When the NYT takes time to point out how ridiculous you sound, that cannot be good:
Meanwhile, over at the Daily Beast someone slogged through Serena's lightweight and unreflective autobiography, and came up with these zen quotes:Perhaps you remember the scene from “Bull Durham.” The veteran catcher, “Crash” Davis, played by Kevin Costner, is teaching the rookie pitcher, “Nuke” LaLoosh, played by Tim Robbins, the art of the sports cliché: sounding humble and gracious while saying almost nothing. The sports cliché has come a long way. Witness Serena Williams’s press conference on Saturday night after threatening a line judge in her semifinal with Kim Clijsters — an outburst that cost Ms. Williams match point.
To her credit, Ms. Williams didn’t shy away from reporters. But there was something deeply disheartening, even shocking, in hearing a player of her stature resort to the language of glib self-forgiveness. “It was what it was,” she said twice, referring to the incident. “I just go for it,” she said, forgetting that what she had gone for, verbally and with a threatening gesture, was the line judge. “I’m moving on,” she added, as if what had happened on court affected only her. When asked what she had said to the line judge, who had called a foot fault, Ms. Williams said: “I don’t remember anymore. I was in the moment.”
The faux-zen quality of that last remark is especially disturbing. We can almost hear it becoming the excuse of choice. But as it happens, everyone who saw the match live or on television was in the moment along with Ms. Williams, and we do remember. The best players in tennis — Ms. Williams is one of the very best — have the ability to put bad shots and lost points behind them.
Ms. Williams put this transgression away far too quickly and blithely — apologizing only on Monday. What she gave us on Saturday was a virtuoso display of the sports cliché, saying little and apologizing for nothing.
To be true is to stay inside the line
“I didn’t cheat on the lines. If my shot was out, I called it out. If her shot was in, I called it in.”
Strength is restraint, retaliation is weakness
“If someone hurls an untruth in your direction, it doesn’t always pay to swat back. Sometimes the thing to do is to just let it hang there, unanswered, and wait for it to disperse.”
They admire me; I admire me
“I have a responsibility to those little girls who look up to me, just as I have a responsibility to myself.”
Don’t follow the leader; be the leader to follow
“All I have to do is set a positive example. Piece of cake, right?”
When anger rises, find prayer and peace
On the Line. By Serena Williams with Danie Paisner. 272 Pages. Grand Central. $26. “People are always asking me why I don’t go crazy over bad calls, or get all emotional when a match tilts the wrong way, and it’s because I try to carry myself in a certain way. I don’t want to give my religion a bad name—and I never lose sight of this when I’m out on the court.”
She who conquers herself is the fiercest of fighters
“I couldn’t control the umpires or the line judges any more than I could control my opponent. The only person I could control on the court was me.”
Turn cheek before giving lip
“It wasn’t like me to mouth off to an official.”
To foul is to be human
“Every official misses a call from time to time; but you’re only supposed to miss the close ones, right?”
