Quotes From GOATS

00:00:29 Speaker 1: Humans are believed to have first started domesticating goats roughly eleven thousand years ago, thanks to a few separate communities living around the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East formed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the Mediterranean Sea. At first, several distinct groups or communities of humans began hunting wild goats in the area. Slowly, as in tens, if not hundreds of years later, these groups began to herd the goats, then manage them, and then finally they started breeding them, marking the true start of domestication. Today, domestic goat species are spread throughout the planet, and many still bear some similar, if not identical genes to those wild goats thousands of years ago. While remarkable, it's not exactly shocking, at least if you believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. Humans require specific traits from wild animals in order to domesticate them, like being highly social, which makes it easy to manage large numbers of them, reproducing quickly, adapting to captivity, and most importantly, losing the fear of humankind. So in summary, modern day domestic goats sport the traits from their ancestors that best suit the needs of humans. Speaking of goats sporting traits, we Homo sapiens must have a genetic trait that makes us want to tailor goats to fit our needs. Because this sports world itself has also morphed the very word into an acronym. The term goat in association with sports was first used to negatively describe some players, dating back to nineteen oh six. It was used either as shorthand for scapegoat, or to describe a player who choked or made an error during a critical moment, and it stayed that way for a while. Then in the nineteen sixties, Muhammad Ali set the undercurrents of change in motion by largely introducing the phrase greatest of all time to the sporting world. Well not introducing, but boldly and loudly declaring it in an interview. 00:02:31 Speaker 2: I'd everybody stopped talking, now attention. I told you all of my critics. I told you all that I was the greatest of all time. 00:02:41 Speaker 1: Decades later, it would be his wife, Lonnie Ali, who would introduce the first written acronym for greatest of all time in nineteen ninety two when she incorporated an umbrella company that covered all of the legendary boxer's intellectual properties used for commercial properties. The firm's name was goat Ink spelled out gait. According to Miriam Webster. The first known use of the phrase online came some four years later, in none other than an Orlando Magic forum. The post was a single sentence that referenced the team's star guard, Penny Hardaway. It read, quote, Penny is the Goat greatest of all time unquote. Now, the acronym's popularity hadn't truly taken off, but it would finally begin its ascent with the help of an unlikely source, LLL cool J. In two thousand, he released an album that was titled just like the end of that Orlando Magic Forum post. It read Goat Greatest of All Time. Llo Coooljay has since credited Muhammad Ali as the inspiration for not just the album title, but one of the best songs on it, Mama said, knock you out. There's an infinite amount of online at in person debate, and less frequently agreement on who the Goat is or isn't, and it's fair to say that probably isn't going anywhere soon. And so in honor of this being the season finale of Sports dot MP three, I'll be sharing the little known stories and common misconceptions behind a few iconic quotes from the goats of different sports. I'm Will Gatchell. This is the season finale of Sports dot MP three. Make sure the device you're listening to this on is charged and that you're following the podcast on the platform you're listening to this on via that device, and without further ado, let's get into it. 00:04:55 Speaker 2: Plenty of so right. 00:05:03 Speaker 1: That was a clip of Lebron James attempting to answer reporters questions. The sounds you hear in the background are as teammates making goat noises. You know, because he's the greatest of all time. All sports are going to have different metrics, qualification, and controversies surrounding their respective greatest of all time debates, and basketball might just hold the honor of having the most divisive of them all. Michael Jordan versus Lebron James. Jordan and Lebron played in different eras and have extremely different legacies. What Jordan did play with the Wizards for two years. At the end of his career. He won all six of his championships with the Chicago Bulls, and he was the king of an MBA where star player switching teams was an uncommon occurrence and free agencies were a far cry from the frenzies they are now. Lebron, on the other hand, has won championships with three different teams, playing in an NBA era known for super teams and star studded rosters. But in twenty ten, after spending his first seven years in the NBA on his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, King James still had no crown. He was still yet to cement the status