Seahawks' Golden Tate criticizes NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson

Seattle Times ^ | 7-15-2011 | Associated Press

[Route797]

LOUDON, N.H. — Jimmie Johnson has two titles he is especially proud to have linked to his name. Five-time NASCAR champion. AP Male Athlete of the Year.

Johnson was swept into a brief Twitter feud this week because of his inclusion as a nominee for male athlete of the year at the ESPY Awards.

Seahawks receiver Golden Tate posted on his account, @ShowtimeTate, "Jimmy johnson up for best athlete???? Um nooo .. Driving a car does not show athleticism."

Tate, 22, angered NASCAR fans and posted, "12th man get these rednecks off me."

More Tate tweets:

• "I've driven a car on unknown roads at night at 90mph no big deal. No sign of athletism."

• "Guarantee he couldn't in million year play any SPORT."

• "give me 6 months of training and I bet I could compete."

NASCAR defenders got Tate's attention.

"Apologies for my offensive comment to NASCAR fans. I actually read up on it and NO I couldn't race a car 150 mph," he wrote.

[AnAmericanMother]

I'm with you that a horse isn't, technically, an athlete in the same way a human is. My gripe is with people who think that riders in the more strenuous equestrian sports aren't athletes.

But some horses are more athletic than others, and particular breeds of horse are better suited for some sports than others.

My mare would look very out of place in Texas - she is very tall, very skinny, and would look pretty silly in a Western saddle because she is so narrow from side to side. The old style Quarter Horses are relatively short, very stocky, very muscular, built for working cows and for quick bursts of speed - quite a different critter from the tall rangy Thoroughbred who is designed to gallop and jump steadily for long periods of time. We would be out on a fox hunt at daybreak, and hunt until well into the afternoon, and of course at the 3 day events you are moving all day long, including the dressage in the ring (the easy stuff), roads and tracks, steeplechase, cross country jumping, and stadium jumping in the ring. We just did the baby version, with an abbreviated steeplechase and low jumps, not the huge scary stuff that the really high end 3-day horses do, but that was MORE than enough excitement for us.

A classic, muscular QH

My mare, we're "larking" a fence for the photographer.

Craziness in which we always refused to participate -- but you can't really say that these high-end horses aren't athletes -- and their riders are too.

[tubebender]

and that’s because Nascar and the teams support them all. Which one did Tate graduate(?) from

[buccaneer81]

and that’s because Nascar and the teams support them all.

Not quite sure where you're going with that.

My point is that not all football players are, as you put it, "big and dumb," as that description certainly doesn't apply to graduates of the service academies.

[Ransomed]

All neato pictures, but that last B&W pic is amazing. I’m a big fan of the western channel and I always groan when I see horses tripped.

Freegards

[AnAmericanMother]

We went to the cross country phase of the 1996 Olympics 3-Day event.

We parked for awhile on the landing side of the "piano" (a huge drop fence) and then for awhile on the landing side of the big water drop fence. It was even scarier in person - a lot of stuff like this going on, especially with the smaller and less prepared teams.

After the Olympics were over, my trainer led a trail ride out in the Horse Park, and we rode around the 3-Day course looking for something to negotiate so that we could say we trained on the course. Couldn't find anything anywhere near SMALL enough. :-(

[Vigilantcitizen]

It's according to what kind of bass fishing...Riding around in a boat don't require much athleticism....But hiking down a 1 1/2 mile powerline carrying a backpack with about 20 pounds of gear and a handful of rigs....through the grass, snakes, saw briars, bugs...then wading into the marsh with the snapping turtles...That'll make you sweat.

[fish hawk]

Look under “sporting events” and let me know if there are any car races entered.

[fish hawk]

Most of you are missing my point. It has nothing to do with exertion or body workout, shape or how fast and dangerous it is. Let's say Chuck Yeager (in his younger days) takes you for a ride in the hottest new jet there is. Now he is in top physical shape and works out to stay that way. He is taking his life into his own hands every time he goes up (just like race drivers do) Now he does loops dives , roll overs, stalls and heavy heavy G forces. He still is no more of an athlete than the hottest driver on the oval. Some of you keep coming back to how physically hard and dangerous racing is, to me, that has absolutely nothing to do with being an athlete. Racing may be tougher than tennis or baseball on the body but that is not the point.

[Norm Lenhart]

“Racing generates the one drug that can’t be bought outright with cash. It’s the dirty little secret that non-racing folks don’t quite grasp. If you do it even once, you will forever want more of it and you will spend your fortunes trying to get it. “

That’s what it all boils down to and the thing that any n0n racer or even casual fans of race-oriented sport, mechanized or not, can’t really understand until they actually experience it. It’s not a slam on them, just the facts.

My first ‘real’ racing experience came on snowmobiles back in the 80s when a 50 horespower 340 cc machine was pretty quick and a 440cc Yamaha SRX could be tweaked to within an inch of it’s life at 125 HP. Today, That’s recreational stock stuff. But we had fun regardless because 100 mph in ice with your eye level about a foot off it in the turns is not for the faint-hearted.

It’s really hard to describe that ‘rush’ when you really think about it. When you have a practically non stop adrenaline rush like that, it’s sensory overload. You perceive a thousand little things all at once and thanks to the ‘clarity of mind’ that adrenaline forces on the brain as a part of what it does, you ‘understand it’ and process it.. that ‘feedback’ refereed to earlier.

