"hoped at to lose"

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:19 AM -0500 3/10/11, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>It sounds odd, but it's a very Zen comment. He is suggesting that people
>were sending bad vibes at the Heat, wishing them to lose.

I noticed that the Times story on the speech today quoted Jackson up
to "looked at to lose" but didn't include the "hoped at" part.

>Kind of
>reminds me of Blazing Saddles ("Where's the white women at?") Maybe he
>picked it up from one of his players.
>
>I did raise an eyebrow over the framing--"legendary"? Really? I don't
>think he's legendary--he's quite real and tangible and most of the
>stories about him are either true or can be relatively easily verified.
>Maybe in a decade or two after retirement--like his most famous player.

Ah, but he did retire, a couple of years after winning his sixth
championship, to go off and do more Zen in Montana or whatever, and
that made him legendary.  Then when he came back it was too late;
there's no approved process for delegendarization.

>Is Bill Belichick a legendary coach? Is Kobe Bryant a legendary player?

Not yet; see above.  (Although google indicates that there's a great
deal of variation on this.)

>In pro-baseball, the usual superlative is "future hall-of-famer", and
>the same commentary has been making its way into professional football.

Which makes it tricky when referring to coaches like Jim Calhoun in
college basketball--the  hall-of-fame coach suspended for sleazy
recruiting practices, etc.  I'm not sure why some halls of fame
induct active competitors instead of making them wait (5 years if
it's baseball), especially if it just encourages them to commit
ethical violations.

LH

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