Why don’t football players use speechwriters? Because they’ve never heard of speechwriters

Sports blogger Mike Florio laments the dreadful speeches given during the induction ceremonies at the Pro Football Hall of Fame awhile back.

The Hall of Fame entrance speech represents, for most enshrinees, the last official act of their pro football careers.  Shouldn’t they want to give speeches that are truly memorable, speeches that entertain and/or move and/or inspire the audience?

Sure they should, and surely they do.  But most of them are apparently left to their own devices when it comes to preparing the speech.

Politicians, who talk for a living, don’t write their own speeches.  So why should people who played football for a living be expected to write a speech without help?  (In the event any of the new members who gave speeches on Saturday night actually had help, someone owes each of them a huge apology.  And perhaps a refund.)

I’m sure if football players knew about speechwriters—in the same way they know where to get their vitamin supplements—they’d use them. But like the average best man or corporate department head, it just doesn’t occur to these lummoxes to hire a speechwriter.

It’s almost conceivable that a speechwriter could make a fortune if he or she risked a fortune creating and advertising a massive, general-public speechwriting operation—like FTD flowers or that 1-800-Dentist outfit—and made “the communication guy” one of the phone numbers on everyone’s refrigerator.

Actually, it’s not the potential profit that appeals to me. It’s the general improvement in rhetoric that I’d love.

(And, of course, the emergence of the TelePrompTer as a standard household appliance.)