Richard Sherman – The Rant

Last Sunday morning, I watched a 1-hour special on ESPN all about the Seattle Seahawks’ Russell Wilson, and was immediately taken with the intelligence, dedication, work ethic, leadership and humility of the soon-to-be-Super-Bowl bound quarterback.

So I had this 2-part immediate reaction to the now-famous rant of Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman on live TV after he made the game-saving defensive play to send his team to the big game:

1. “Wow! That was a surprising outburst, even from a player known for his trash-talking. Usually, no matter how pumped up athletes are in the moment, they usually subdue themselves and recite some kind of canned, polite statement during a post-game interview.”

and

2. “How amazingly different that interview would have been had Erin Andrews chosen to talk to soft-spoken Russell Wilson instead.”

*In case you somehow missed it, here’s that now-famous 15 seconds seen by millions on live TV and now over a million more on YouTube.com…

While I pressed “rewind” on my DVR remote to play “The Rant” over and over, my reaction quickly changed from shock to excited anticipation for where this would lead Sherman.

If you’re a loyal follower of mine on this blog, then you know that I like to watch NFL football games on TV. If you’ve ever watched a game with me, then you’ve probably seen me shake my head at yet another boring, empty, meaningless interview that starts with the weakest of all possible interview questions, “How do you feel?” and ends with the same sanitized, rehearsed, “sportsmanlike” B.S. reply such as…

“I just want to thank my teammates. This goes to prove that hard work pays off. Our opponents really played a great game, and we’re just happy we beat them. Now I have to go, because next week’s opponent is another really good team, and we have to get ready to give 100% and try our best to beat them.”

That’s why Sherman’s heat-of-the-moment, unfiltered, wild Rant was actually a welcome surprise for me.

And although he certainly didn’t plan it, Sherman is just as certainly capitalizing on his sudden notoriety.

His sudden fame presents an important lesson for all entrepreneurs about the power of self-promotion to level the playing field (no pun intended) against a bigger, better-funded competitor:

It’s up to YOU to create your own “Big Moments” and self-promotion opportunities, and to seize those moments and opportunities as quickly and decisively as you can.

Let’s examine how Sherman changed the entire course of these two weeks…

Until The Rant, Denver Broncos’ all-time great quarterback Peyton Manning was the obvious larger-than-life megastar on which the entire sports world was sure to focus its attention throughout the lead-up to the Super Bowl, and during the game itself.

Manning was born with a silver spoon in his mouth as the son of a former 2-time Pro Bowl NFL Quarterback, has a squeaky-clean public image, has set dozens of NFL passing records, led the highest-scoring offense in NFL history this season and is one of the most-accomplished, most-famous and highest-paid athletes in the world both on and off the field, earning an $18 million annual salary plus an estimated $25 million more a year in endorsements for companies including Buick, Gatorade, Wheaties and more. He’ll be gunning for his second Super Bowl Championship as his Hall Of Fame career winds down.

And yet, thanks to The Rant, Richard Sherman has commanded by far the most media attention of any athlete in the world over the past 10 days, including his day-after-the-game article for SportsIllustrated.com that immediately became the most-viewed article in the website’s history.

Before The Rant, Sherman was a highly-accomplished but little-known NFL player who grew up in Compton, California – one of the toughest and most-gang-infested cities in America – as the son of a proud, hard-working father who still gets up every day at 4am to go to work as a garbageman and a mom who works with disabled kids. He made the league minimum salary for a third-year player in 2013 – $550,000 a year (or about 3% of Peyton Manning’s pay) – plus about that much more in endorsement deals – for “Beats By Dre” headphones, plus a few local Seattle businesses.

Sherman was named 1st-Team All-Pro for the second straight year in 2013 and amazingly led the league in interceptions (with 25% more than the runners-up) despite covering opposing receivers so well that quarterbacks threw in his direction the fewest number of times of any NFL cornerback. He is the #1 defensive back on the league’s #1 pass defense.

He covered the 49ers’ leading receiver, Michael Crabtree, so well throughout the entire NFC Championship Game that the San Francisco quarterback did not throw a single pass in Sherman’s direction until that final play. Characteristically, Sherman had Crabtree covered like a glove and easily deflected the pass, resulting in the winning interception (*Consider yourself a Sports Trivia expert if you can name Sherman’s teammate who actually made the interception).

Almost immediately after The Rant, the internet practically blew up, with Twitter users mentioning him in over 1.3 million tweets, peaking at the rate of 174,646 per minute.

Reaction to Sherman and his rant has been mixed, with some people supporting him but most expressing outrage and shock, calling him everything from “selfish” to “a low-life” to “a thug” to other derogatory terms not suitable for reprint here – or anywhere, for that matter.

But make no mistake about it: Sherman has grabbed the nation’s attention.

Once the dust settled, including Sherman’s apologetic press conference the following day, the nation learned that he is actually a very intelligent, well-spoken, hard-working young man who earned a 4.2 grade-point-average in high school (thanks to straight A’s plus advanced-placement course extra credits) and then a 3.9 GPA at Stanford University. We also discovered that his charity, “Blanket Coverage – The Richard Sherman Family Foundation” provides school supplies to needy kids, and that he volunteers for “Student With A Goal,” visiting Compton high schools to urge students to stay in school.

America also learned what some of us have known for a while: Sherman is a member of a long line of athletes who are practitioners of the art of “trash talking” – the practice of verbally taunting and assaulting opponents in an attempt to throw them off their game and under-perform.

Accomplished trash-talkers are among the all-time greats in several sports, and include such famous win-at-all-costs champions as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant, John McEnroe, Mike Tyson and the man who just happened to be Sherman’s childhood idol: Muhammed (“I am The Greatest”) Ali.

Will Sherman ever become as accomplished an athlete as those all-time greats? Maybe not. But with a Communications degree from a top university, plus his current role as a regular Sports Illustrated writer and now his Super Bowl Week media monopoly, one would think he’s on track for a future career as a sports commentator, following in the footsteps of other accomplished trash-talkers like McEnroe, Charles Barkley, Shannon Sharpe and others.

In the meantime, he is certainly capitalizing financially on his sudden fame, having recently earned endorsement deals with several companies totaling about $5 million, according to CNN. (Could one of those companies be Hefty or Glad, emphasizing Sherman as “the trash-talking son of a trash collector?”)

He is also likely to sign a new contract with the Seahawks before next season for at least $10 million per year.

And both of those figures could rise even more, depending, of course, on what happens on Sunday.

I’m not a fan of the Seattle Seahawks, but I am a fan of excellent performance, dedication and hard work, along with effective self-promotion and the seizing of opportunity by a “David” versus a “Goliath.”

That’s why I’d love to see what happens if Richard Sherman is somehow able to intercept a Peyton Manning pass in the Big Game and run it all the way back for a touchdown.

How about you?