Let’s give 110 percent and take 1 game at a time

“Of course it’s boring!” Costner shoots back. “That’s the point. Write it down.”

By the end of the movie, Robbins sounds downright articulate while spewing one cliche after another.

“That’s what athletes do,” Fink said. “Basically every interview, in one way or another, sounds like that.”

While clichés permeate every aspect of life, from business to education to the legal community, sports is where they really thrive _ football, in particular. Coaches are downright paranoid about letting out too much information, and they try to pass on that mind-set to the players.

When in doubt (or even scared) about what to say, one tends to fall back on the familiar.

“Something is very comforting when you’ve heard it over and over and over,” said Don Powell, a psychologist and lifelong sports fan who calls himself “Dr. Cliche.” He has a database with nearly 5,000 entries and has put the best of the bunch in a book, “Best Sports Clichés Ever! We’re Taking Them One at a Time.”

“They’re trite but they’re usually true. They do make a lot of sense. That’s why we tend to use them over and over,” Powell said. “They’re also a very efficient form of communication, a way to express something simply that may be a little more complex in nature. … You don’t have to use many words when using a cliche. They’re very visual and hit the nail right on the head.”

With yet another cliche out of the way, let’s get down to business.

There’s a game to be played (remember, only one).

There’s 110 percent to give (good luck finding that last 10 percent).

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Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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