I say this tongue in cheek, but it’s true. A dog has a few thousand times the sense of smell as a human. What do you think he’s doing when he sticks his head out the window at 80 mph on the freeway? He’s getting that sensory overload I’m talking about.

The body itself is operating in a far higher state of capability and reacts with the ‘rattlesnake on crank’ quickness that another poster refereed to. And depending on the sport, that mental and physical state that TV commentators call “the zone” can last for the duration of the race, whether a few laps or a few hours. This is a level of physical performance far above your ‘average’ and you are very much mentally aware of it. Feels pretty damn good!

Then, when it’s over, you are physically and mentally drained and you are then flooded with another rush of natural endorphins as the brain preps the body to deal with the physical and chemical exertion you and ‘it’ just placed on the system overall.

There is not one other experience on God’s green earth, nor one drug available that replicates all that. If you ever wondered why people will do things like go spend fortunes for the ability to hit 200 mph for 5 hours, go broke and then struggle to build back up to do it again or pound themselves into wrecks, risking broken bones (and getting them quite often) and even killing themselves on dirt bikes/mountain bikes and in other forms of motorsports, now you have a better idea.

But until (in the general sense) you actually do it, you will never really understand it.

The casually bandied about term “Adrenaline junkie” is a very real “addiction” in it’s own way to many.

[Norm Lenhart]

I get what you are saying. The thing is that we’re defining ‘athletics’ by different standards. You are thinking (for example) Athelete = Olympian and Olympian type/traditional sports. We are saying that’s true but not ‘only’ Olympian types are athletes.

I guess it’s an ‘agree to disagree’ kinda thing because one camp will never convince the other. Heck there are Chess players that still say that Video gamers aren’t really playing games, they are just watching entertainment/taking part in an interactive movie with a predetermined outcome. Purist vs. ‘new wave.’

[FunkyZero]

Well said.

It's always obvious when talking to a fellow junkie. I don't mean to make it out like it's some sort of exclusive club either. I've begged people I know to just try it once just so they would stop calling me crazy.

My first experience was WKA 5hp stock go-karts roughly 25 years ago. I spent well over 1500 bucks just to get in that first heat. 5hp stock lasted exactly 1 Sunday. I proceeded to spend all of my savings moving to 100cc yamaha pipe. That lasted until I had enough money to put together my first shifter. It had to be faster and I needed more. That craving went on for almost 10 years until I called it quits.
I had to decide between my own selfish addiction and providing a more stable future for my wife and kids. I may have loved racing, but I wasn't anywhere near good enough to every get past running local Indiana tracks. I remember talking with my wife one night about starting to save for kids college. We were going over annual tuition costs and all I remember is her talking bla bla bla while I secretly calculated in my head that I could almost get a complete Ed Pink for the same money. That's when I realized I needed to sell off the stuff and quit.

I don't go to the races anymore. All it takes is to get one whiff of that sweet smell of burning methanol (and you KNOW what I am talking about) and it starts all over again... it's so funny how your body starts to react to those old triggers and the smell was always my favorite.

God, I really hate being a has-been.

[Judith Anne]

Okay, I’ll be glad to listen. What is an athlete, and what is a sport?

[fish hawk]

LOL , you are so right. Bottom line it all is nothing and we should be putting all our energy , athletic or not, into dumping the idiot in the oval office.

[Norm Lenhart]

“I don’t go to the races anymore. All it takes is to get one whiff of that sweet smell of burning methanol (and you KNOW what I am talking about) and it starts all over again... it’s so funny how your body starts to react to those old triggers and the smell was always my favorite. God, I really hate being a has-been. “

Better a has been than a Never was ;)

Oh yes...I know exactly what you are talking about. Every time I see a Trophy Truck hauler or a Buggy on a trailer go gown I-40 or 15 into Vegas I get a lump in my stomach that takes a while to go away. The smell of VP race gas is like perfume... But Channel #5 is cheaper....

It REALLY is an addiction. I’d love to see a good grad student do a thesis on the phenomenon.

[Sporke]

Thank you for your post, I might have even learned something. :-D

[AnAmericanMother]

It’s fun stuff! Find yourself a good riding instructor and get on out there!

[triumphant values]

I challenge Mr. Tate to run just 2 heats one Saturday night in Silver Crown... or better yet, World of Outlaws. do that then come back and talk to us about it. But beware... heroin has nothing on open-wheel racing. You will end up broke and forever wanting more.

As someone who has raced sprints both winged and wingless and late models on both dirt and asphalt, I will say this: if you take a natural elite athlete like Tate and give him 6 months of track training, he is much more likely to be able to compete at a high level, than any NASCAR driver would be able to on an NFL field.

There are thousands of guys who strap on helmets all across the country every weekend and many if given a well-financed ride would be able to finish a NASCAR race and not in last place.

Out of the millions of kids who play high school ball, a few hundred will make it to the NFL. And then their average career lifespan is three to four years.

[B4Ranch]

>>.NASCAR requires 2...nuff said.<<

I’ll mention that to Danica.

[dalereed]

Most football players are so stupid that without their coaches pleading for grades they would have been high school dropouts!

[Aqua225]

OK, then what is the point?

What is “fish hawk’s definition of athlete”?

Precision control of physical action? NASCAR driver has it, check.

Forethought & strategic execution of actions? NASCAR driver has it, check.

Extreme stamina? NASCAR driver has it, check.

What is it that defines a athlete for fish hawk?