tattooed across his back that read the chosen One. As an unrestricted free agent, that offseason, media attention around Lebron reached a fever pitch. Constant news and rumors swirled as big teams fought to recruit him and the Cavaliers fought to keep him. This all led to the decision on July eighth, twenty ten. And when I say decision, I mean the Decision, a national broadcast aired by ESPN that would feature Lebron James announcing his free agency decision to a studio show audience record of ten million people. The decision was an instant classic before it even aired. It was a concept that hadn't really been seen before in the NBA, let alone at that magnitude. I remember watching it live and when Lebron said I'm taking my talents to South Beach, I honestly didn't really comprehend what he'd said. I was thinking, uh, South Beach, that's not a team, seriously, And when I did comprehend that he meant he was joining the Miami Heat, I was shocked. Others, like Cleveland fans and all the other teams fans who wanted to win the Lebron sweepstakes, were enraged or angry. There were always Lebron haters, but Lebron hate reached an all time high after that decision, and it didn't make things any better that he was creating a super team in Miami by joining forces with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. In the end, the decision itself largely did work out, and Lebron did return to Cleveland to win a championship. Just one thing, people who think he created the idea for the decision are completely wrong. It actually came from a Bill Simmons article. Yeah, working for ESPN at the time. The famous sportswriter had published a mail bag piece responding to fan submissions and comments in late two thousand and nine. A fan named Drew had written the following quote, what if Lebron announces he would pick his twenty ten to twenty eleven team live on ABC on a certain date for a show called Lebron's Choice? What type of crazy ratings would that get? 00:08:23 Speaker 2: End? 00:08:23 Speaker 1: Quote? A few months later, Simmons pitched the idea to a few of Lebron's business partners during the All Star Game weekend, and they loved the idea. It obviously wasn't a smash success in terms of making Lebron universally beloved, but it did have one other, much more positive outcome. Lebron ended up donating the two million dollars raised from the event to the National Boys and Girls Clubs of America, though I would argue that the amount of Lebron jerseys burned after the decision in Cleveland just might have cost more than two million dollars. How do you pay man? 00:09:14 Speaker 2: If you don't write checks, how do you pay these guys? 00:09:16 Speaker 1: Break cash? 00:09:16 Speaker 2: Ho? 00:09:19 Speaker 1: That's Randy Moss talking to a reporter outside of Vikings facilities about a ten thousand dollars fine. Specifically, it's Moss answering how he would pay his fine, and his answer is a timeless Soundbut what you might not know is that the particular fine he had to pay at the time was for a touchdown celebration he had performed a few days prior, involving Moss fake mooning Green Bay Packers fans at their iconic lambeau Field and yes, I mean the pulling down your pants type of mooning. Why would he do such a thing, Well, Moss had missed the two regular season games against the rival Packers that season, and their band had trolled the receiver by spelling out where are you at with cards after one of those games, So when the Vikings happened to face the Packers in their wild card playoff matchup, Moss was already pretty pissed when the Vikings team showed up for the game itself, and a few opposing fans apparently greeted them by mooning the players. It was on a few hours later, after already scoring a touchdown earlier in the game, Moss would score second of the day and the final score of the game, to make it Vikings thirty one packers seventeen. Picking inspiration from those fans, Moss then celebrated by pretending to pull down his pants at the crowd, and although he maintains he was justified to this day, he did still pay the fine, and you already know how he paid it great cash. Randy Moss also happens to be one of the greatest receivers in football history. The six foot four receiver out of DuPont City, West Virginia, played college ball for the Marshall Thundering Herd, where he racked up of ridiculous three thousand, four hundred and sixty seven receiving yards and caught fifty four touchdowns in just two seasons. After running a blazing four point twenty five second forty yard dash, he was selected with the twenty first pick in the NFL Draft by the Minnesota Vikings, and he didn't slow down, setting an NFL single season rookie record with seventeen touchdown receptions that year. By the time Moss officially retired before the start of the twenty thirteen season, he stood as the NFL's second all time leader in touchdown receptions, fourth in career receiving yards, and the single season touchdown reception record holder with twenty three in two thousand and seven. His statistics aren't the best argument for why he's one of the greatest ever. You can just see his influence on the sport at any level with a simple phrase, getting most. In football, when a receiver leaps up and catches a contested ball over defender, the receiver just most the defender. It's the basketball equivalent of the crossover being named after a dude named Bobby Crossover who popularized breaking ankles. So yeah, you don't want to get most, you want to do the mossing. 