Vol. 6, Issue 1, March 18, 2008
Sportscasters Ceasing Coverage of Tiger Woods, Citing Adjective Shortage
The Sportscaster's Union of America has announced that its members will cease producing coverage of Tiger Woods due to a lack of available adjectives.
"We're done," said a dejected-looking Frank Persons, SUA president, at a press conference in Tampa Bay. "We can't do it anymore. I mean, I like a success story as much as the next guy. But it's like covering the Super Bowl every week. We just can't do it anymore."
The move apparently came after Woods sank a 24-foot putt to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational, bringing him to 64 career PGA wins and extending a winning streak that goes back to last September.
"Seven years ago, we were using 'phenomenal' with relative abandon," said Persons. "It was appropriate - he was young, he was becoming one of the greats, no question. But we thought, you know, he'd level out or something. It's just been too long."
Sportscasters have long since exhausted their store of standard adjectives, dipping into the superlatives by 2000. By 2002, they had depleted the SUA supply of superlatives, but fell back to judicious comparatives until Woods entered his 'slump' in 2003.
"We thought we ducked a bullet there when Tiger began reworking his swing," lamented Persons. "But then he came back. I mean, come on - how are we supposed to avoid repeating ourselves? Most of us were communications majors. We can't handle this, man."
Every reporter covering Woods has been issued a thesaurus since 2005, but even this hasn't helped hapless sports writers pressed to find new and distinctive ways of describing win after win.
"I've been trying to make words up," admitted Thomas Knob, reporter for the Los Angeles Times. "I said his last win was both frandicious and hevalidotable. Unfortunately, our readership hasn't responded positively."
The PGA has assured the public that it is doing all it can to ensure continued coverage of Tiger's continued rampage across the record books and has arranged for an emergency intervention from the creative writing departments at NYU and Stanford.
"We are exploring many avenues, including the use of other languages," said PGA spokesman Trent Stottmeyer. "The Portuguese have generously agreed to loan us fifteen adjectives and three superlatives as a stopgap measure, for which we are extremely grateful. We anticipate that the loan will allow us to maintain coverage through April, by which time we hope to have arrived at a more comprehensive solution."
In the meanwhile, networks unable or unwilling to use the borrowed Portuguese terms have resorted to assigning non-sports reporters to covering PGA events.
"I have no problem repeating myself," said film critic Jeremy Platt of CNN.com. "If this Tiger fellow keeps winning, I'll just give him the old 'thumbs-up.' Hey, the little ball went in the hole. Is that good?"
