, so many times the win can be chalked up to a team effort.
• "You've got to give them [the opponent] credit. They played a heckuva game." This is always nice to say, but again, since we hear it so often, we don't know if the speaker is being genuinely respectful and gracious, or if he is simply just saying it because it sounds good.
• "This team has been through a lot of adversity." Truthfully, it is hard to find a team, over the course of an entire season, that hasn't been through some form of adversity. For that matter, it's hard to find an individual who doesn't have to deal with adversity at some time.
• "I'm so proud of these guys. They earned it." How have they earned it? It might be more specific if a person said, "If you had seen the enthusiasm and work ethic we brought to practice this week, you wouldn't be surprised at how well it went today."
In short, when asked a question, it is best to simply consider what is being asked and respond based upon on one's perspective or one's understanding of events.
There's no need to voice sound bites from previous interviews.
Perhaps we can all do better in that regard. No need to recycle popular phraseology; just communicate.
What do you think? Could our culture have more original communication in the year ahead?
If we posed that question to a coach after a big win, in many instances he might simply respond with another canned reply: "We don't want to talk about next year. We just want to enjoy this win for now."
David Wilson, EdD, is the associate principal at Jefferson City High School. You may email him at [email protected].