00:12:30 Speaker 2: I told I gave a speech after the second period. People who know me played with me. I don't give him any speeches. It's not really my style. The standout. 00:12:40 Speaker 1: But that's Wayne the great one Gretzky starting off the last postgame press conference of his career, and just who was this great one? The National Hockey League's all time leading scorer and maybe the man responsible for the single most popular sports quote of all time, or at the very least the one that's been printed on the most posters. Since you miss one hundred percent of the shots, you don't take, while fans of the office would be wrong to claim that it's really a quote from Michael Scott. There is some truth behind the idea. Wayne Gretzky wasn't the one who originated the quote. It was actually his father sort of maybe. In the middle of the nineteen eighty three NHL season, Bobby Mackenzie, an editor for Hockey News, asked a twenty one year old Wayne Gretzky in an interview if the star player had taken a lot of shots that year, and he certainly had. He was on pace to record four hundred shots on goal that year, a number only one player in history had reached. Ultimately, Gretzky wouldn't finish with four hundred shots on goal that season, but it didn't stop him from giving the now legendary response quote, you missed one hundred percent of the shots you don't take, even though there is only a one to five percent probability of scoring end quote. I can understand why the second sentence got dropped because no offense to any statistics majors, But a quote with the word probability just inherently loses some style points. And here's where things get a little weird. Wayne Gretzky definitely gave that response in nineteen eighty three, the first instance on record of that particular quote. Then, sixteen years later, Gretzky scored the lone goal for the Saint Louis Blues and a one nothing playoff victory over the Detroit Red Wings to even the series at two games apiece. After the game, Gretzky was interviewed by reporters and he said, quote, my dad says one hundred percent of the shots you don't take don't go in, so I figured i'd take it. Believe me, I was probably just as happy as anybody else in the building that it went in. End quote. So, in this quote, which is very similar to the one from nineteen eighty three, Wayne claims he got the saying from his father, Walter Gretzky, the Canadian philanthropist affectionately known as Canada's Hockey Dad, who played a massive role in his son's life, not just as a father but a coach too. Based on literally hundreds of stories from random strangers who interacted with Walter his father over the years, the man was one of the kindest and most sincere figures in all of hockey. Okay, so it was a simple mix up. Clearly, Wayne forgot to mention that he got the iconic phrase from his dad during that nineteen eighty three interview, and he cleared that confusion up in the nineteen ninety six interview. But don't worry, because just recently Wayne Gretzky revealed the true origin of the quote. Through Masterclass. He reveals that he had been frustrated since the age of twelve by all the people telling him to shoot the puck more, and so, in about nineteen ninety, without knowing how he really thought of it, he said, I know, I know, one hundred percent of the shots you don't take don't go in. And that, apparently, according to him, is how the quote came to be. And if you're a bit confused, joined the club. Because the truth behind this iconic quote is almost impossible to track down, and considering the man himself has had trouble actually pinpointing the origins of the quote, it's fair to say this one might just be lost in the sauce forever. Plus, he's called a great one because he was great at hockey, not because he had a great memory. When Gretzky retired in early nineteen ninety nine, he held or shared sixty one NHL records. Twenty three seasons later, he still held or shared fifty nine of them, which is funny enough a drop in percentage that falls between one and five percent. All seasons come to an end at some point, and this season of Sports dot MP three has reached that point. Yeah, that's right, this is the end of the episode. I know it's tough. I feel the same, but on a serious note, I'll be back with a new season at some point in the future, and for now, you can always listen to all the episodes I've currently posted. Thank you all so much for listening and supporting the podcast Sports dot MP three. I'm Will Gatchel, your host. This is see you later, not goodbye, or you listen to me later not goodbye. I'll be back at an undisclosed point in the future with a season two. Take care, peace,