Jimmies and Joes

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Joey Richards.

Hey, Joey, where are you calling us from?

I’m from Fort Worth, Texas.

Well, welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

Well, I was listening a couple of weeks ago, and you guys asked for funny sports sayings and things like that, so I thought I would call in.

I kind of have a unique perspective lately.

I got to hire a head football coach for our high school football program.

So the high school principal and I conducted a search, and we were looking for our football coach.

And all these guys kept coming through our office, and the same phrase kept coming up over and over again.

And so I thought I would call in and talk to you about it because it was a really funny deal.

What’s the phrase? What do they keep saying?

Well, six of the eight face-to-face interviews that we did, these guys over and over would say,

It’s not about the X’s and the O’s.

It’s about the Jimmies and the Joe’s.

Not about the X’s and the O’s.

It’s about the Jimmies and the Joe’s.

And what do you take that to mean?

Well, I mean, there’s a lot of wisdom in that.

I don’t know how familiar you are with football, but football is kind of a big deal in Texas.

Yeah, I imagine.

A little bit.

I heard something about that.

Right, right.

And, you know, so I’ve grown up in Texas and, you know, lived here all my life.

And so fall Friday nights are just kind of an exciting thing.

You know, and so, I mean, it just makes, I guess, maybe every Friday night an exciting thing.

But, you know, football in particular, you know, coaches can get big egos.

And you think, you know, that it’s all about you and, you know,

What you do on the dry erase board on the weekend.

You know, you’re going to come up with this great play that is going to, you know,

Lead your team into victory and all of this stuff.

And at a certain point, once their ego gets crushed enough,

You know, with kids not executing the play as you thought maybe they could.

You realize at a certain point you come to the end of yourself.

And you realize it’s really not about what I’m drawing on the dry erase board.

It’s about the kids who are running those plays.

And, you know, if I’ve got bigger, stronger, faster kids,

Then whatever the X’s and O’s I put in front of them,

They’re going to be able to manage that.

They’re going to be able to handle it.

So, you know, so it really isn’t about the X’s and O’s.

It’s about having the Jimmies and the Joes that can run those plays.

So, you know, it’s kind of a fun statement.

Like I said, I’ve heard it all my life, but, you know, I don’t know.

I mean, you have a really smart crowd.

I don’t know how much football they watch.

Well, I just want to be clear.

Well, that’s not mutually exclusive.

Yeah, I want to be clear.

I want to be clear, though, just for those who don’t follow football,

That the X’s and the O’s are the symbols that are used.

The O’s are the offensive players, and the X’s are the defensive players.

So on the whiteboard, you put these up there to represent the players as they’re going to move from stage to stage for the play, right?

Draw your arrows and so forth.

That’s right.

And Jimmy’s and Joe’s, that’s great because those are really common male names.

They stand for all of the players, though, right?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Are you in your 30s, perhaps?

I am.

Okay.

Because when you said you’ve been using that phrase your whole life, I began to wonder.

The earliest that I can find that phrase is 91.

1991.

It pops up in a story about football in the L.A. Times.

Okay.

Probably a little older than that, but that’s a good look.

That’s 24 years right there.

Sure, sure.

And that would have been while I was going through high school, while I was playing high school football.

And, you know, as a coach myself, after I graduated from college and, you know, using it out of my own mouth,

You know, to portray, you know, the importance of getting the right kids on the field,

Now on into becoming an administrator, joining the dark side, if you will, and going into administration.

Well, when you don’t have the knees for it anymore, you’ve got to do something else, right?

That’s right. That’s right. Exactly.

And so it was just funny to watch coach after coach.

I mean, it’s like they had all met together and said,

Okay, in my part of the interview, I’m going to say the same phrase,

You know, that everybody else is going to say.

It’s like they had all gotten together and decided that they were going to say the exact same thing.

Well, good sayings and good proverbs do tend to be contagious, that’s for sure.

Joey, I want to thank you for sharing so much of your program there

And what you’ve got going on in West Texas.

It’s all super interesting.

And it’s cool that this phrase is kind of an insight, too,

In the mind of the football director and the players themselves.

It’s kind of perfect in that way.

It really kind of touches on so many key issues, as you’ve well explained.

So thank you for that.

Indeed.

Yeah, no problem.

I appreciate you guys.

You all are on a great show, and I love listening to it.

Thanks so much.

All right, take care now.

Thanks a lot, Joey.

Okay.

All right, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We love sports language.

Give us a call.

Tell us all about it, 877-929-9673,

Or send out an email to words@waywordradio.org.

And find us on Twitter. Our handle is W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.