An important part of any news story is quotes.

Putting quotes in your story makes them more interesting and less dry. You can put too many in, of course, because as I said just last week (as everyone reading this definitely knows), there can be too much of a good thing.

Sorry that I’m being Dr. Journalist McAPStyle, DFA to all of you folks, but it’s just such a vital thing. Now, not everything somebody says is usable or that great. I know this because Donald Trump says things all the time.

If you want an example of bad but entertaining quotes look no further than pro athletes.

I don’t mean to begrudge all pro athletes as quite a few are smart, but many aren’t what I would call brilliant. Or what my dog, Mighty Purdy Pearl, would call brilliant for that matter.

The latest example is from Rashard Mendenhall of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He likes to say cool things over Twitter, and after Osama bin laden was killed, he initially tweeted that he found it distasteful that people were celebrating somebody’s death.

Now, I don’t necessarily disagree with that, though in this case, I can understand some jubilation, especially by those in New York or Washington, and considering that bin Laden was one of the worst people to walk the earth.

However, that’s a different discussion for a different day.

This wasn’t the oddest thing that he tweeted though. Later he said in regards to the attacks on Sept. 11, “We’ll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”

There are two things that stand out for me in this quote. First, saying we’ll never know is stupid. Um, we do know. I knew when I saw it in seventh grade.

I think the causes have been determined. Beyond being dumb it’s tasteless.

The better part, and arguably dumber part, is him questioning the science of it. Hey everybody, shut up! Dr. Science is speaking!

I understand that Mendenhall is the foremost authority on construction and what ignited fuel can do, so we should definitely
pay attention.

Mendenhall is not some outlier either. There are countless examples of stupid things said by pro athletes. Fellow running back Adrian Peterson said the NFL treats its players like slaves for instance. You know, multi-millionaire, BMW-driving slaves who are FREE. I guess I don’t think a contract is equivalent to slavery.

Oh, and Mendenhall supported that comment, which shocks nobody.

Back in the pre-Twitter era … we’ll call it the Friendster era, it may have not been as easy to speak publicly, but it was still quite apparent.

For instance, NBA player Latrell Sprewell famously said that a $21 million contract was not enough money and that he “had a family to feed.” In all fairness, he was in massive debt and the money was probably not enough. He also should probably not feed his family gold bricks.

There’s got to be a cheaper grocery store.

Mike Tyson also liked to say things such as wanting to eat Lennox Lewis’ children or telling people that he’ll kill them multiple times. In his defense, he did get punched in the head for a living.

The bottom line is that athletes need to think long and hard about what they say. This is true about everybody, but few people are as “in the spotlight” as athletes.

There are just a myriad of ways to communicate today, so it is more important now than ever before to think before you speak.

It should be noted that even before Mark Zuckerberg, the Tysons of the world were saying some odd things as well.

They need to watch the dumb things they say because they will be quoted. Sometimes journalists will go overboard and print or record a quote because it is silly, not because it is useful.

But sometimes, their hands are forced because it is a stupid thing to say, yet useful to use. If athletes were more discriminatory in what they said, this wouldn’t happen.

Well, that concludes my lesson on quotes. Next week, I’ll talk about the Five W’s: what, when … wait, where are you going?

Come back!