Most overused word in athletics.

I just started thinking about it... why is it used to mean what it does?

What does choking on something have to do with being in position to win but screwing it up?

Are you about to swallow some food for a victory, but you choke and can't?

coughing up the victory

Apparently a blown save is a choke. Every blown save ever is a choke. That means every team out there chokes from time to time and it isn't something specific to Aggie athletics as some would want you to believe... Apparently Aggies always choke. Just don't tell that to many of the clutch teams and athletes who have won is conference and national titles.

To the Ags that constantly overuse it, it means anytime A&M falls short of their grandiose expectations.

I just find it absurd that every time a player makes a mistake in a big situation, they choked. Fact is, I'd bet the vast majority of the time, they just screwed up. No different from any other screw up. It just happened at a bad time.

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I just find it absurd that every time a player makes a mistake in a big situation, they choked. Fact is, I'd bet the vast majority of the time, they just screwed up. No different from any other screw up. It just happened at a bad time.

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Agree.

Give up a walk off and you choked. Do it in the 3rd inning and you just gave up a HR.

Throw an interception in the first half and it was a bad decision, do it in the 4th quarter and you choked.

Miss a FG early in the game, you just missed it - miss it late and you choked.

You don't "choke" in one play from my perspective, rather you completely fall apart over a series of mistakes/errors when you could have just minimized the damage a little bit and still won the game.

Well, it's choking because you're "coughing up victory."

Fact is, in the third inning, there's no victory that you're coughing up. Late in the game when you seemingly have victory in your back pocket, you choke.

I guess that's one way to think of it.

What Muy said. It isn't just one play...it'd be like being up 9-4 in the 9th and blowing the win.

I blame Cool Runnings

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...it'd be like being up 9-4 in the 9th and blowing the win.

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Ooooh, you mean the Astros, right?

There are many more games in which we don't "choke." People just get hung up on the games that we let get away. I'd say that we probably come back to win as many, if not more games that we cough up.

The one, defining play can certainly be a choke.
See -
Bill Buckner
Scott Norwood
Mitch Williams

There's 3 off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more from the "one play" doesn't make a choke. Happens all the time - if you play sports at a serious level, it's gonna happen.

Also,
Jackie Smith - Cowboys / Cardinals
Chris Webber
Jean Van de Velde

it is absolutely the most overused term in sports. no doubt. does it happen? YES! but unless it is obviously a complete drop then quit trying to get in the skull of the player. a defensive replacement late in a game has a challenge in some ways. glad some folks were happy to conclude that human error was a lack of guts.

the term "choke" should never be used in a non-individual game.

While watching the Nelson today, I saw Ryan Palmer hit his 2nd shot within 6' on 18 and make a birdie to force a playoff. His birdie on 18 was just the 2nd of the day. On the first hole of the playoff, which was also on 18, he hit his 2nd shot out of the rough into the water and made bogey to lose. Did he choke?

"There's a force in the universe that makes things happen; all you have to do is get in touch with it. Stop thinking...let things happen...and be...the ball."

no

the W was not in sight.

Everyone fights nerves in the important times of athletic contests (never cared for golf much due to my "yips" when putting). Fine line between increased concentration and becoming tight. "Choke" comletely subjective, but seems best defined by players/teams play becoming noticeably worse (higher error/mistake rate) than in less critical times. I live in Oklahoma City and follow the Thunder; their performance down the stretch against the Mavericks in the last few games could fairly, IMHO, be defined as choking--whole team vapor-locked and played at a markedly less efficient level than they had up until that point.

Hamburger Dan-

Interestingly, I just watched an MLB special of the post-game Mitch Williams interview after Joe Carter won the game for the Blue Jays. There are two differences between you and him:

1. He played between the lines at the highest level.

2. He sat in front of the media and said "I let my team down" even though the pitch was down and in.

Armchair quarterbacks UNITE behind Hamburger Dan.

what if you were a catcher?

Quick slant - You gotta be kidding. The thread was about people that have "choked". Cost their team a win. I mentioned those guys because they were involved with one play that did help define them. They ALL have been on numerous shows, replays, and highlight shows for years. I don't give two ****s about Mitch Williams or any of the others. I just stated an opinion that has been broadcast many other times by more qualified folks than me / you. I am the very last person to be an armchair anything. I've been a 5-A high school coach for almost 30 years, won / lost many times, played some baseball in a Division II college in Texas - most likely before you were born. Check on anything I've ever posted - I never bad mouth players or coaches. I'm just hanging out tonight trying to stay busy and watch TV - the last thing I planned on was getting in a pissing match with Mitch Willaims little sister.

How was Mitch Williams a choke?

Barely Missing a 47 yard field is a choke? Never understood the Scott Norwood Choke mentality.

Buckner is obvious but how is Norwood?

He has one job and that is to drill a fg to win the superbowl

If anybody is actually interested, here's a well-written article by Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink, Outliers, and the Tipping Point) about choking in sports:

http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.html

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Human beings sometimes falter under pressure. Pilots crash and divers drown. Under the glare of competition, basketball players cannot find the basket and golfers cannot find the pin. When that happens, we say variously that people have "panicked" or, to use the sports colloquialism, "choked." But what do those words mean? Both are pejoratives. To choke or panic is considered to be as bad as to quit. But are all forms of failure equal? And what do the forms in which we fail say about who we are and how we think?We live in an age obsessed with success, with documenting the myriad ways by which talented people overcome challenges and obstacles. There is as much to be learned, though, from documenting the myriad ways in which talented people sometimes fail.

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Well worth a read.

EDIT: Fixed URL code

[This message has been edited by texasaggie04 (edited 5/30/2011 4:20a).]

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                                                            THE MAN IN THE ARENA
           Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic", delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910 - download PDF
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

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Teddy Roosevelt


Some folks only claim to fame is being champion criticizers, who have little or no idea of what it takes to even be in a position to fail in front of an audience. Try to ignore them. Teddy did.

Kudos, Mark.

You and I remember when a "choke"as a device on a carburetor to help get the motor stated on a cold morning.

d.