Guarantees just aren’t what they used to be. Back in the day a guarantee was something extraordinarily, spectacular: A sacred declaration of one team’s predicted dominance over another. It was something that got fans to pay close attention to an event even if the game didn’t fascinate them. Think Joe Namath in the AFL-NFL merger or Babe Ruth calling his shot. Guarantees used to be one of the quickest ways of becoming a legend.
Maybe that’s the problem.
In this day and age it seems as if athletes will guarantee just about anything. With technological advancements over the last forty years, just plain speaking to the newspaper is considered as boring or primitive as the Pet Rock. To make yourself heard these days you have to have a twitter account, radio show, or controversial book. You have to be an outlandish character that prefers confidence to common sense, AKA Ocho Cinco.
To predict the obvious is never exciting or daring either. Just claiming to win the Super Bowl is no fun anymore. It’s too big of an event! Now days you have to predict something that will happen every month, week, day, or even second. The times have changed and the stakes have been raised. Besides there are no points off for misfiring predictions. Just ask any personality that works at ESPN.
Last week Honduras defender Maynor Figueroa made such a bold guarantee. Here is what Figueroa had to say about the upcoming U.S.A.-Honduras World Cup Qualifier which will be played in his homeland:
It will be something marvelous … to achieve this feat and be part of it. I believe it will be something that will go down in the history books.
History books? One of my favorite guarantee tag lines.
I have one piece of advice for Mr. Figueroa.
You should save your guarantees for the World Cup because that is when people actually start to listen.
But then again maybe you should use them all up now because your team, Honduras, hasn’t made the event since 1982.
And as we all know, one out of seven attempts is not much of a guarantee at all.
