What Kayvon Thibodeaux got right…and very wrong
On a Fox Sports online broadcast around last weeks’ National Championship game, Kayvon Thibodeaux unleashed a firestorm among Alabama alumni with his comments to Joel Klatt. The vitriol on Twitter was swift and biting (including several tweets by yours truly).
My first reaction was to dismiss Thibodeaux as an immature buffoon with an exalted opinion of himself. After all, his misuse of the word “stigmatism” is one of the most meme-worthy moments of early 2022, but upon further reflection, I think he really backed into something that is objectively true.
Consider his comment:
What people don’t realize is that football is an American sport. So, no matter how great Alabama is, you only play football in America, Canada and a couple other places. But a brand like Nike, I mean, for me it was like what brand associations do I want to be tied to? For me, I already hate the stigmatism of football players being dumb jocks. Do you know the stigmatism of Alabama education? It ain’t the West Coast. It ain’t Harvard."
What Kayvon got right
Stigmatism (n) stig·ma·tism | \ ˈstigməˌtizəm \
the condition of an optical system (such as a lens or mirror) in which rays of light from a single point converge in a single focal point
Stigmatism (as opposed to astigmatism), is crystal-clear 20/20 vision. It is a state in which the eye is functioning optimally with the light taken in being precisely directed to a single spot.
While Thibodeaux was trying to say that there is a stigma associated with being a football player and with an Alabama education, he unleashed a torrent of evidence that gave crystal-clear insight to many that neither could be further from the truth.
From inverse.com:
The Wonderlic test was originally meant to help companies find employees that had an aptitude for problem-solving. Through the years, however, it’s been adopted by the NFL. It makes sense: Football is a strategic game, and it helps to determine a player’s ability to understand intricate plays, handle immense pressure, and make quick decisions. It takes a lot more intelligence than one might think to lead a team to victory. For comparison, the average intellect among quarterbacks is a 24 out of 50 on the test; the average bank teller really only needs a 22.
“History shows that the brighter a person is, the more likely he is to be successful,” Michael Callans, president of Wonderlic Consulting, has said. “Whether they are on a football field or in a boardroom, smarter people are resourceful and they don’t make a lot of mistakes.”
That might seem to make sense in an office setting, but it might not be congruent to how we think about football players. In that respect, it can help to think about your brain as a muscle (even though it’s technically not): More physical activity leads to better cognitive function.
Anyone who knows football knows that it is a complex game requiring intelligence to perform at the highest level. In fact, Multiple Intelligences theory recognizes the physical and spatial aspects of football as domains that require their own unique intelligence. Thibideaux is rightly offended by any notion that football players are dumb jocks.
What He Got Wrong
Unwittingly, the backlash from his comments about the stigma of an Alabama education have provided fantastic promotion for the quality of the University of Alabama. It’s difficult to rank schools like Alabama and Oregon comparatively. Various assessors like U.S. News & World Reports rank them, but in all honesty, they are comparable. Both have relative strengths and weaknesses, but neither seems significantly more prestigious especially to the degree that Thibodeaux asserts. What is sure is that no press is bad press. The academic credentials of the University of Alabama have been searched and perused by many folks who otherwise would have no interest, and that can’t be bad for Alabama.
His notion that Phil Knight’s association with Oregon is laughable unless he thinks he’s in the same rarified air as superstars like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Kevin Durant, and a few others. This is the crux of where he is dead wrong.
What I see in Kayvon Thibodeaux is a cocky, immature young man who lacks perspective about himself. In the same show, he touted his dominance of Evan Neal in The Opening and other high school all-star opportunities. The problem is that film doesn’t lie. Neal owned him on several well-documented occasions. Thibodeaux is his own hype man, and his mouth seemingly overloaded his performance.
Certainly, Kayvon Thibodeaux is a top-notch football player, but he’s also a 21-year-old who thinks he’s the smartest kid in the class. As a former college professor, I have seen kids like this many times. Some excel and fulfill their potential and their rhetoric. Others don’t. Time will tell, but right now a bunch of Mr. Thibodeaux’s bluster is more “fake it until you make it.” Perhaps he should focus on talking less, and let his actions do the talking. Then we will see if his talk is stigmatically valid.
What do you think? I’d love to see your thoughts. Comment below or on Twitter to keep the conversation going.
