Big mouths

When it comes to lip service, Ali is first in Sharpe-tongued field

By Patrick Saunders
Denver Post Staff Writer

Post / Helen H. Richardson Shannon Sharpe, who finalized his NFL retirement Thursday, will be paid to talk for CBS Sports — the louder the better.

King Shannon, the Broncos' mouth from the South, held court at Dove Valley for the final time Thursday.

In a retirement ceremony that was solemn, funny and engaging, Shannon Sharpe, the most prolific pass-catching tight end in NFL history, couldn't resist another opportunity to exercise his jaw.

In keeping with his nature, the loquacious one had plenty to say, including explaining why he talks so loud and proud.

"I remember when I was at school, they said, 'Be quiet, and talk when you get home,"' Sharpe said. "And my grandmother would tell me, 'Shut up, and talk when you get to school. So my grandma won out. I talked at school. I would come home with A's and B's - and an F in conduct."

Sharpe undoubtedly is the greatest talker in Colorado sports history, and can hold his own at the national level.

But before Sharpe, and before Reggie Jackson, Charles Barkley, Warren Sapp, Bob Knight or any of the other prime-time sports figures who blended their enormous egos with a gift for gab, there was the self-proclaimed "King of the World."

On Thanksgiving Day 1996, Muhammad Ali was chilling out with Thomas Hauser, his friend and biographer.

The Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions were playing on television. A Chiefs player scored a touchdown and performed the obligatory end zone dance.

"You started that," Hauser recalls telling Ali. "All that dancing and celebrating and showing off started with you."

A smile crossed Ali's face.

"He was quite pleased with the observation," Hauser said. "And he said, 'I started the big salaries, too. Big salaries started when me and Joe Frazier got $2.5 million each the first time we fought."'

Ali, the heavyweight boxing champion who transcended sports like no other athlete has, talked the talk not just inside the ring but outside it, too. For better or worse, he set athletes' mouths in motion.

"I think Muhammad has an edge on all of us, because he was the first," Sharpe said. "He's the gold standard to which everyone else who comes after him will be compared."

Hauser, author of the best seller "Muhammad Ali, His Life and Times," said that, for the most part, Ali's lip service was all in good fun.

"First, the biggest difference between Ali and all of the other talkers that came after him is that Ali did it with a wink," Hauser said. "A lot of guys today don't understand that. Obviously, when Ali was in the ring punishing Ernie Terrell and Floyd Patterson, he didn't do it with a wink. And there were other times, when he was speaking about the Vietnam War, he was speaking in a very serious way.

"But most of his trash-talking, the stuff we remember him for - I'm going to whip that big, ugly bear (Sonny Liston) - he said it with a wink."

Ali was funny and lively, and many media members fell under his spell.

"When he was younger and at his peak, he was as good as Robin Williams," Hauser said. "If you look at the tapes of his old press conferences, they were amazing. Just think about his mummy imitation of George Foreman."

"The magnitude of me"

Trash-talking always has been a part of sports. Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb were notorious baiters and braggarts on the diamond. Michael Jordan's and Larry Bird's trash-talking on the basketball court could burn the ears of a longshoreman. But Ali and his disciples went public with their verbal games. Their mouths roared on TV screens and in print.

Ever the showman, Ali recognized the entertainment value of his braggadocio. So did Jackson, the Hall of Fame slugger who came to New York to play for the Yankees and proclaimed he was the "the straw that stirs the drink."

In the opinion of longtime New York Times columnist Dave Anderson, Jackson is the No. 2 talker in sports history, trailing only Ali.

"I loved talking to Reggie because he always had something to say," Anderson said. "He wasn't always loud, necessarily, but he meant what he said. Now, Reggie was a great promoter, but most of what he said was true. I remember one of his great lines was, 'The magnitude of me.' That's some kind of line when you're talking about yourself."

It was Jackson, after all, who uttered the following: "The only reason I don't like playing in the World Series is I can't watch myself play."

Male athletes don't hold a monopoly on outspokenness. Even before Ali, there was Babe Didrikson Zaharias. The Babe won Olympic gold medals at the 1932 Summer Games in the javelin and the 80-meter hurdles. A year later, at age 21, she took up golf and dominated the sport. In 1945, she competed with the men in the Los Angeles Open. The Babe was Ali- like in her boastfulness.

"I'll never forget a time Babe really got into a drive, knocking it way down the middle of the fairway," longtime Colorado golfer Charles Lind said. "She turned to me as I was ready to hit and announced, 'Take your girdle off and try to catch up with that one, fella."'

There were plenty of linebackers who tried, and failed, to catch up with Sharpe on the football field. He said Thursday he still could play if he wanted to. But when he was offered the chance to become an NFL analyst for CBS Sports, he grabbed it. Sharpe said his next goal is to win an Emmy - and he just might pull it off.

"Shannon Sharpe is a great mouth because there is a brain behind it," ESPN broadcaster Chris Berman said.

But Sharpe will have to go some distance to best Barkley, who has followed up his boisterous hoop days with a career as a colorful, outspoken NBA analyst for TNT. During this season's playoffs, Barkley unloaded on just about everything and everybody. Commenting on two Los Angeles Lakers veterans, Barkley said this: "Karl Malone and Gary Payton were great in their day, but they're not in their day."

Master of sports talk

There are myriad reasons athletes such as Barkley shoot off their mouths, but Dr. Richard Lustberg, a well-known sports psychologist from Long Island, N.Y., says there is a common thread.

"I do believe that trash-talkers talk as much to help themselves as to put others down," he said. "Self-talk and talking to others is often reassuring."

Ali, Lustberg said, was the master of sports talk.

"Ali, obviously, figured out the show-biz aspect of it all, and he was an amateur psychologist," Lustberg said. "The stories about him are legendary. He seemed to be able to pick out just the right thing to say to get inside his opponent's head."

Lustberg's prime example is the weigh-in before Ali's 1964 title fight against Liston. When Liston entered the room, Ali went ballistic. He ranted and raved, and his pulse raced to 110 beats a minute.

Dr. Alexander Robinson, the physician for the Miami Boxing Commission, announced that Ali (Cassius Clay at the time) was "emotionally unbalanced, scared to death and liable to crack up before he enters the ring."

It was all a show. During his supposed meltdown, Ali winked at boxing legend Sugar Ray Robinson. Then Ali went on to whip Liston, who had called Ali "crazy." It wasn't the first time Ali used words as a weapon.

"When he was 12 years old and started fighting as an amateur, Ali would stick his head inside his opponent's locker room and say, 'Which one of you is the guy I'm beating up tonight?"' Hauser said. "He did it all along in his career and he did it to boost his confidence."

When Sharpe was a skinny little kid growing up in Glenn- ville, Ga., his nickname was "Pee Wee." He started talking loudly simply because he wanted the attention.

Thursday, the former NFL star was the center of attention. When he begins talking for CBS this fall, his words will matter more than his deeds. Though he tips his hat to the Ali legend, Sharpe figures his mouth and wit are a match for anyone on the scene today.

"I think me and Charles Barkley are running neck and neck," Sharpe said. "I mean, my mom talks all the time. My grandma talks all the time. So it's inherent for me to talk. I can't help it, it's who I am. But it also helps to know what you're talking about."

Staff writer Patrick Saunders can be reached at 303-820-5459 or psaunders@denverpost.com .