ndthrilling. To announce a sporting season, it is accompanied by war-like terms todraw attention to the fans. In March, a college basketball tournament takes place,known as “March Madness.” Also, in the “March Madness edition” of SportsIllustrated, it included a baseball article that was titled “Spring Loaded.” Sportswriters often write about athletic competitions as if they were battles. Goingthrough all my issues of Sports Illustrated, there was not one magazine that didn’tinclude language that described a war. When we see these headings, weautomatically know the subject is about two opposing teams. In the basketballsection of March 19th edition of Sports Illustrated: “Paint Wars: As the battle fornational title unfolds, the team with true grit will have the best chance of survivingall the way to the Final Four in Minneapolis.” Highlighted in this article, was amessage by Duke’s Battier, “We’ll never wave the white flag,” and “We’ve lookedinto the eyes of a surrending team.” During the recorded NFL Super Bowl, therewere 12 examples of this message, as commentators enthusiastically described andreplayed scenes of players who got “buried,” “cleaned out,” or “wiped by the blocker.” In football, basketball, and baseball, common words and phrases that would appearin the sports section would be “battled,” “fought hard,” “dominated,” “prevailed,”“attacked,” and “heroic.” On an average, nearly five times per hour of sportscommentary on ESPN, announcers describe action using war references like “kill,”“ammunition,” “weapons,” “professional sniper,” “taking aim,” “fighting,”“reloading,” “detonate,” “squeezes the trigger,” ̶...
