Choke (sports)

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In sports, an individual athlete, or, more commonly, an athletic team collectively, is often said to have choked when failing to win a tournament or league championship and if certain other criteria are also met, especially if the player or team had been favored to win, or had squandered a large lead in the late stages of an event. The usage of the word "choke" in this sense is generally treated as slang.

The term may originate from the Salem witch trials. One test used to expose a witch required the woman in question to simply swallow one communion wafer. It was thought that if she were in fact a witch this task would be impossible. Countless women choked under the pressure.^{[citation needed]}

The opposite of choking is being "Clutch," or rising to the occasion under pressure rather than collapsing under it.

[edit] Use in the USA

Use of the term "choke" in this context is most frequently encountered in the United States, and appears to be of relatively recent origin, not becoming reasonably widespread until well into the 1960s.

Since then, NFL teams popularly labeled chokers (or often, "choke artists") have included the Minnesota Vikings more or less throughout the 1970s, the San Diego Chargers in the late 1970s and early 1980s,^{[citation needed]} the Buffalo Bills in the 1990s and, most recently, the Philadelphia Eagles in the early 2000s.^{[citation needed]} In all instances the respective quarterbacks for these teams — Fran Tarkenton, Dan Fouts, Jim Kelly, and Donovan McNabb; have also been stereotyped personally along with the entire teams themselves,^{[citation needed]} McNabb adding to his reputation for choking with three interceptions in the Eagles' 24-21 loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX after having been intercepted only eight times during the entire 2004 regular season. Marty Schottenheimer has also been seen as a choker (as well as cursed) due to his 5-13 playoff record, which include losses to the Denver Broncos in the 1986 and 1987 AFC Championship Games as head coach of the Cleveland Browns, thanks to The Drive and The Fumble respectively, losing in 1995 as the top seed in the AFC to the Colts when he coached the Kansas City Chiefs, and as head coach of the Chargers, his loss as top seed again in the AFC to the Patriots in 2006, leading to loss of assistants, and ultimately, his firing less than 45 days after the game.

Fewer teams qualify for postseason play in Major League Baseball than in the NFL, so the "choke" label in baseball is more frequently appended to a team that blows a substantial lead late in a pennant race. Probably the two most prominent examples of this have been the Chicago Cubs (most notably in 1969, 1973, and 2003) and the Boston Red Sox (most notably in 1978, when they relinquished a 14-game lead in their division, ultimately losing a one-game playoff for the division title to the New York Yankees after they and the Yankees had ended the regular season tied for first place). The plight of both the Cubs and Red Sox has often been attributed to a "curse" — the Curse of the Billy Goat in the former team's case and the Curse of the Bambino in the latter, although the Curse of the Bambino is widely regarded as having been broken in 2004 when the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time since 1918; The Boston Red Sox were also involved in another heartbreaking choke in 1986 when they lost a 2 run lead in the 10th inning of Game 6 (with the Sox leading 3 games to 2) when there were 2 men out, no one on base and 2 strikes on the batter. The New York Mets rallied to win Game 6 (with help from Bill Buckner) and then went on to win Game 7 and take their first World Series title since 1969. Conversely, the Boston Red Sox benefitted greatly in 2004, when their archrival the New York Yankees blew a 3-0 series lead in the 2004 American League Championship Series, which the Red Sox came back to win with four straight victories, the first time in Major League Baseball history that has happened. It was a major choke for the Yankees and the Red Sox finally won the long-awaited World Series title. Also in baseball, notably, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees is generally called a choker because,despite being one of the top players in the game, has trouble hitting in close or late game situations.

Teams in other sports, such as basketball and hockey, have also had to endure allegations of choking at various times, (One such time is the 2006-2007 UNC Men's Basketball team who lost to Georgetown after being up by 10 with three minutes left.) and athletes in individual sports have not been immune either, particularly in tennis (Virginia Wade, dubbed "The Queen of the Centre Court Choke" by the British tabloid press^{[citation needed]} due to her long string of late-round defeats at Wimbledon — a tournament she did eventually win) and golf (Phil Mickelson until he finally won a "major" golf tournament in 2004 — specifically, The Masters — after a host of second- and third-place finishes in such events). Greg Norman and Jean van de Velde also have been labeled "choke artists."^{[citation needed]} In 1996, Norman took a six-shot lead into the final round of The Masters, but ballooned to a 78, losing to Nick Faldo by five. Three years later, van de Velde had a three-shot lead going into the final hole of The Open Championship, needing only a double-bogey 6 to win. He proceeded to shoot a 7 and eventually lost in a playoff.

Generally, if postseason play is involved, the further a team progresses without actually winning the championship, the more likely that the team will be accused of choking (a team that gets eliminated in the early rounds will usually escape the stigma). Also, whether or not the team was favored by the oddsmakers and/or had home-field advantage can be a key issue, and if a team fades in the late stages of a postseason contest or playoff series, that fact is quite often treated as evidence that the club choked.

Recidivism — that is to say, the same player or team coming close to winning the championship repeatedly without ever actually succeeding in doing so — is another aggravating factor, and indeed this condition is present in virtually all of the most proverbial examples of those castigated as chokers, notably British tennis player Tim Henman, a perennial semi-finalist at Wimbledon. However, once the competitor does win a title, the "choke" tag is typically not reapplied even if the prior pattern of falling short resurfaces: For example, baseball's Atlanta Braves are rarely characterized as chokers despite a lengthy overall record of futility in the postseason during the 1990's and early 2000's, because of one World Series championship, in the strike-delayed and shortened 1995 season (144 games), unlike the Buffalo Bills in football who went to four straight Super Bowls without being able to win one. The Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA were also regularly accused of choking, reaching the playoffs every year from 1981 to 2003 without winning a championship. This included losses in the 1990 and 1992 NBA Finals, as well as a collapse in the 4th quarter of the deciding 7th game of the 2000 Western Conference finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, in which they squandered a 15 point lead and lost the game by 5. [1]

[edit] International use

• The Leinster Rugby has a long history of early Heineken cup exits, despite having a team of supposed stars.

• The Spanish national football team has a long history of early World Cup or European Championships eliminations despite regularly featuring superstars. Since 1964 in both events, they only reached a semi final once, in 1984, beating Denmark in penalties and later losing the final against France.

• The English national football team has lost almost every penalty kick series in its history, crashing out like this in the 1990, 1998 and 2006 World Cups and in the 1996 and 2004 European Championships. The only penalty series won was in the 1996 EC quarter finals against Spain, but England lost to Germany in the following semi final - after penalty kicks.

• In relation to the tennis player Jana Novotná.

• The All Blacks have a fine reputation for losing World Cups when seemingly invincible;

• Rugby League (Australia) - see and review statistics for Cronulla Sharks, Brian Smith, North Sydney, Parramatta, St George for their efforts in losing critical finals and/or grand finals when seemingly in a winning position.

• Used in climbing - a climber is said to have 'choked' when they do not complete a route.