I’d really like to know how Serena Williams got onto a list of the 10 worst-conditioned pro athletes.
In fact, other than David Wells (come on, the guy is famously hard-living and developed gout, of all things, while playing) and John Daly, a golfer who disdains exercise and smokes and drinks heavily, I’m not sure there’s any reason for any of these people to be on this list other than weight. And weight is not synonymous with conditioning.
And obviously, if they’re pro athletes (and oh, how Jeff Gordon likes to use the scare quotes around “athlete” when he’s talking about fat folks or people in non-traditional sports), their weight didn’t keep them from performing at a high enough level that somebody’s going to pay for them to play.
Gordon blames weight for injuries, but did I not just read that David Beckham, lean as they come, was injured again?
And he has one guy, Sean May, who’s on the list because of bad knees at 23 and for being overweight. And how much is he overweight? 10 pounds. AND HE’S A BASKETBALL PLAYER.
Let’s just take a look at the kinds of quotes he pulls of athletes on his list “defending” their weight:
This summer, ABC aired “Shaq’s Big Challenge” — a series designed to help kids beat childhood obesity. NBA fans saw irony in this, since O’Neal has struggled with his own weight during the latter stages of his career. Those extra pounds have created nagging injury problems.
Perhaps Shaq will try to practice what he preached. O’Neal, 35, claims his body fat is down to 12 percent. He is trying to lay off club sandwiches and soft drinks. And, he insists, he has never been that fat.
“I’ve been a freak of nature when it comes to basketball,” O’Neal said this summer. “They’ve never seen a specimen of my sort. But of course, you don’t know me, and you say, ‘How much does he weigh, 350?’
“In this world that we live in, anything about 300 is considered fat, but you know, when they considered me big and heavy, that was when I was most dominant, winning championships. I’ve never been overweight. I’ve always had less than 14 percent body fat, (which) for guys my size is considered excellent.”
Shaq, as we know, is well over 7 feet tall. And he’s muscular in a way that most basketball players are not. The man is naturally huge, and you’re after him because he’s huge? You do realize that weight should rise with height?
Gordon, of course, just sees the number, and it’s clear he doesn’t believe Shaq about his body fat percentage. And why shouldn’t he encourage kids to exercise when he’s been plagued with criticism about his weight? The kids might just relate to him because of that.
And then there’s Williams, whose sin in some people’s eyes is that she must be fat because she has an ass:
Is she too big? The Australian media certainly believed so. While winning the Australian Open earlier this year, Williams, 25, fielded pointed questions about her weight.
“It was outrageous,” she said at the time. “I mean, I was looking in the mirror today and it was just, like, my waist is still 28 inches and I think it’s all because I have a large bosom and I have a large arse, excuse me.
“I have a large arse and it always just looks like I’m bigger than the rest of the girls, but I have been the same weight for I don’t know how long. If I lost 20 pounds, I’m still going to have these knockers, forgive me, and I’m still going to have this arse. It’s just the way it is.”
(For more on Serena’s arse, check out her mostly exposed backside in the latest Jane magazine.)
Injuries have limited Serena and sister Venus Williams for years. After she won the Australian Open, Serena withdrew from two matches. She won the Sony Ericsson Open, then pulled a groin muscle at the Family Circle Cup. A knee injury forced her out of the Fed Cup. She suffered calf and thumb injuries at Wimbledon.
Note how he blames the “extra” weight for Serena’s injuries, even as he gives passing mention to Venus, who has smaller breasts and so doesn’t “read” as fat, and her being injury-prone. Could be that Venus and Serena, being sisters, share some genetic predisposition to injury. In any event, please explain how Serena’s massive girth had anything to do with her thumb injury.
Whatever he may purport to think about her “conditioning” I’d be willing to bet you he wouldn’t want to dead lift against her.
As if thinner athletes aren’t plagued with injuries.
On an anecdotal note, I had a friend in college who was on the swim team and he was a big guy. He had a pot belly. If Jeff Gordon thinks Serena Williams is fat, he probably would have considered my friend to be obese. But he swam the butterfly faster than anyone. His junior year, he was the national champion in men’s 200 butterfly for the NCAC, and three years in a row he made the top three. So who gives a shit about the pot belly? It obviously wasn’t holding him back.
In a world filled with stupid sports articles, that one certainly sets itself apart, especially when talking about Williams. But then again, I suppose that in the world according to Gordo, you’re an overweight female athlete if you’re heavier than, say, Maria Sharapova.
He should talk. He looks a little big to me based on his photo. I’m sure it’s all muscle though.
Oh my god. Those paragraphs about Williams made me see red.
Serena Williams is muscular. Of course she weighs a lot. Muscle weighs more than fat!
I love the way that they quoted her responding to this sort of bullshit. I wish they hadn’t followed that up with a “check out Serena’s ass hyuk hyuk!” line.
wasn’t there some brouhaha a few years ago as well, when BMI became the new “thing” about Picabo Street? I remember her being analyzed as technically obese or some such, because she had a high BMI for her height - but then there were all of these explanations about how BMI is a terrible measurement for professional athletes (particularly women) who have significantly more muscle mass than the general population, precisely because the muscle gives them much more “weight” which throws off the calculations.
I love the way that they quoted her responding to this sort of bullshit. I wish they hadn’t followed that up with a “check out Serena’s ass hyuk hyuk!” line.
I might do a little editing to comment directly on that (and also at his commentary on Shaq’s diet). I mean, the woman appears in a bikini in photo spreads frequently. You’d think if she were the cow he seems to think she is, you might notice from the bikini shots.
And if that’s fat, then let me be fat like that. I’d love to have her body. It just exudes power.
I think Serena ended up on that list because he was desperate to find some female athlete that he could scold for being fat. Otherwise, it would have been all men. And, surprise surprise, most of them were baseball players. Did this guy miss Fernando Valenzuela’s stardom?
Not to mention that someone who doesn’t realize that a guy who’s seven feet tall is going to weigh more than his 5-foot-6 ass is just an idiot.
And if that’s fat, then let me be fat like that. I’d love to have her body. It just exudes power.
No kidding! She’s gorgeous, to boot, and has, oh, basically a figure almost any woman would LOVE to have, but OH, she’s out of shape (despite the fact that she wins more than her ‘thin’ sister) because she has a FIGURE.
I’m not even sure what any sort of height-weight chart says Shaq SHOULD weigh because he’s so. freaking. big.
And the reason Miguel Cabrera should lose weight? Because if he stops hitting all those home runs, people are going to call him fat. Sure. That’s great, there. Did it ever occur to them that you need a certain amount of body mass in order to HIT home runs? Most power hitters are big, and it ain’t all muscle.
Come to think of it, I’m a bit surprised that he didn’t go after Barry Bonds.
Why do the evopsych guys never argue that our evolutionary urges towards mating with the best DNA partner would push men towards wanting strong women like Serena who would contribute genes that would be more likely to result in strong offspring?
They’ve been acculturated to not find a powerfully muscular woman attractive, and they have to argue in circles around that while denying that socialised/acculturated perceptions affect their superior minds at all, nuh-uh. Apparently it’s OK to be helpless before genetic urges, but not OK to acknowledge that cultural attitudes shape your individual preferences.
Excellent point, Tigtog.
And Zuzu, you may have just inspired a post about breasts, hips, and fatphobia.
“Is she too big? The Australian media certainly believed so. While winning the Australian Open earlier this year…”
For me, the Australian media lost credibility after I read, “While winning the Australian Open…”
I’d like to have legs as strong as Serena’s arms.